Radishes

"When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to loose, you're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal. How does it feel? How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?"
-Bob Dylan
(I am clearly on a bit of a Dylan kick. To be fair, I have been on one for about 8 years... My Dad's on one too, although I think his goes back further than 8 years...)

January 31, 2009

PC is always asking us how many vulnerable children we are working with. I always find this a stupid question as what child in Africa is not vulnerable? However, I just discovered that I am doing better than I thought, as a discovered my little besti, Katherine's, past. Turns out Katherine who is seven and her sister Rebecca who is ten are orphans. Apparently, their mother got sick, shortly after their father ran off with another woman and then their mother died. This was three years ago in another village. They can to my village then to live with their distant uncle. Msango, their uncle, in a teacher at the P. School, and is a sweet and smiling man. I am glad they are in good hands now and I guess I should have know he was not their father.

Before I came here, I had many conversations with Americans about the state of Africa. "African are always killing each other" or "always in poverty" seems to be common American beliefs. It is not that these generalizations are not sometimes true, but it is a wonder to me how any of them turn out any differently when this is their past. I watch Katherine as she tells me the story. Her little shaved head proudly erect. Her squeaky little voice is even, despite that it is telling me about loosing both parents, about heartache at the age of four. She is not looking for pity or money, she is not telling me because she expects anything. I can tell she does not even think much about her story. It isn't even unique. In fact, there are probably dozens of other kids at the school with stories just like it. Yet she is bravely speaking to the stranger, she is always polite, smiling, she tells me she wants to be a teacher. I came here to teach health and life skills to these kids... seems funny. In ten minutes Katherine has taught me more about life skills than I could hope to teach her. Her story tells of resilience and hope in a small child.

I grew a radish. I think it might be the most beautiful radish I have ever seen. Although to be fair, it is the only radish I have seen in this country. It has a nice rosy- hue and is perfectly round and did not split in the ground. In America, self-help books are always telling you to be thankful for the little things in life. They do not tell you that this can be achieved by moving to Africa, where you find yourself writing journal entries about radishes by candle light. hmmmm.... Sometimes I wonder why people say my blog is interesting....