Acii Paulina doesn’t know exactly how old she is.
All she knows for sure is that when the first Sudanese Civil War broke out in 1955, she feared most for her young children, who were still small enough to be carried in her arms.
Life was not easy before the war, but in the six decades since the fighting started, Paulina has endured more suffering than most people can imagine — the tragic deaths of countless family members and friends to war and sickness, bouts of deep poverty and wasting hunger, and the loss of her home, to name a few.
Three times she has had to run for her life to seek refuge in Uganda, where she now lives in a tiny mud hut in a refugee camp. This time, she says, there’s no going back to her war-torn homeland.
Instead of being surrounded by her small children, now she has her teenage grandson Philip by her side. Philip’s parents died during the second Sudanese Civil War, and Paulina insisted he come with her to Uganda because she feared rebel soldiers would either kill him or force him to join their ranks and kill his own people.
Together, grandmother and grandson fled to start a new life.
After surviving a life of war, COVID-19 threatens
Paulina and Philip have no running water, so Philip goes to the community tap daily to haul water for drinking and washing. For food, they grow a few vegetables in a tiny garden next to their hut, which is only a few feet away from their neighbors'. Whenever they have any produce leftover, Philip takes it to the crowded street market to sell. This is their only income to buy what they need to survive.
Over time, as they cultivated their tiny plot of land and established roots, Paulina and Philip began to feel secure in their new life and routine. But now, a new threat is pressing. Every time Philip ventures to the market, he knows he risks being exposed to COVID-19 and bringing it home to his grandmother. With her fragile health and advancing age, her risk of death is high.
But the choice is impossible: how can they choose between going hungry or getting sick and dying?
