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The night-walkers of Uganda

Level 1

l

Advanced

1

Key Words

Fill the gaps using these words from the text:

subdued encampment abduction fundamentalist breed
warp overwhelmed crave thug raid

1. If you

something, you want it very much and in such a way that it is very hard to control.

2. If a place is

by people, there are so many people in it that it is difficult to deal with them.

3. To

a negative feeling or situation is to cause it to develop.

4. A

is a man who is violent, especially a criminal.

5. An

is the act of taking someone away from their home or family using force.

6. To

something, for example a person’s character, is to affect it in a negative way.

7. A

person or group believes that original religious and political laws should be followed

very strictly and not be changed.

8. A

is a sudden short attack.

9. If someone looks

, he looks slightly sad or worried.

10. An

is a large group of tents or temporary shelters.

2

Pre-reading What do you know?

Choose the best answer for each question. Then look in the text and check your answers.
1. Where is Uganda?
a. In the Middle East.

b. In Asia

c. In Africa.

2. What is the main problem in northern Uganda?
a. A civil war.

b. Severe floods.

c. Severe droughts.

3. How long has this problem existed?
a. For almost 5 years.

b. For almost 10 years. c. For almost 20 years.

4. What is the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)?
a. The group in power.

b. A rebel group.

c. The country’s army.

The night-walkers of Uganda

Mary Aciro has spent the day gathering grass to feed the cattle, weeding the vegetable patch and helping
her mother cook dinner over a charcoal fire: the life of any African girl in any African village. But as daylight
begins to fade, Mary slips away from the family’s tiny mud hut and strides down a sandy track into the
nearest town. The adults in the town of Lacor in northern Uganda are going home for dinner on buses. Mary,
along with hundreds of other children, is going the other way. The children are dressed in rags and flip-flops;

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some carry sacks or rolled-up blankets on their shoulders. They scramble over grassy banks and hurry
down the sun-scorched roadside on the way to the night shelters, which are guarded by government troops.

In any other country a 14-year-old girl leaving her home and an anxious mother for the night would spell
rebellion. Here, it’s simply about survival. “We fear the rebels, we fear thugs and robbers who come at night
to disturb us,” says Mary as she walks with a swinging stride.

On a troubled continent, the war in this region stands out. It is Africa’s longest-running civil war, and perhaps
the only conflict in history in which children are both the main victims and the principal aggressors. Mary and
the other children walk to safety every night because they fear, with good reason, abduction by the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian fundamentalist rebel group that uses children as soldiers, porters and
sexual slaves. The LRA carries out its raids at night, storming into villages from the surrounding bush, killing
adults and forcing children to beat their parents before marching them away to camps deep in the bush.

Mary’s 15-year-old brother, Geoffrey, was abducted by the rebels; he was held for three months. “They
made him carry heavy loads, beat him at times, he went without food,” says their mother, Agnes. Geoffrey
only escaped when a government helicopter gunship attacked the rebels holding him. Mary’s neighbour, a
girl named Florence, was abducted too. She spent three years with the rebels: she was forced into sexual
slavery and became pregnant.

Desperate to keep the child-snatchers from their doors, parents in northern Uganda began sending their
children into nearby towns at night in 2002. 40,000 children across the region started walking into towns to
sleep. Aid agencies set up shelters to give them somewhere safe to go, and it’s one of these that Mary is
heading for.

As she approaches Lacor, she walks past bars lit by a single lightbulb and tiny shops whose wooden
shelves are crammed with cooking oil, salt, soap powder and mobile phone top-up cards. As the shadows
spread, the shopkeepers open their thief-proof metal doors and step out. Mary lives near the town but
some of the other children walk for hours to reach safety. When she reaches the shelter, it is already full of
children, some of them barely toddlers, others in their late teens. The shelter is made up of stark concrete
buildings, bare as a barn inside, as well as rows of giant white canvas tents.

Lillian Apiyo, 14, is already inside. “I come here for protection,” she says. “I always get new friends from
here. There is nowhere to stay at home.” The children filter through the gates looking subdued, but a party
atmosphere soon develops. A dozen or so children begin dancing. At other shelters there is frenetic
singing of motivational songs. The shelters are busy enough as it is, and if food were provided, they would
be overwhelmed.

Adult wardens patrol with torches, breaking up the occasional fight over a blanket and checking on children
who look scared or upset. “When I am here, I feel I am somebody,” says Gabriel Oloya, who studies his
schoolbooks in the dim light. “When I am at home, I’m always upset. I feel lonely and so many thoughts
come into my mind. Here, I tend to forget such things.” Gabriel, 15, is responsible for the four younger
brothers who walk with him to the shelter. “My parents are dead, killed by the rebels,” he says.

