{"id":449,"date":"2008-04-08T11:54:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T11:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/04\/storytelling-daniel-part-2.html"},"modified":"2008-04-08T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T11:54:00","slug":"storytelling-daniel-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/04\/storytelling-daniel-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Storytelling: Daniel, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s Part 2 of Daniel’s story, <\/span>which began yesterday in this post<\/a>. Daniel is a teenage performer with Spirit of Uganda<\/a>, a group of musicians and dancers (most of whom are orphans) who are touring the U.S. right now as the public face of Empower African Children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read Part 1<\/a> of Daniel’s story.<\/p>\n

—————<\/p>\n

When he turned five, Daniel began primary school, where he was taught math and English along with 100 other students in mud houses with dirt floors. The young children sat on mats called obulagos, because only grades 4 to 7 had benches for sitting. Everyone was poor, but some children wore a uniform of khaki shorts and blue shirts. Daniel went without because his family was unable to afford the clothing. All the students says barefoot. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a single pupil in the school who wore shoes,\u201d Daniel recalls. \u201cEven now, you would never find a child with shoes in that school, because all the children come from poor families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before long, Daniel\u2019s father became ill with a mysterious disease and spent a full year in the hospital in Mbarara. \u201cI always asked my mother where my father was, but she never told me,\u201d he says. \u201cI was too young to understand what was going on. I thought that he had left to look for work in the city.\u201d During that year, Daniel\u2019s mother had to stop working in order to care for his father, relying on neighbors to provide food for her children.<\/p>\n

Daniel\u2019s father eventually returned home \u2014Daniel remembers him looking \u201cvery thin\u201d \u2014 but died soon after. Following the burial, Daniel learned from his mother that his father had been a victim of AIDS. \u201cShe did not explain what this disease was, so I did not understand it,\u201d he says. \u201cI never asked any questions.\u201d Within the next year, Daniel\u2019s little sister died, too. \u201cMy mother was very sad but she remained strong,\u201d he says, but it didn\u2019t last long. A year later, Daniel\u2019s mother died of AIDS.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so scared,\u201d Daniel says. \u201cI did not know what would happen to me.\u201d Daniel was sent to live with his elderly grandparents. He had to leave school because they couldn\u2019t afford the school fees, so Daniel was put to work tending to his grandfather\u2019s four cows. Several years passed until his grandfather decided to sell one of the cows in 2003, and with that money Daniel was finally able to return to school.<\/p>\n

His grandfather died in 2005 at the age of 97. A month later, Daniel\u2019s 98-year-old grandmother passed away, and he found himself orphaned yet again. Eventually he went to live with an uncle in the capital city of Kampala, where he experienced a significant culture shock. \u201cI had never seen electric lights and running water in a house,\u201d he says. \u201cI had never seen television.\u201d He enrolled at the local primary school. Daniel\u2019s uncle worked with Kitala Dramactors, a local troupe that performed traditional music and dance, and before long, Daniel became a member of the group. Soon he had attracted the attention of his uncle\u2019s friend, David Kasata, the assistant artistic director of Spirit of Uganda. In June of 2007, Daniel joined Spirit of Uganda. \u201cMy life is so good now,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel that there is hope for me now.\u201d<\/p>\n

—————<\/p>\n

Daniel\u2019s story sounds extreme, but the truth is that so many Ugandan orphans have stories heartbreakingly similar to his. These are the kids Empower African Children<\/a> is devoted to reaching through their work on behalf of the orphaned and vulnerable children of Uganda.<\/p>\n

Learn more at the Empower African Children\/Spirit of Uganda tour blog.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s Part 2 of Daniel’s story, which began yesterday in this post. Daniel is a teenage performer with Spirit of Uganda, a group of musicians and dancers (most of whom are orphans) who are touring the U.S. right now as the public face of Empower African Children. Read Part 1 of Daniel’s story. ————— When…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nStorytelling: Daniel, Part 2 - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/04\/storytelling-daniel-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Storytelling: Daniel, Part 2 - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s Part 2 of Daniel’s story, which began yesterday in this post. 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