Cards from another world 3

Awuasia in Karimojong means tension, insecurity. Damian explains it to me while we chat sitting in the common room of the Guest House. It is evening, nearly 11 pm and Damiano came to find me. I was alone, I was reading, his arrival pleased me. Outside, the night was eerily silent, then suddenly some gun-fires. "It's not Kalashnikovs" says Damiano with the air of one who has become an expert. "These are heavy machine gun. These are soldiers "continues. "And why do they shoot?" I ask. He shrugs. "Sometimes just because they feel threatened. Sometimes just to make their presence felt. Sometimes because they are attacked. Here you always shoot, too much" he says with a little resignation. Other gun-fires. "And yet, compared to my previous comes, it seems to me that there is less shooting, at least until now" I say with a little convinced optimism. Damiano makes a face of denial. "There is awuasia" the word pops like a dark judgment. "It means tension, insecurity" he explaines to my puzzled look. "There are few people around; you do not hear singing, in the evening, nor the usual shouts and discussions between drunk and then ... you shoot, you shoot, more than before: around there are a lot of bullets" continues, in case you had not got it right. "How come?" I ask curiously. Other gun-fires. "The government. The government leaves do ... the soldiers who now shoot are those who sell weapons and bullets ... nobody cares what happens here ... just a facade initiatives, a little 'smoke occasionally. It is useful for the government to have these outbreaks of disorder, as the guerrillas in the north". "By the way, and the Army of the Lord of Kony?" I ask. "Half a drifter. Now they are mainly bands of its guerrillas who are the bandits, uncontrollable splinters. In a way it was better before". In his eyes a veil of resigned regret, but only for an instant. "In short, we cannot deal with them ..." I say too disheartened. Damiano smiles, opene, serene, strong again, as always. "It takes time, patience, faith ... God's times we do not know them, we have to go along with them". "And the drawings ... " I add. Damiano looks at me behind the dark lenses of his glasses. "The explanations that we can give of what happens in this world seem increasingly inadequate. Will we have them, one day, somewhere else?" I continue, even if I would like a reassurance that cannot arrive. "Everything seems so inexplicable ... love like hatred, gestures of peace and those of violence. Man is capable of everything and the opposite of everything. The Soloni who always know what to say, that have explanations and ready judgments I cannot stand them anymore ... truth be told are increasing the things that I cannot stand anymore ..." I conclude. Damiano continues to look at me and gives me a sweet and sardonic smile, one of his own, who speak to you and tell you things that you will understand later. Awuasia is the shot guy who came from Iriri. A raider who has gone bad. The bullet entered the hepatic region and fucked a piece of liver, then blew the stomach, the large intestine, the diaphragm, and finally the left lung. He is still alive. Erik and James have patched him and now ihe is there that complains agitated and delirious. The mother, dressed in Karimojong clothes assists him, as would do one of ours. She watches with a mixture of fear and curiosity nurses and doctors who are working around his son. The boy is assisted with equipment donated by Wecare, oxygen concentrator, pulse oximeter, infusion pump, and this fills me with pride because our money have become a concrete life expectancy. But I can not help thinking that our efforts, if successful, will serve almost certainly to revive this guy so he can get revenge on those who hurt him or be killed. Awuasia is also my anger, my frustration, my helplessness. Then I think of the smile of Damiano, at the time, and the drawings of the Lord we do not know ... so be it.

Agostino Gaglio

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