The afternoon cools into a hush over the foothills of Mbale, where the grasses shimmer like burnished copper under a sky bruised purple with coming dusk. A chorus of crickets rises from the tall grass, their rhythmic chirping threading through the air like beads on a string, while frogs drum low croaks near the riverbank. In the distance, a lone loon calls across the stillness, its mournful cry catching on the breeze, answered by the soft wooden percussion of a bamboo water-knocker. Somewhere be