I Am Evelyn Amony by Evelyn Amony

Author:Evelyn Amony
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-299-30498-0
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2015-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

A Chance to Escape

I gave birth to Winnie in 2000. I spent most of my pregnancy in Juba Hospital. The doctors said the baby was big and that I wouldn’t be able to push, so they recommended a Caesarean. My husband was supposed to go to the hospital to sign the form for the Caesarean. At the time, the LRA and the Arabs were in a conflict, so Ladit was not able to go to the hospital in Juba because he feared he would be arrested. He said that if God has planned for me to have a normal birth, then that would happen. While I was staying in the hospital, I met a nun from the mission who was from Uganda; she would visit me there. She brought me many things to help take care of me, and a friendship developed. She promised to bring me back to Uganda on the plane. I told her that I could not return home without my daughter, Bakita.

It reached a point in the pregnancy when I became so weak that I couldn’t even walk; I would just crawl. My legs were paralyzed; even my hands were stiff because of the drip. I couldn’t even lift my hands to bathe myself. One day Kony came to visit me in the hospital, but, you know, in Juba they had tough rules. No soldier was to enter the maternity ward. When you had on the uniform, they never allowed you to enter the ward. When you had on civilian clothes, they allowed you to enter.

Kony came when he had dressed up in a military uniform. He had put on all his pips [stars indicating rank on lapels], so the medical doctors said he could not enter the hospital, so we had to talk to each other through the window. I was not supposed to leave the room, and he was also not to enter. He asked me how I was. I told him that I was fine, but my hand was becoming paralyzed. Indeed, my whole arm was becoming paralyzed. I had stayed for four days without bathing.

Ladit said he was going to send someone to take care of me, but I should know that it was not safe and that a war was going to break out between the LRA and Arabs at any moment. I told him, “I am not yet fine. I have no strength, and, second, the child is not playing in my womb. The doctor says the child is not lying in the right position. It is lying in the wrong position; therefore, they have to change it. That is why I cannot walk. My legs are swollen. They also said that the child is very big and I have to be taken for an operation. I have to be taken to Khartoum for that operation.” Kony said that if I feel I have some strength, I should not go to Khartoum. He said that they might go to Uganda. I continued staying in the hospital.

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