It was a long journey, but familiar. This time I got into the aircraft heavy-heartedly. Maybe that was the reason the 10-hour journey felt a bit longer than usual. Colombo to Dubai to Entebbe could have been a usual route. I have done this journey for more than four years. Every time I get into the aircraft, I think of a book I bought in Kampala, the very first time I was in Uganda. That was Emma’s War, narrated by Deborah Scroggins. It is about Emma McCune, a young British aid worker who comes to Sudan and falls in love with the rebel leader Riek Machar. But it is not just a love story. It is also a moral quandary, an aid worker constantly struggling. That book was a companion on most of my journeys to Africa.
So you may ask, what is the relationship between that book and Uganda? I cannot remember how many times in that book the word “Ugandan Waragi” is mentioned, a local gin. For me, Ugandan Waragi, Emma’s War, long travel hours, drinking coffee with mandazi, all are interconnected and bring me an unexplainable joy.
But this time I realized the book was not with me. Maybe I lost it, or maybe not. Then again, I am not the same young, free, adventurous humanitarian who looked forward to going to war zones and walking through the misery of conflict. Time passed. I grew a bit older. Most importantly, this time, leaving behind my little boy and his mom felt more complicated than coordinating a long-distance patrol across rebel areas in South Sudan. So many things to worry about, but I had to do it.
I landed in Entebbe feeling empty. I cannot even remember the long queue at the airport or how many hours I stood in line. Finally, I reached Kampala and tried to collect my thoughts before the next day. It was a long night. Maybe I slept, maybe I dreamed. I cannot recall. But one thing is certain, it was not a good night’s sleep.
I was at Makerere University, in the Mugenyi Flat, waking up slightly irritated by the huge mosquito net hanging in the middle of the room. It felt like the room was designed for the oversized mosquito net, not for me. I felt irrelevant compared to that ridiculous net.
Morning came quickly. I went to my first gathering with our Rotary Fellows. Even though I know the smell of Entebbe air, the flowery scent mixed with warm matoke, even the unique smell of the hair cream girls use to control their playful hair, I still felt a deep emptiness walking through the university hallway.
In class, the sudden loud sound of the coffee machine in the corner gave me unexpected happiness. The smell of coffee rejuvenated me. I grabbed a blue cup and watched the coffee drip from the machine.
“Hello.”
Mr. Lou Kila smiled at me.
He is a middle-aged man with broad shoulders, a thick face, a soft moustache, and a strong jaw. Even though he said hello, his sharp eyes leaned toward the floor.
I replied softly, “Hello… how are you?”
He smiled again. A sudden joy moved through my chest, not because he smiled, but because when he did, I saw the thick red patches along his lower teeth. Not completely covering them, but noticeable. Modern toothpaste is not strong enough to remove that red betel-nut stain. My father has the same stain. In fact, almost 90 percent of people in my village have it.
Suddenly, I felt Lou Kila came from my village.
The words jumped out of my mouth.
“You eat betel nuts, don’t you?”
His smile widened. “Oh… yes… yes,” he replied enthusiastically, still looking down.
I felt slightly awkward. To soften it, I said my mom and dad eat it too. “I cannot eat betel nuts. They make me dizzy. But I know the taste.”
I still remember hugging my dad, the smell of betel nut mixed with lime and tobacco strong enough to make me slightly dizzy. When I was six or seven, sometimes as part of my play, I prepared betel nut for my grandpa. I would sit on the floor beside his lazy chair, clean areca nuts, and rub lime onto betel leaves.
All those memories rushed back when I saw Lou Kila’s stained teeth.
The emotions followed. I felt my grandpa’s safe and protective presence. I could not hold my thoughts. We sat down, and I began sharing my grandpa’s betel-nut stories. He shared how he prepared betel nut in Papua New Guinea (PNG), in his indigenous village.
Lou Kila is from Hula Village, about 90 kilometres from Port Moresby, the capital of PNG. He is a Peacebuilding Program Manager at the World Council of Churches. He came to the Rotary Fellowship to expand his knowledge and share his experience. Thanks to him, I felt a sudden emotional shift, a sense of closeness deeply rooted in childhood memory.
This personal interaction reminded me of Professor Roland Bleiker’s article, “Pablo Neruda and the Struggle for Political Memory.” Roland writes that emotions are not background feelings but active forces embedded in memory narratives. He quotes Neruda:
Remember, Raul?
Remember it, Rafael?
Federico, under the ground there, remember it?
Can you remember my house with the balconies
where June drowned the dazzle of flowers in your teeth?
Roland explains that Neruda does not only mourn. He preserves voices and struggles by lifting them from a personal space into the public domain, into politics and history.
I began thinking about how personal connections can either divide or connect us. If peacebuilding is truly about relationship building, then we must pay attention to emotions and lived experiences.
Meeting Lou Kila reminded me how deeply personal memory can break barriers of culture, religion, and prejudice. Relatability does not have to exist at the level of education, social status, or political ideology. Sometimes it can be as simple as a stain.
Relatability is the greatest enemy of prejudice and demonization.
As a peace practitioner, I try to look at human relationships from that angle.
Isn’t it all about relatable peace?
I am asking myself.
Tomorrow morning, we will have coffee again.
We will talk more about PNG, social struggle, peace, and relationships.
We will talk about tomorrow.
Let me end with Yuval Noah Harari’s words:
“Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better.”
Authored by Buddika Harshadewa Amarathunga
“Thanks for reading. Let’s keep building the big house of peace — one small brick at a time.”