Assessing for Post Traumatic Distress Disorder
It is Saturday morning and I am at the Children of War Center. Fulukas, the program director, is letting me use his computer to do some email and blog.
Yesterday was a gorgeous day weatherwise. We headed to Anaka subcounty that is northwest of Gulu. It took about an hour to get there but all of the roads are dirt and while the major road was in pretty good shape, some of the smaller roads were not in as good condition. In a few of the roads there weren't potholes, there were craters. I went to a school where World Vision is screening children for PTSD and they wanted me to actually do one of the interviews with a student using the assessment instrument. Concy was my translator. Its a lot trickiert to do an assessment using a translator because it is so easy to misunderstand. Normally the interview takes 45 minutes, but in my case I think it took 1 1/2 hours. The young man--I will call him Paul--was getting angry about an hour into it because he was hungry and was getting tired of it. Fortunately, I had some food in my backpack--dried apples and a granola bar--and when I offered it to him, it settled him down. In any case, it's hard to understand the trauma that people were routinely subjected to. Paul was kidnapped by the LRA in 2005 and was with them only 8 months. But the things that he experienced and witnessed were horrific. In fact, it was hard to believe I was asking him some of the questions that were on the inventory. One was, "Were you ever forced by the LRA to eat human flesh or witnessed someone eating human flesh? As I was asking that question to him, I was saying to myself, "I can't believe I'm asking another human being this question." Fortunately, nothing like that had happened to Paul. Afterwards, my hosts showed me another school where a person donated at least $250000 to renovate and build. It was quite an operation. I arrived home around 7 pm exhausted. I really like the staff and was very thankful for the day. Fulucas taught a class this morning in which he invited me to say a few words. It is a class of people who because of the war or lack of finances or poor decisions have gotten behind the learning curve educationally and is both basic computer training and life skills. He was encouraging them about what makes for success in life and the necessity of hard work and what that entails. He spoke for almost 1 1/2 hours and the 40 or so students in attendance were listening closely. I was glad to have sat in on the class--it wasn't in my schedule, just an added bonus. In spite of some of the enduring problems from the war, I have to say that I am encouraged to see how Gulu has changed for the better since my first visit in 2008. There is so much more life and activity in the city. There is a good deal of construction going on and there is so much more business. The pall that was on it when I was here the first time has lifted. I asked Concy about when the spirit of the city changed and she said she thought it was around the end of 2008. Near the children of war center there is a brand new Bank of Uganda building that is beautiful.
