Northern Uganda: New Town Way Inn

Before he swallows the alcoholic contents of a small plastic bag, he darts in my direction. Fighting an urge to back up, I raise my camera and snap a blurry frame as he begins to roar. His glare rivals his build in intimidation value and I'm thoroughly impressed by the veins bulging in his neck. "Abuki wu," he bellows, the slang Lwo phrase meaning "let me tell you." The men around him raucously echo the words as he drops to the dirt floor and bangs out an impressive set of knuckle pushups. This former rebel commander springs to his feet and thumps his chest, a sign that this display sapped none of his energy. The opposing player daintily chalks a cue and swallows hard as umpires tally points and begin racking balls.

I've never been much for pool, but I'm convinced that this is something else. In the recent wake of northern Uganda's twenty-two year civil war, social reconstruction abounds. Those fortunate enough to have survived the war are tasked with rebuilding a society torn asunder by decades of internal fighting. Some contribute through physical movement, the act of leaving crowded refugee camps for lands they abandoned during the war. Others work to revive ancient tribal customs that aim to exonerate past wrongdoing and reconcile social conflicts. Some reorganize institutionally, working to build police forces that will maintain law and order now that military forces have redeployed.

At the New Town Way Inn, a battered bar and hotel in Gulu town, an informal type of social reconstruction is underway. This seedy joint in Gulu's most impoverished area, is home to northern Uganda's first ever official pocket billiards team, the New Town Way Inn Pool Club. It's formation in 2008 encouraged dozens of others to follow suit, yielding more than 50 competitive teams in Gulu district alone. The teams play in rowdy, staked matches each weekend in which the winning team claims 50,000 Ugandan shillings (USD 23).

I take an immediate shine to this rough-and-tumble crew and the debaucherous, drunken atmosphere of their matches. Throughout an afternoon, moments of tense concentration are dashed by relentless heckling from scores of teammates and spectators who appear ready to box at any moment. The matches draw onlookers of all ages and personalities, most of whom consume enough cheap booze to kill a horse.

As I immerse at New Town Way and begin cultivating relationships with players and staff, I gradually realize the significance of what is happening there. Over time, I learn that the players come from markedly different backgrounds and experienced the preceding decades of war in vastly different ways. Some were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to rape, murder and mutilate. Others joined the Ugandan military and helped execute a vicious counterinsurgency campaign against the rebels. More took refuge from the fighting in squalid, overcrowded camps for the internally displaced.

With a tenuous peace settling over the land, these former enemies and the victims of their battles ease slowly into contact. I soon realize, however, that although the players share seemingly close bonds, they never disclose their wartime experiences to one another. I gradually come to understand that my status as an outsider allows players to share their experiences with me more freely than with their teammates, some of whom may have been directly affected by their actions.

Early on I meet Vincent Ochen, a shy and soft-spoken player who seems keen on feeling me out. Unlike the rest of the crew, Jimmy rarely drinks alcohol and conducts himself in a far more collected manner than most. He tells me that he does not have a formal job, which I believe given the high levels of unemployment in the area. His days are simple, spent hanging around at New Town Way playing cards, shooting pool and chatting with other players. He invites me to his home on several occasions where I met his beautiful and comparably gentle wife, Sarah. I see Jimmy regularly over several months and, over time, he begins to share his story.

He was abducted by the LRA at the age of nine and remained in captivity for nearly seven years. At 16, he escaped from an LRA base camp in a remote area of South Sudan. Frightened and alone, he walked nearly 250 kilometers to a Ugandan military outpost across the border where he turned himself in. When abductees escape from captivity, they are required to go undergo a debriefing process with Ugandan army, a process that often results in former rebels joining the military.

While he deferred joining for nearly one year, he finally succumbed to ongoing pressure and agreed to serve. He spent the following five years fighting against his former captors during some of the bloodiest years of the conflict. Suffering from combat induced psychological trauma, he abandoned his post with the military and became officially AWOL. He soon arranged a deal with UPDF officers that he would not be court marshaled or forced back into service so long as he agreed to gather human intellgence on criminal and political issues in the region. He was the only fighter I encountered who possessed an extensive collection of photographs of his combat tours. He shared these with me with great reservation.

