She explored the jungle, danced and celebrated with the indigenous Pygmes, and joined in on a safari on which her camera flashed and caused an elephant to charge their Range Rover. In the mountains, she hiked deep into the conservation to find families of gorillas and watched intently as her guides “spoke Gorilla,” grunting in deliberate patterns to calm the Silverbacks as the tourists got closer.
As much as she enjoyed the tourist-stuff, she explained, what was more fascinating was her family’s reason for this trip. Her father was visiting his friend, the Director of the Infectious Disease Institute in Kampala, and thus, Keusch was introduced hands-on to the devastation that is HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Driven and intrigued, Keusch chose to stay on after her parents, to extend her stay in Uganda in order to volunteer at a local AIDS clinic.
The HIV/AIDS Clinic is where Keusch met Rhonda*. Uganda has had a tumultuous history—from expelling British colonial powers, to overthrowing a vicious dictator, to facing an enormous AIDS epidemic. Though the country has stabilized and made positive steps towards progress, regional instability still exists to this day. In Northern Uganda, for example, a civil war still exists to some extent. For over 20 years now, the northern rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has terrorized northern Ugandan villages—raping women and children, pillaging and burning entire towns, and kidnapping child soldiers. Currently, 3,000 children are brainwashed and forced to serve as child soldiers in Northern Uganda alone.
Rhonda was a survivor of this horrifying scene. A villager in Northern Uganda, Rhonda’s town came under attack by the LRA about 10 years ago. During the attack, she watched as her husband and children were murdered, only to be gang raped by multiple LRA soldiers. After her entire village was burned down, she escaped into the forest, where she headed on-foot towards the south of Uganda, the capital city of Kampala. When she arrived, it was discovered that she had contracted HIV from the LRA soldiers, her rapists.
She arrived in Kampala with nothing besides the vivid memories of her family’s murder, her violent rape, and the HIV of her rapists. Yet, despite all of these obstacles, Rhonda built a new life for herself. She focused on her Christian faith and used the hope that she discovered through that faith to inspire others.
Rhonda was a volunteer, but she came every single day, and in return for her service, community members took turns taking care of her and making sure she was safe and accounted for.
It was the strength of women like Rhonda who inspired Keusch to continue her advocacy and passion for expanded healthcare and women’s rights. In the clinic, Keusch worked in the pharmacy, distributing medicine and counting our prescriptions—all while learning up-close what it’s like to be a healthcare worker in the developing world. She took this experience back with her to UW-Madison where she began that year as a freshman, immediately getting involved in social justice groups the moment that she stepped on campus. To learn more about Keusch’s experience in Uganda or her involvement on campus, email Keusch at alana.keusch@gmail.com.
