Mary visited Uganda in 2008 and was photographed wearing protective gear with a mine-clearing team.
This is a translation of an account of that visit, including a brief interview with Mary.
From my archive:
Translation of TV2-article: (No longer online).
Dybt bevæget Mary sagde farvel – Deeply moved Mary said goodbye.
Crown Princess Mary yesterday ended her visit to northern Uganda as patron for Danish Refugee Council. In an interview with Ritzau the Crown Princess talks about how the human stories moved her deeply on a journey, which also had many unexpected and improvised events.
For four days the Crown Princess in plane and car with police and military escort was met by hundreds and hundreds of refugees and internally displaced. That took place with singing and dancing but also with serious looks in the eyes of deeply poor people, who in the words of the Crown Princess went through “hell”.
- “Before I left I read and heard a lot about the area and the problems people there face. But I come home with a human perspective and that is perhaps the most important perspective of them all. I will never be able to fully comprehend what they have been through. But when you see the misery and hear their stories, you get an understanding for what it means”, said the Crown Princess, who have “seen things in colour”.
- “If I had a black and white image before, colours have now been added. It has become more expressive/clearer. It has provided me with a stronger capacity for presenting the problems and solutions, that I have now met the destinies behind it”, says the Crown Princess, who have been surprised in a positive way in “vitality and human ability to survive”, she has encountered.
The Crown Princess was during the visit bombarded with impressions for her senses in the shape of smells, sounds and visual impressions.
- “But the strongest for me has clearly been what my eyes have seen. And it’s things I haven’t seen before: Poverty in the eyes of little children. So when I place my head on the pillow at night it takes time to fall asleep. The pictures of small faces and adult faces move past again and again. You can see on their faces that they have been through a hell. But there is hope”, says the Crown Princess.
- “It’s difficult to let go of these images. They just pop up suddenly. (*) It’s faces and people who have affected me hard”, said a deeply moved Crown Princess, who now when the schedule is over, can let go a little bit.
- ”While it’s going on, you try to be as strong as you possibly can. But now when it is over and I have to talk about, you let go a little”, says the Crown Princess to Ritzau.
It’s no least the meeting with kindergarten children and former child-soldiers at Moyo, which affected the Crown Princess so deep emotionally, that the tears forced their way through.
- “The song they sang for us, and the children who individually stood forward and told their own stories made a big impression. But it must be somewhat healing for them, that they words on what they have been through, because we have seen that a lot during the trip”, says the Crown Princess, who have shown a great ability to improvise, when for instance a rain storm interrupts the schedule.
While everyone stands shivering soaking wet and cold, the Crown Princess spend the time in chatting to even more children through the bars of a glassless window in a classroom.
Also when the Crown Princess talks to shy or traumatised children, whom it’s difficult to get to say anything about their problems, the Crown Princess improvise. Then she instead asked whether they play football/soccer and who they side with.
But there have also been big smiles and laughter, as when the Crown Princess visited the Ongako camp for internally displaced outside Gulu.
Here she was met by one of the leaders of the camp, who said that he “thought that crown princesses only flew and that people like them would only hear the whoosh of the plane, when the Crown Princess flew over the camp”. And when the Crown Princess after a couple of hours left the camp it took place dancing in a large group of likewise dancing children and adults.
There were also smiles when the Crown Princess visited the Lama refugee camp and the Crown Princess’ two bodyguards from PET, somewhat surprising were introduced with title and full name in full public glare. That hasn’t happened before.
There was also room for smile when an elderly man interrupted a speech at a health clinic and delivered a somewhat incoherent prayer and presented the delegation of the Crown Princess with a plastic bag with hen’s eggs.
In the same place the Crown Princess, when she at some point was in the middle of a big black cluster of children, made some of them squeal with laughter, when she started tickling them.
(*) These images will never stop popping up.
