During training
When I heard about the training, I was willing to come and do my best this time round since Covid 19 interrupted the completion of the training held at Aboke in 2020. Before the start of the workshop, different stakeholders inspired us about their life experiences. Grace Acan (former LRA abducted girls) in particular gave me courage to continue with this training, she stated she was determined to cope with life after abduction amidst the challenges she faced. For example; stigma, depression and loneliness, among others. This gave me hope to move on. However, singing the song Otinowa (one of the songs composed by the group) it upsets me. It reminds me a lot about the past, and at times I do not want to sing it.
In the first week, the workshop was quite tiresome, because of so many physical movements that I had not performed for a long period of time. I felt a lot of body pain and fatigue, which took some days for me to adjust to accordingly. I also love the fact that the timetable was very favourable this time round with lot of breaks in between. This made the workshop very interesting, although there was so many assignments and few participants easy to manage.
Our welfare was well catered for in terms of accommodation and meals. The environment was very clean and safe for our stay and also given the fact that we were few this time. I had peace of mind.
Performances
The first performance that took place at the training centre was good for me because all the invited stakeholders turned up, which made me very excited. The second performance was at community level and this made me nervous because it was my first time facing a bigger crowd but also an area where I grew up. I struggled with confidence during this first community performance, particularly as it meant facing people I knew.
After all the performances in Lira, Otuke and Gulu, I feel have gained a lot of confidence to face a bigger crowed. Among all the performances, the Gulu performance was the best for me due to constant rehearsals after the two district performances. There were a lot of questions from the audience but we were able to respond without fear anymore. The positive feedback and compliments from different stakeholders gave me courage and hope for another day. The sprint writing also expanded my brain and I felt all was good during the workshop.
The use of tablets made it easy for me to master the reading assignments and I was able to watch our performances and correct areas where I did not do well.
Recommendation
I am happy to be one of the project beneficiaries that attained dancing skills. However, I feel we still need further support in terms of transport to enable us to reach a wider community. I also recommend that the project purchases costumes for us to wear for uniformity during performances. I recommend the project should leave the tablet with us for effective communication among members. We also need to maintain the quality of training skills gained, by meeting twice or thrice in a month and given exposure, any time we can be invited for performances.
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