We arrived on Wednesday afternoon at Charles Obaikol’s home in Soroti where we stayed for two nights.

Charles was Bishop of Soroti (until 2010) and is the Patron of TESS, being the one who asked me to set up a sponsorship programme 20 years ago. His wife, Margaret, died two years ago and Charles has married Caroline so their home is now full of the sounds of young children again. But it was clear that Margaret is still very much on his lips and in his heart.

They were both so welcoming and as we sat outside that first afternoon having tea, we watched a beautiful Lizard Buzzard eating a large lizard in the tree branches above us.

On Friday, we had a long day of travelling and visits with Jane Adongo (one of the TESS sponsored students who is now a Clinical Officer) and her eldest brother, Emma(nuel), who is an artist struggling to make a living. I brought some of his paintings back in 2018 for two small exhibitions in Loughborough and Nottingham and sold them all. Robert arranged for a friend to drive us as he was busy with last minute preparations for his and Maggie’s Introduction (traditional marriage) the next day.

Charles came with us because one of the visits we were making was to see the triplets I had found as newborns in a refugee camp in 2003 – their mother had been struggling to breastfeed them all. To help them survive, Charles continued to feed the family over their first few months with money I left with him. I managed to keep tabs on them on and off over the years – triplets are unusual enough for people to know about them and tell me where they’re living as they moved from one camp to another and eventually back home. Last year, I found sponsorship for the two boys at James’ training centre in Nyero while Mary insisted on going back to primary school to retake the leaving exams. Charles hadn’t seen them since they were babies!

Their compound had been swept, chairs set out for us under a thatched shelter and tea and snacks laid out on a table. There were various problems to sort out with the family, including Mary’s next step and the future of one of the boys who had made a girl pregnant at Nyero.

At 21, it is unrealistic for Mary to start now at secondary school for four years, especially as she has always struggled at school for various family reasons, and then do another two years of vocational training after that, so she agreed this time to go to TANU (run by Joel and Sharon, two TESS students) in Adamasiko to join their tailoring course (which is linked with the Dorcas Dress Project).

Josephine, the eldest, who was 12 when the triplets were born and has always been such a support to her mother, told me as we were leaving that her mother had been sent away and was sick (due to being “half poisoned”). Her father (who has apparently stopped drinking heavily now) had brought home a younger woman. Josephine said she wanted to go and bring her mother back. “Will your father agree to that?” “He will if you talk to him.” So I did – and gave Josephine money to go and fetch her. A few days later, she and the triplets went to find her and bring her home.

We drove on to Obalanga were we visited the mass graves for 365 people killed in the LRA invasion in 2003 and the memorial to the “Arrow Boys”, a militia set up in Teso to help protect people from the mass killings and abductions by the LRA.

From Obalanga, we went on to Ococia to see Emma’s amazing murals at the small school for children with mental disabilities (no one was around as it was holidays) and the Catholic Church. We met the German man who has lived there (for about six months each year) for nearly 20 years.

We continued on to Jane and Emma’s remote home in Morungatuny where their mother and grandmother (they look like sisters!) live. They had prepared a meal for us. I stood with Jane by the small grave next to the little grass-thatched house she had recently built for herself. Her baby, born just before Christmas, had survived only 24 hours. It is traditional to bury family members in your home compound as those who have died are still considered to be part of the family. Her little boy (about 5 years old) kept asking to see the baby.

The sun was setting as we left, so the journey back to Charles’s home in Soroti was in the dark. We took a shorter route back, cutting across to the main Lira to Soroti tarmac road. But the track was very bad and there had been a lot of rain, making it almost impassable in places. So we were very late getting back and went straight to bed.