Now She Is Rising ... Still

It’s morning … and I’ve just gotten myself out of bed- Actually, it’s almost noon … The girls are still sleeping. I’m not sure why I’m up now because we had such a busy time last night helping Lindsay and Jeff Korando with the launch of Music for Peace (musicforpeace.wordpress.com). BUT I will save that event for my next blog …

Last night, we arrived around 8PM to help set up and Erin and I worked the door until about 3AM. We made it home close to 4AM (sigh) … just thinking about it makes me want to go jump back in bed … but I’m up … my body would not let me lie and my mind woke up racing with thoughts between here and nowhere. You know that place. Where despite all your attempts to go back to sleep you return to every now and again. A place of endless random thoughts of life and love, growth and stillness, confusion and understanding –

So despite my efforts I woke up in that place and this time instead of fighting to return to my sleep I rose to greet the bright African sun, the noisy children outside, the cool breeze, the neighbors’ crying babies and the stillness of our house

I rose this morning and yet I feel as if I am still rising. That is, to new heights— of learning, loving- joy and truth in both its forms of ugly and beauty to somehow find myself and God in unfamiliar places.

I know that I am not the same as I was before I came. I’ve gained so much.

This trip … this journey to Uganda has allowed me to experience a culture other than my own. Where on some days I feel detached and on others I fit right in…

At this moment, this exact second I’m no longer worried academically as I was as a freshman. Yes, I still second guess myself- sometimes I wonder if I can live up to all the titles I’ve acquired- A College Scholar, Baker Scholar, core-member of Jazz for Justice and Amnesty International UTK … the list goes on and on.

So far, I’ve been able to keep it together, but I’ve always worried people would discover that I’m not as great as those titles describe me to be … that I’m not some extraordinary student, that I’m a little black girl from the inner-city who happened to escape her surroundings of frequently replayed scenarios of dreams deferred, lives broken and violent encounters.

But Uganda, she has allowed me to take that and push it aside. I’m not worried anymore. I know failure and triumph go hand and hand so I embrace whatever comes to me and especially what does not

Living and studying in Gulu with the Acholi people has allowed me to see the resilience in them. They are deeply concerned about their future. They are tired and weary from war and heart-broken over destroyed cultural practices, traditions and infrastructures … but they will not give up. They believe in the power of cultural revival, the healing in reconciliation and the importance of education for rebuilding their lives and society.

And I … I believe with them. Two-decades of war devastated this region. The LRA and its leader Joseph Kony are currently in other regions in Sudan, DRC (the Congo) and CAR (Central African Republic) bordering northern Uganda reeking havoc and destroying lives there. Psychosocial trauma here is a growing problem, many people are still in the desolate IDP camps and poverty is abundant.

Despite all of this and then some I rose this morning to noisy children laughing, singing and playing, to busy mothers and fathers preparing for the Easter celebration tomorrow, to the stillness of our house versus the outside world … Northern Uganda is rising. She is rising from conflict with strength and conviction in an effort to move forward to just a sense of normalcy and familiarity with the environment she has known for centuries.

And I am rising with her, intertwining our hopes and dreams as we go ...


This blog is dedicated to Mrs. Jennifer Alejo. My 12th grade English Teacher who I affectionately call Mama Mcgawl- Mama, you reach down in all of your students to show them a part of themselves that was hidden. You reached into me and showed me that I could be more than what the world told me I could be. You pushed me academically when no one else would, you relentlessly encouraged me and you let me go with all confidence into the world to defy what Maya Angelou calls “the odds and gods” to "sing my song." Thank you.