Kids and concerts

Anyone who has met Lutaaya when she is in her safe environments, will know she loves music and dance.  She simply loves it.  This week opened up the door of opportunity for Lutaaya to experience two very different aspects of music.  Firstly off we trotted to the Wales Millennium Centre to see her first Musical, We Will Rock You.

Outside the Millennium Centre

It was very loud and very bright.  Lutaaya moved with the music throughout the show and smiled/laughed at the funny parts, making me know she understood the story line.  What she couldn't process were her thoughts on whether or not she liked it??  It's difficult, when you travel with a bus full of people, for them not to understand that it takes Lutaaya a little longer than most of us to process her thoughts and construct an opinion.  She needs time to mull things over and then make a decision on her thoughts on something.  So being bombarded with questions of, 'do you like it?' or 'are you enjoying it?' or 'is it good?', are still too difficult to answer on the spot for my little girl.  Each question always answered the same way, with an, 'I don't know!'  It's not that she doesn't understand what you've asked or that she's being rude, it's her genuinely not knowing what her answer will be.  And she won't talk about anything until a good few hours later or even the next day.
Living with Lutaaya, you get to see the response of when she's made that decision.  If something is too difficult to deal with or she doesn't understand she can either start asking questions or simply become withdrawn and not speak.  Two very different extremes to her behaviour.  One thing is for sure though.  If she likes something, you certainly know about.  She will chat about it for hours and for days after.
So, as I put her to bed, she answered the many questions asked her today, singing a line of one of the Queen songs.  If it's sunk in enough to be repeated, it goes on the 'like' list!

Later this week we had the honour and privilege of seeing the Watoto Children's Choir perform locally.  Amazing, awe-inspiring, tear jerking night.  Lutaaya loved the traditional songs and dancing and it certainly made her Lugandan come back a little.  What was difficult for Lutaaya to deal with was hearing all the children's stories.  Each child with their own unique story of desperate times and destitution.  All the stories of these children thankfully end in hope due to the Watoto charity.  If you're interested in finding out more about Watoto, don't take my word for it, see their website here.  They do amazing work.  Sadly, in the back of my mind, as in the minds of everyone else who has been to Africa, are the many children who still live these destitute lives without anyone advocating for them or helping them out of the absolute poverty they find themselves in.

Comic Relief

Since coming home Lutaaya has had a bit of a fantasy Uganda.  She spent the past 7 years of her life in an orphanage so to her that is the Uganda she remembers.  Other than her first 2 years (give or take some months due to the age), she wouldn't have experienced the utter poverty of the slums.  Her walk to school, long though it was, passed by some of the more privileged homes.  Most had four walls, some huge driveways and all with the essentials we need.  Only on a few occasions when we were in Uganda did Lutaaya see a glimpse of slum life, when our beloved taxi driver, Henry, tried taking a short cut (which often proved to take us longer than the normal route), and we ended up the other side of a river to the one slum in Uganda.

Even so, she knows suffering.  She knows what's fair and what's not.  She knows when life is too tough for a little one.  She summed it up nicely the other day when she told me we don't have poor people in Wales.  I tried explaining that some people in Wales are poor, and she responds, but not like in Uganda.  And no.  None of us in Wales are poor.  We have an easy ride.  We ALL live beyond our means.  We have a very nice benefits system, that we all have our opinions on, that is there to catch people when they fall.  We also have a benefits system that people manipulate to their financial gain, but thats a whole different story.  Lutaaya knows, at 10 years old, that we are not poor here.  We will never know the suffering of poverty in Africa.

Then along comes comic relief 2011.  A night of TV that helps raise the profile of projects in Africa and here in the UK, helping the poor and needy.

Now I've been very restrictive over what Lutaaya watches on TV.  The soaps are banned here.  I mean, next time you turn on a soap, just list the story lines in your head and tell me they give children a balanced view of the world.  The tell us of a world filled with crime, violence, fear, broken lives.  Bad news sells!  Not what any child needs to hear, let alone a child who may have experienced the topics in reality.  So watching Comic Relief was a BIG decision.

See the Mbale hospital appeal here!   Mbale is one of the places I visit in Uganda.

And the decision was for Lutaaya to watch the evening of programmes that helped raise money for the charities involved.  I kinda gathered that if it affected her in a bad way we could turn over at any time.  No need for that plan.  She was engrossed.  She took on every aspect.  She talked about the children's feelings living in the poverty and she then became motivated to help!  Yay I have a child who will follow in my footsteps and help others.  Not through self-gratification, simply to feel a duty and be moved to act.

So it's back to the baking and Comic Relief or Red Nose Day cakes.

Lutaaya had fun making them and then she sold them 50p a cake.  She was so keen to get the money to comic relief and said, do it now Mam, those children are dying!  Such simple, truthful words.  Did you give?  If not to Comic Relief, then find a charity working in Uganda and helping street children or Aids orphans.