Uganda: Returning home

Northern Uganda - Laker Paska is trying to grow a new life on the side of the road in northern Uganda.

Paska, 31, bends over a hoe in the midafternoon sun, tending her small, rocky garden where she has planted corn and cassava. She and her family, driven from their village by civil war, have lived in this squalid displacement camp for six years. She needs more than peace to seed a good future for her and her family.

Everyone in northern Uganda does after 21 years of war. Civil strife and poverty have conspired to uproot and ravage normal life. Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an annual per capita income of about $300. Conflict only deepens poverty: The World Bank estimates that civil wars lower per capita GDP by about 2.2 percent per year of fighting.

Now it seems that restoration can begin.

Peace talks last year yielded a cease-fire between the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). There's no final agreement, but the progress so far has fueled hope.

"That is why we have fresh air," said Norbert Mao, a local official in Gulu town, in the heart of the war zone.

The government has launched a reconstruction program, with substantial foreign aid, in the north, said Moses Byaruhanga, special assistant to Museveni. But many in northern Uganda aren't getting the assistance they need. Thousands remain in displacement camps.

Paska wants to leave, to find a plot of ground where her family can build a house. She needs money to support her seven children - for food and health care and school fees. It's especially important that her 18-year-old son, who escaped the LRA's clutches in 2001 after a year of forced service, continue his education.

"When he came back he had trouble adjusting because he was so traumatized," Paska said.

The LRA has abducted about 30,000 youngsters and forced them to become soldiers and sex slaves. The government army also has used child soldiers and abused civilians. Thousands of children remain missing. An estimated 100,000 people have died and as many as 1.7 million were displaced.

Despite wariness and uncertainty, some are leaving the camps and moving to smaller settlements closer to homes and fields or, if stability permits, reestablishing villages. It's a risk - those leaving are pretty much on their own - but they are hungry for freedom and opportunities and willing to take the gamble.