Leap

Tonight this lithe dancer had a go at teaching me and several other lumberers how to dance, northern Ugandan style. Then did this little leap of happiness in front of her mum, A, who we were celebrating.

Northern Uganda has been beset by violence and persecution for very many years. The situation changes but some of the stories that reach us about children being abducted and forced into militias come from here. As do stories of people heading out of towns and into the long grass in the bush to sleep at night.

A's story is harrowing (I am editing her autobiography) but it also bursts with the joy of being alive. After her house, the health clinic she had built and which she staffed, and the church where she taught primary age children were all burnt to the ground, she fled the 90 miles to where her parents lived. In her words:

Soon the news of my arrival had spread and within a short time there was a crowd in our home. A goat was slaughtered for dinner and there was great rejoicing. My father was extremely happy to meet his grandchildren, whom he had previously been deprived the privilege of seeing grow up. It was unfortunate that my father had already gone blind by the time I was able to bring my children home with me, and so he could not actually see them. He had to depend on my mother's description of the children. He ran his fingers over their bodies and heads in order to feel the softness of their skin and hair. His joy was that he could hear the children's voices when they spoke or sang and the stamping of their feet as they danced.

Despite being aware of the situation in which we found ourselves, we sang, danced and laughed.

Sadly, soon afterwards A had to flee again with her children, this time to the UK.

As well as dancing, we ate delicious northern Ugandan food and watched a wonderful film about children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda competing in their country's national music and dance festival. It's one hour and 47 minutes very well spent.