Childhood is short in rural Africa, but it is rare for children to be thrown so completely on their own resources
as they are in this war-damaged society. The children who come to the shelters crave affection. Many of
them are orphans whose parents were murdered by the rebels and who have been taken in by their ex-
tended family. The girls comb each other’s hair while the boys spin bottle-tops or engage in play fights.

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In the shelter the wardens keep boys and girls apart, but outside its gates young couples are cuddling in the
semi-darkness.

This sort of thing does worry Mary’s mother. “We can’t follow our children up to the shelter,” Agnes says.
“Sometimes a girl says she has gone there, but she has gone to a boyfriend, and she becomes pregnant
and drops out of school.” But then there is more to worry about than teenage boys. The Acholi and Lango
tribes of northern Uganda were once farmers, living in scattered villages amid their herds of cattle and fields
of maize. But 19 years of war have warped everything: almost the entire population of the north, 1.5 million
people, has been displaced into crowded, dusty encampments on the outskirts of towns. Despair has bred
alcoholism and violence; the horror of war is part and parcel of life.

As the older generation dies out, so does the hope of returning to a normal life. This is a culture with few
written records, which relies on memories to place the boundaries of farmland and the distance to the
nearest stream. When their parents are gone, the children’s link with their original villages will be broken for
ever. “For me, the worst thing that may happen here is a situation where officially there is no war, but
everybody remains in the camps,” says Father Carlos Rodriguez Soto, a Roman Catholic priest who has
spent 18 years in Uganda.

The sun has not quite risen when the wardens rouse the children. After a prayer and a wash, the children
who have blankets roll them on to their shoulders, the older ones gather up younger brothers and sisters
and they begin to slip out of the gates and stream on to the road. By 9 a.m. the sun will burn and sweat will
drip from every forehead, but now it is gentle. It is a good time to walk home.

3

Comprehension check

Match each fact with a reason or purpose.

Facts

1. In Uganda 40,000 children leave their home every night.

2. The LRA abducts children.

3. Aid agencies have set up shelters.

4. Food isn’t provided in night shelters.

5. Wardens patrol the shelters with torches.

6. A lot of children crave affection.

7. Childhood is very short in Uganda.

8. The children’s link with their villages will be lost.

Reasons or purposes

a. To avoid having overwhelmed shelters.
b. Because they fear abduction.
c. To break up fights and check on the children.
d. To use them as soldiers, porters and sexual slaves.
e. Because they are orphans.
f. To provide a safe place for children to go to.
g. Because there are few written records and the older generation is dying out.
h. Because children are thrown on their own resources at an early age.

The night-walkers of Uganda

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4

Vocabulary 1 Adjective order

Put the words in order to make phrases from the text. Check your answers in the text.

1. mud / hut / tiny / a

2. tents / giant / canvas / white

3. concrete / buildings / stark

4. fundamentalist / Christian / a / group / rebel

5

Vocabulary 2 Compound modifiers

Write a compound word (a word made up of two or more words joined by dashes) to complete the
descriptions in column B. Check your answers in the text.

A

B

1. the roadside scorched by the sun

the

roadside

2. blankets that have been rolled up

blankets

3. a girl who is 14 years old

a

girl

4. the civil war that has run the longest

the

civil war

5. metal doors that are proof against thieves

metal doors

6. a society that has been damaged by the war

a

society

6

Vocabulary 3 Phrasal verbs

Use these words to complete phrasal verbs from the text. Check your answers in the text.

in for out up without

7

Discussion

Of all the problems in Uganda, which do you think is the most serious of all? Why? What could be done to help
solve it?

The night-walkers of Uganda

Level 1

l

Advanced

1. The LRA carries

raids at night.

2. Geoffrey had to go

food.

3. Aid agencies set

shelters.

4. Mary is heading

a night shelter.

5. The shelter is made

of buildings

and tents.

6. Wardens patrol the shelters to break

fights.

7. Gabriel was taken

by his extended

family.

8. The older generation is dying

.

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KEY

1 Key Words

Fill the gaps using these words from the text:
1. crave
2. overwhelmed
3. breed
4. thug
5. abduction
6. warp
7. fundamentalist
8. raid
9. subdued
10. encampment

2 Find the information

1. c; 2. a; 3. c; 4.b

3 Comprehension check

1. b; 2. d; 3. f; 4. a; 5. c; 6. e; 7. h; 8. g

4 Vocabulary 1 - Adjective order

1. a tiny mud hut
2. giant white canvas tents
3. stark concrete buildings
4. a Christian fundamentalist rebel group

5 Vocabulary 2 – Compound modifiers

1. the sun-scorched roadside
2. rolled-up blankets
3. a 14-year-old girl
4. the longest-running civil war
5. thief-proof metal doors
6. a war-damaged society

6 Vocabulary 3 - Phrasal verbs

1. out
2. without
3. up
4. for
5. up
6. up
7. in
8. out

The night-walkers of Uganda

Level 1

l

Advanced