Ruth Panjeka is explaining that while it is true that the church does not approve of dancing, in Bonga where everyone is living together, you can’t prevent the youngsters from going off to join in. And dancing to the ‘athele’ (by which she means the jerry-can band) is at least something which belongs to the Uduk people themselves; it is not as bad as all these new foreign dances - by which she means the disco and rap type of music and dancing which can be found in the market village growing up outside the refugee scheme. 

Peter Sol takes a harder line, asserting that neither God nor the government want the people to waste their time with dancing and all the sinful things that go with it. If the people do not work and wait quietly as refugees under protection, they will never be able to go home (War and Survival, p. 249).