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“I hope I didn’t put my foot in it when I met them. I assumed by the way she was holding on to him.”

Lucie covered a snigger. “It’s fine. I wish they would admit they liked each other like that, but I think they’re a lost cause.”

“So, what is she? A friend of the family?”

“Like Gran, Mandy was a mother figure. Still is. She started working at the pub when I was about nine. I went off the rails for a bit after my dad told me about my mum, typical teen angst but amplified. Mandy helped me through it. Got me on the straight and narrow when Dad and Gran couldn’t.”

“Does Mandy live in the village?”

“Yes. In Gran’s old house.”

“Oh.”

“When I turned sixteen, Gran bought the house next door. She didn’t want to live out her years in a flat above a pub.” She paused briefly. “It was soon after that she started having memory problems. By eighteen I’d moved in with her to nurse her.” Lucie twiddled the stem of her glass. “It’s funny, Gran encouraged me to act and taught me how to care for people, and my career became a combination of both. She left me enough money to follow my dreams and go to university, knowing I had put them on hold for her.”

“And what took you to Africa?” Frances asked.

“It grew out of my degree, really. The course focused on theatre as a tool for social, personal, and political change. We explored performance in community and educational settings, and it opened my eyes to how we can use performance for activism and social justice.”

“That sounds incredible.”

“We studied projects with refugees, young people in challenging situations, and communities affected by conflict or poverty. It sparked something in me. That, and having cared for Gran for so many years, I didn’t know how to stop. I wanted to see how drama could make a difference somewhere resources are scarce, but the communities’ creativity was strong. Namibia was a place where even a small contribution could matter.”

Frances nodded.

“I joined a programme teaching drama and English in schools and community centres, mostly with women and children who’d faced real hardships, sometimes trauma. I learned so much.”

“It sounds like it was as much about your growth as theirs.”

Lucie hummed her agreement. “Every day was a challenge. It pushed me to think creatively. It wasn’t about having all the answers; it was about listening and helping people find their voice. It gave me a huge sense of purpose and taught me practical skills I never imagined I’d need. After a couple of years in Namibia, I began coordinating an NGO programme for women and children.”

“That’s a non-government organisation, right?”

“Yes. Charities and social impact groups are vital in filling the gaps official services can’t reach. It was so successful that they asked me to expand it across the border into Botswana. Each country had its own context and its own needs. I learned about managing projects in different communities, understanding local needs, and supporting local staff.” She gave a small shrug. “It was less hands-on, more desk-based, but I was achieving something.”

Frances couldn’t contain her smile. “You were making a difference.”

“I was. It was... transformative. I went there with an idea of what I wanted to do, but it was the people and the communities who taught me.”

“Was there a language barrier in Botswana?”

“Not really. They mainly speak English in the urban communities, and in rural areas where they mainly spoke Setswana, there were always enough English speakers around to translate.”

“Dare I ask how it is for people like us?”

“Lesbians or women?”

Frances laughed. “Well, I meant the former.”

“It isn’t prohibited, but that doesn’t mean it’s accepted. I didn’t make a thing of it in public. Even in private, you are careful who you tell. As for women, violence is even more underreported than it is here. Inequality, power imbalances — it’s rife. Double the global average.”

“Oh. I thought Botswana was fairly safe. It’s not exactly a war zone.”

“Compared to the rest of Africa, it is. But we weren’t fixing war trauma; we were addressing structural and social issues. Drama works well because group-based learning is culturally familiar there. It’s accessible and doesn’t need high literacy levels. We framed it as education and skills building rather than therapy anyway; that’s more of a Western culture spin.”

Lucie shifted, taking another sip of wine and placing her glass on the table.

“We worked with a lot of youth too. There is high unemployment and a lot of tension between traditional expectations and modern global influences. One of the powerful aspects of drama is that it allows participants and audiences to experience and learn from human behaviour in a safe, indirect way.”