Seven Whistles
Memories from my first visit to Karamoja
It’s 7:40 in the morning and like every school day, the whistle is confidently blown. The young women of Karamoja Girls School[1] have been awake since 4am completing revisions for upcoming lessons. They are lined up by class in bright white uniform shirts freshly washed by hand the night before. These young women are loud, with confident smiles and full, deep laughs, and waiting to raise the flags. There are no school administrators or teachers in sight, no attendance taking or adults supervising the students; the students lead themselves.
Most students here are proud Ngakaramojong speakers, survivors of severe food insecurity, war, and political instability that have long plagued the Karamojong people and their region. But these young women, lovingly referred to as ‘warriors’ by the religious sisters, dream of lives and careers that might take them away from their homeland. They are eager to teach me their traditions and explain the greatness of their people, but their aspirations, partly school generated, make them an anomaly among their female peers, most of whom were not ever in school but living lives which include walking miles to fetch water from the local borehole or collect sticks to build family huts.
When the first whistle is blown, the group’s attention is brought to a tall, thin yet strong young woman in uniform with her hair neatly shaven like her classmates, only distinguished by her badge that includes her name and the title ‘Flag Girl’. She was elected by her peers to lead the ceremony throughout this school year and is followed by six students who will work in pairs to raise three flags up the poles outside the administrative cinder block building. The building is surrounded by thatched roof huts and cinder block classrooms. The second whistle is blown and the girls begin singing Oh Uganda, Land of Beauty, their nation’s national anthem in Kiswahili. The Ugandan flag rises and when the flag is intact and the anthem is completed, a third whistle is blown. Silence. The fourth whistle commences the raising of the East African community flag and they sing the Swahili anthem which prays for the preservation of peace among Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan communities. A fifth whistle ends this anthem and then, silence. A sixth whistle begins the most curious flag raising of the three, the raising of the Irish flag. The flag itself is battered and frayed at the edges but is raised with as much reverence as was displayed for their own national flag. Students sing Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldier’s Song) in its native Irish language. The seventh whistle ends the ceremony.
Another student with a badge, elected as the school’s ‘Head Girl’, walks to the front to give the day’s announcements and motivate her peers to work hard throughout the school day, an exhausting day that won’t be complete until the homework session ends at 10pm. When the Head Girl completes the announcements, students leave to line up outside the kitchen for a breakfast provided by the World Food Programme where the ‘Kitchen Girl’ assumes her duties of keeping the breakfast queue orderly and efficient so all girls arrive promptly to their lessons.
Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identity of the school, international congregation of women religious and individuals.
