It's 3:45 Sunday morning and the northwest parking lot of Hope Baptist Church in the southeast Valley looks much like the sidewalks of Downtown's homeless corridor on Owens Avenue west of Main Street—strewn with sleeping bags, blankets and small pillows rolled, re-rolled, bundled, tied, twisted, contorted and jury-rigged into makeshift beds on, under and in which hundreds of people, the moon as their lamplight, are snoozing. But these folks, prostrate on the parking-lot concrete, wouldn't be included in those periodic counts of homeless by activists and government officials. There's not an unkempt-looking person among them. And the chatter among those still awake isn't about scoring the next meal or shower, but of ... cute guys and cool bands, jokes and parties, food and fun.
In fact, all the 170-plus people, mostly young adults—graduating high-school seniors, collegians and early twentysomethings—have beds, beds inside homes and apartments, which means they have mortgages and leases (or parents paying mortgages and leases), which means they're not homeless. Sleeping on the concrete is their way of approximating and empathizing with Ugandan children who use the cover of night, bunking in hospitals, church halls—wherever they can find refuge—to avoid abductors from the Lord's Resistance Army, the Old Testament-adhering quarterback of a murderous 18-year rebellion that's turned 1.6 million Ugandans into refugees and militarized an estimated 30,000 youth over the past 20 years, some as young as 8. The United Nations estimates that youth comprise 90 percent of the LRA's fighting force.
This is fight or flight at its deadliest.
Says a U.N. report on kidnapped recruits: "They are brutalized and forced to commit atrocities on fellow abductees and even siblings. Those who attempt to escape are killed. For those living in a state of constant fear, violence becomes a way of life and the psychological trauma is incalculable. Fearing abduction, streams of children, often with mothers in tow, leave their homes every night and walk for hours from surrounding villages to reach the relative safety of major towns, only to trek their way home in the first light. Some 40,000 'night commuters' sleep under verandas, in schools, hospital courtyards or bus parking spots to evade the snare of the LRA."
The overnighter at Vegas' Hope Baptist was part of Global Night Commute, organized by filmmakers Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, whose Invisible Children documentary (premiered in 2004) has moved the issue of Ugandan child soldiers from overlooked atrocity to an item of U.S. importance, like other humanitarian crises plaguing parts of Darfur and other parts of Africa. According to the Washington Times, lawmakers sardined themselves into a House chamber last Thursday to hear former LRA soldier Grace Akallo recount her turmoil. Akallo, 26, asked lawmakers for help in ending a civil war that has decimated Northern and Southern Uganda and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
As part of the local Global Night efforts, some 300 people distributed information in front of New York, New York, then walked 5.6 miles to Hope Baptist Church, 180 E. Pebble Road (it took two and a half hours). Among them was Tyler Dahl, who'd heard about the Invisible Children documentary a year ago, via hard-rock band Thrice's Myspace.com page. He met band members at a Death Cab for Cutie concert at Mandalay Bay, then hopped aboard the movement. On this night, the 18-year-old Community College of Southern Nevada psychology student is standing next to a table, illuminated by a piercing spotlight. On it are copies of missives from the filmmakers and dozens of envelopes to be used to write hundreds of letters to Nevada's congressional delegation, to be added to an estimated 30,000 headed for the Oval Office. Nearby, a guy and girl, lying on their stomachs, tag-team on a letter and envelope. Though happy with the turnout, Dahl laments the lack of "older" people, i.e., those with financial and political clout to influence policy and public discourse. "Sometimes kids are seen as being into fads, and this is not a fad. It's a real issue."
But Phillip Garcia, a 21-year-old Wells Fargo employee, continues Dahl's thought: "People think we're a generation that doesn't care about anything and we do. Young people's opinions aren't respected."
They briefly spar over the need for military intervention—Dahl for, Garcia against—eventually agreeing that a combination of U.S. diplomacy, U.N. pressure and arms might be the best way to oust the LRA.
Sheena Habibian didn't know anything about the plight of Northern Ugandan children before a friend turned her on to Invisible Children. She was struck by the warmth of their effervescent smiles, the hopeful glint in their eyes and the ease with which they talked of death. "They have to endure so much pain," says Habibian, 19, a UNLV architecture student.
Since seeing the documentary at South Hills Church, Foothill High School senior Brittany McComb, 18, has been energized to help. Sure, sleeping outside may be inconvenient. An ever-so-slight chill creases the air, making it just comfortable enough. Groggy at first, McComb talks herself awake, outlining a battle plan that includes talking principals into screening the film at schools, writing articles for high- school newspapers and informing elders.
A report from 50 organizations (among them the Civil Society Organizations for Peace in Northern Uganda) released in early April noted that Uganda's death rate was three times higher than Iraq's, 146 per week, or 0.17 violent deaths per 10,000 people per day, according to allafrica.com.
"This is three times higher than in Iraq, where the incidence of violent death in the period following the allied invasion was estimated to be 0.052 per 10,000 people per day," the report says.
"We have the luxury of making our dreams come true. They don't," McComb says. "We can't lose the passion. Kids are getting killed every day."