The following text is fow questions 26 to 30.

    There is a boy from Uganda named John Ssbunya. He is a shy boy and speaks very slowly. His character might have been affected by his past.

    Uganda was in a war when John was two years old. He was left all alone since he lost his mother and father in the war. He would have died if he was not adopted by a colony of green monkeys when he was left all alone. He learnt their behaviour after living with them for three years, such as living on a diet of fruits, berries and nuts and climbing trees.

    In 1991, a woman saw him scavenging for food with chimpanzees. She reported it to the villagers and people caught him. It was hard since the monkeys were fighting back to prevent the people from taking John away from them.

    John was brought to an orphanage and taught to behave and speak like human. When he was able to utter his first words, it was found that he had a great singing voice. John Ssubunya has joined a 20-strong Pearl of Africa children 's choir now and has gone to many different countries on tour.

27. " ... after living with them for three years, ...." (Paragraph 2)

The underlined word refers to ____.