The Point: Did you GuluWalk in your town?

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Did you GuluWalk in your town?

An earnest kid.

If you live in Edmonton, you'll know that one of the iconic Edmontonian images is the Listen bird. I don't know how it started, I think it was an ad for Listen Records on 124th Street, but everywhere you go in the city people have tagged birds of all shapes and sizes, simply saying, 'Listen.' It's taken on a life of its own, and when I see them in the spring it makes me take pause (My neighbour Vasyl actually made a short silent film around these birds). Well, this morning on my bicycle, I saw a tag that just said TALK. And at first I was almost taken aback, thinking Talk? We need to be listening here first. On Further Reflection though, I have begun to wonder, why not talk? Why not speak? There are many things we need to listen to, and many times we need to speak. And to dream, and to hope, and to provoke and to unite. Let's talk.

Signing the banner we carried around. Thanks, Earth Water.

The GuluWalk today was amazing. I didn't expect as many people to come out as there were, but all told about 100 of us walked from Strathcona down past Garneau and Victoria Park, all through Oliver and back down Whyte Ave. It was mostly young people, students especially, but there were kids from youth groups there too, and letter writers and peaceful rabble rousers. A couple MPs spoke (one of them seemed to think Africa was a country, disappointingly) and a student from the U of A who I guess leads a Ugandan Students Association? and it was a little cold and a little cloudy but I was warm warm warm walking with such passionate people.

Did it feel like a long distance? Yes. About 11, 12 kilometres is a long way to walk on an autumn day in Edmonton. But I couldn't imagine walking it twice a day back and forth to the city with the constant threat of being abducted or worse by the LRA. Those kids have it a lot tougher than us, and don't get the promise of hot chocolate or water bottles at the end. Walking 11 kilometres for donations is a lot different than doing it to survive.

There were a lot fewer people than came out in Toronto at the one I went to last year, but Edmontonians are more of a shy, retiring folk when it comes to these things and northern Uganda isn't exactly high on the public consciousness. But I guess things like the GuluWalk help bring it to the top, and more power to people like Lillian and Jamil for helping organise a pretty successful walk, I'd say. I guess they stopped by this site a few days ago and I promised I'd put their picture up on here, but Lillian closed her eyes in the one I snapped, so here is a more candid one of them where she has her eyes open. Keep up the good work, guys.

The founders of GuluWalk in its international incarnation (as in, apart from the kids who do it every day) are Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward, and I know they'd like the kids affected by the war in Uganda to stay in people's minds. Canada has the very real ability to help push Museveni's government and the Lord's Resistance Army to keep dialogue open and sieze this opportunity for peace. I don't know if Joseph Kony will ever be tried by the ICC or not, but these children are not safe in refugee camps or in their homes, and it is time this brutal war came to an end.

Si halba español, este blog tiene una buena historia de GuluWalk.

Labels: edmonton, guluwalk, uganda

posted by Christopher at 5:47 p.m.

1 Comments:

dear friend, sadly i did not walk in my city because i was at school. i'm
sorry i haven't called yet, but look forwards tomorrow. i have been busy in
a film set. if you'd like to know more, take a look:
http://the-rumpus-room.spaces.live.com/
love tuesday

much love,
evan tuesday communications