I realized only later that Vincent's role at New Town Way was to monitor the political and criminal activities his teammates and regulars at the bar. He did so effectively and without notice until he was arrested by military police in what he claimed was a bid to force him back into uniform for a cross-border offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army in Congo. After ten days in prison in Kamapala, he resurfaced in Gulu. "I simply refused," he told me the night he returned. "I've done enough fighting in my life, I'll never pick up a gun again."

There is a chance that Lakony John Boscoe ran from Vincent during the war. This savvy and streetwise 26 year-old cheated death on several occasions and managed to escape from rebel captivity twice. "The first time they [LRA rebels] captured me I was on my way from a relative’s house and I was carrying a duck," he remembers. "I managed to escape very quickly, only moments after I was abducted. I ran so fast and for so long that by the time I stopped, I realized that the duck had scratched my arm to pieces. I was bleeding badly," he says.

After losing both of his parents, he and his siblings fled to thei neighboring district of Masindi, where he lived with an aunt. "We were all so upset after losing both parents that the idea of staying here in the war was too much," he recalls. John finished secondary school in Masini where he excelled academically and served as a youth leader for a political opposition party. He shares his political past with me in hushed tones.

John and I spend hours discussing various aspects of his life over cold Nile beer in the New Town Way Inn. He tells me that he soon plans to return to the native lands from which he fled as fighting intensified in the late 1990's. One day, I join him as he pays a man to clear overgrown brush from the family compound. He moves slowly throughout the grounds which are identified by burned-out remains of the huts he grew up in. It is clear that they were destroyed by rebel forces that passed through the area. I remain silent as John steps into the hut where he slept as a child. He finds his grandmothers stool and props it up. "No one else is allowed to sit on this stool," he says. "The sitting place of an elder person is considered very important in Acholi culture." I move cautiously in these destroyed buildings, fearful of causing additional damage to the remains of his life.

During ten years of displacement, John started a family of his own. His partner Molly and son Fahim will move with him to his ancestral lands as soon as they are convinced that violence will not resume. "Living in town is too difficult," John laments. "Things are so expensive that you remain in poverty because you can never save anything." I question how he will adjust to such remote living after so many years in more developed population centers. "You are absolutely free out there," he says. "You can do as you like and live as humans are intended." Traditions of farming and agricultural lifestyle are imparted at a young age. "I remember how to do all the necessary tasks," he says. "I want to pass that knowledge to Fahim."

John and Vincent know each other well but to date they have yet to share their wartime experiences. "It's best that we do not talk about these things yet," Vincent tells me over warm soda at a corner shop. "Things are still too fresh, we need to get to know each other again." Despite the lack of direct communication about specific experiences, casual acknowledgement of history abounds. "When we're playing pool and someone is talking badly, people will say it's because of all the lips he sliced off in the bush," Boscoe says. "But we can only make this joke to those you know were not actually cutting lips."

Despite a pervasive but tacit acknowledgement that members hail from such mixed backgrounds, the team functions as a close unit. Each week, all members are invited to an administrative meeting where decisions about the club are considered. "When our winnings began to grow considerably, we introduced the idea of making low interests loans to team members in need," John tells me. "Each week, members with financial trouble can explain their case to the club and we vote on whether to loan them the money to help." This practice has paid school and hospital fees, kept players in homes and provided a cushion during difficult times, which are common here.

Throughout my time here, I am continually astounded by the societal significance of the club. In the wake of such brutal war and the cleavages it caused, the New Town Way Inn Pool Club serves as an organic outlet for reintegration. Former rebels brush shoulders with the military commanders who hunted them. Those who spent years fleeing violence and destruction share beers and laughs with those who keep them trembling at night. They exchange support, condolence and companionship during the arduous process of normalization. As their bonds and confidence flourish, perhaps they can someday share their stories freely.