Friday, September 7, 2007
Imagine falling asleep to the sound of gun shots. Each night, wondering if you will make it until morning.
That was life for Chris “Tito” Okello, Hutchinson junior, growing up in Kitgum, Uganda.
When Okello was 4 years old, rebels came to his house to recruit his father for their army. His father refused and tried to run. The rebels shot him six times. Okello said there was no hospital or medical center near his home. That night, Okello watched his father die.
Chris Okello, Hutchinson junior, grew up in Kitgum, Uganda. Kitgum is in northern Uganda near the border with Sudan. Okella moved to Hutchinson to live with his aunt and uncle when he was 16.
“I believe he stood up for what was right, it was the right thing,” Okello said. “It’s just sad that it had to go that way. Nobody could stop it so I guess I can’t change it either. It’s just part of me. I can’t complain; I’m good now. I’m happy where I’m at. I love the group around me so I let the minor things go. You know it’s sad, but how long am I going to hold it?”
Okello said he remembered several times when the rebels would come to villages to do horrible things to the people, such as cutting off an ear or putting a hole in a person’s lips and using a pad lock to lock them shut. He said many times people had to rip out the pad locks themselves because there were no hospitals around and they didn’t have the key to the lock.
Okello was sent to boarding school in Uganda where he lived in a dormitory with about 20 other students. He said rebels would come at night and target 10- to 14-year-old boys to train as child soldiers. He said he saw many of his friends get abducted, and he only knew of one who escaped. Okello said his friend got away when the rebels ran into the government troops. He was shot in the leg and laid there until the rebels left. The government troops arrested him, but he was only 12 years old, so they took him to a hospital until he healed from the wound and then sent him home. Okello said his friend was not the same person after he returned.
“They have no mercy. They tell them to shoot, and they shoot. Tell them to kill, and they kill,” Okello said.
Okello said going away for school in Uganda made it easier for him to come to the United States. He said he stayed at school nine months of the year, so he didn’t see his family very often. When he was at home, he spent most of his free time outside playing soccer with his friends. Okello said the time away from his family made him feel distant.
When Okello was 16 he moved to Hutchinson to stay with his aunt and uncle. He said it was a difficult adjustment, but he was glad he stayed.
Okello’s roommate, Brendan Reilly, said Okello got very somber and quiet when talked about his past but didn’t dwell on it.
“He’s seen a lot more than probably everyone on campus combined,” Reilly, an Overland Park junior, said. “But I know he wakes up every day and he couldn’t be happier that he’s in America and in the situation that he is.”
Okello’s supervisor at a restoration company, Jeff Moore, said Okello came to work in the morning smiling. Moore also said Okello frequently volunteered to work emergency shifts.
“Right now I pay for my own tuition, and I pay my brother’s tuition back home,” Okello said. “If I was in Uganda I probably wouldn’t have done that. I call it a blessing because right now I can wake up in the morning knowing exactly what my options are, what I have to do, what needs I have to satisfy or not.”
— Edited by Kyle Carter
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