At the age of twelve Otto was an innocent victim of the 20-year civil
war in Uganda, having suffered terrible facial wounds
from a bullet. Today, thanks to SOS Children and the generosity of medical
personnel, Otto is regaining his lost childhood.
To Be a Boy again!
To see 16-year-old Otto bent over a desk with
his teacher going over class work, one would never guess the trauma that he has
seen in his short life. He is tall, fairly confident and appears to be concerned
about understanding the English lesson - like any other adolescent school boy. It
is only when he lifts his head that you notice the scars on his face and the
way his nose has a darker pigment than the rest of his skin. If he was a boy in
Europe
you would think, perhaps, that Otto had been in a car crash,
or maybe had fallen through a window. But once you know that Otto is from
northern Uganda and lived the first twelve years of life through a civil war you
might guess at other fates - a machete wound? Or even a gunshot?
The truth is that Otto's injuries were
caused after he was kidnapped by the notorious Lord's Resistance Army, which
regularly abducted children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves. In one
sense Otto was lucky. His abductors were ambushed by the Ugandan army shortly
after taking him and other children, and Otto was rescued. Other children have
been kept for years to service the rag-tag rebel army, often dying on the
battlefield or suffering grizzly deaths at the hands of their masters. But even
though Otto was freed soon after being taken, he was shot in the crossfire of
the ambush, incurring serious facial injuries that left him without a nose,
only partial hearing, and in terrible pain.
Otto is taken
to Nairobi
SOS Children co-workers were in northern Uganda in
May 2002 when they found Otto in a reception centre. They were there to
investigate the possibility of establishing a children's village in Gulu to
cater for the freed abductees and the children born in captivity. Since other
agencies had been unable to find sponsorship for Otto's much needed surgery the
co-workers decided to take him back to Nairobi where he was treated, free of
charge, by a plastic surgeon.
Otto moved into a family house at the SOS Children’s
Village Nairobi and underwent several operations to rebuild the damage to his
nose and to his ear, where the bullet entered. His nose was partially restored
but there was still a lot of reconstruction to be done, and when Placet, an
organisation that provides plastic and reconstructive surgery
to victims of terror, war, torture, etc., offered treatment to children from
SOS Children, Otto's name was the first to be put
forward from East Africa.
Otto spent ten months in the SOS Children's
Village Berlin under the care of an SOS mother. Reconstruction of his face was not
easy and Otto estimates that he underwent up to seven operations before the
surgeons were happy that they had done all they could. Professor Peter Frank
led the team from Placet, which also replaced a facial nerve and Dr. Helmut Fischer,
one of the most renowned plastic surgeons in the field of nose reconstruction
came to Berlin to create a new nose for Otto. Otto's recuperation lasted seven months and he finally arrived back
at the Nairobi village in August this year.
He has
undergone many experiences
In his short life Otto has had many
experiences. From a normal boy living his childhood in Uganda,
Otto became an innocent victim of a brutal war and suffered unbearable pain. Through
his suffering Otto has also learnt about compassion - the compassion of one
person for another - and through this compassion he slowly began the long and
painful road to recovery, starting at the SOS Children's Village Nairobi. In
the village Otto learnt how to become a boy again - to live with a family, to
go to school, to make friends and to play with them, in a secure and peaceful
environment far from the horrors of war.
Otto has also experienced incredible
generosity and love from many people. He has known the love of his two SOS
mothers, Gladys in Nairobi and Christina in Berlin, who have cared for him like he was their own. And the generosity
has come from many people, including the doctors and nurses who were prepared
to give their time and valuable skills before they had even met Otto, in reconstructive
surgery that would allow him to resume a normal, active and painless life in
the community.
Otto has also has had the experience that
many boys dream of, but few achieve at his age - travel to Europe where he learnt about
new languages and cultures and made many new friends. Now that he is back in Nairobi he has
resumed school. Before the term began he had a private tutor who spent two
hours a day with him, helping him to catch up with the work he missed. "He
is really keen and he is catching up very fast", Otto's tutor asserted,
and added that he is really eager to learn more, especially English and maths.
Plans for the future
Recently, the National Director of SOS
Children Uganda, William Damilura, visited Otto in Nairobi. For Otto,
William is a father figure and his visit was a welcome boost to his confidence,
making him feel that he is still integral to the 'SOS Ugandan family'. William
commented how happy he was to see Otto looking so well. He is also delighted
that Otto is making plans for the future. He is looking forward to Christmas
when he goes back to Uganda for two weeks, to completing his school education and, he hopes, to
beginning his training in mechanical engineering at the SOS Vocational Training
Centre Nairobi - something he aspires to.
But despite his plans for the future Otto
will never forget Germany. He misses all his new friends and hopes that they will all try to
visit him in Africa one day. And to the doctors he has only one word to say, but it
comes from the bottom of his heart: Thank you!