A different normal.

I realized recently that our days here are dwindling. It's November already... how did that happen?

Sometimes it feels like I'm going to go back home after a long glorified summer vacation. I'll get a new haircut and start school in the fall, and the weather will gradually get colder, and my friends will have stories of late summer nights and sipping lemonade by pool sides and summer flings, but overall not much will have changed and life will go back to the normal routine.

Then I look at the calendar I sketched into the pages of my notebook. It's November 3rd.

In a way, I will be returning home after a long glorified summer vacation. Its hot here... that's like summer. But I'll step off the plane and the biting winter temperatures will surely snap me out of summer mode. The stories I hear will be about sleepless homework-filled nights, and sipping hot cocoa around a fireplace, and the lack of social life that everyone has endured, and everything will have changed, and I won't go back to the normal routine.

I can't go back the normal routine. Maybe that's a better way of putting it. I can't, and I won't.

I can't go back to the normal routine because of Prossy. I can't spend money the way I did, because Prossy needs a sponsor to go to secondary school. She is just finishing up primary school, and she will begin secondary in February if she has the funds. Secondary school costs more than primary school by a fair amount. If she doesn't have the funds, it's likely that she will get married within the next couple years, because it's easier and then her guardian doesn't have to support her any longer. She's twelve years old. She wants to be a lawyer. What if I gave up buying new clothes every so often so that Prossy can go to secondary school? What if we all sacrificed money so that these children can have bright futures?

I can't go back to the normal routine because of Gloria. She's taught me to laugh at everything. To find joy in each day. To do something when bored. This girl is sassy but so easy to get along with; she simply loves life. Small annoyances or things that frustrate me each day are so petty, and I want to learn to look past them to see beauty and joy in everything. How can I go back to the normal routine after meeting Gloria, who sings louder, climbs trees higher, and smiles bigger than anyone?

I can't go back to normal routine because of Norbert. Rebel soldiers came to this boy's home when he was around eight years old. They forced him to kill his parents, cut them into pieces, boil them over a fire, and eat them. Norbert's story is unbelievable and makes your heart drop to your stomach, but now, it's a story of resilience and healing... today, even though he is shy, he plays and is a kid again. He smiles and laughs. He is gentle and loving. Remembering Norbert's story convinces me to come back to Africa. There are twenty-seven million slaves in our world today. This includes the Ugandan child soldiers forced to fight. I can't go back to the normal routine, because stories like Norbert's can't happen anymore. We MUST refuse to accept a world where a person is held as the "property" of another person, forced to do unthinkable things.



I can't go back to the normal routine because of baby Esther. When she sprints into my arms after I haven't seen her for two days, the entire world melts away and that's all that matters. This baby girl's mother, like Prossy, was extremely intelligent and passed her primary school exams with flying colors. Because she didn't have enough money for secondary school, she was married at age fifteen to a man much older. She's happy and finds joy in life, but wants her daughter to be able to go to school. She wants to give baby Esther the opportunity she didn't have. In my normal routine, I never thought about situations like this. It was easier to ignore injustice when it didn't have a face. But now injustice could be Esther being married in 14 years, simply because she doesn't have school fees. I can't go back to the normal routine and not think about this. I must do what I can to change this, not only for Esther, but for children in Milwaukee as well.

My time here in Africa is not just a long glorified summer vacation. In these four months, I'm living a lifetime of stories and hugs and smiles and tears. And when I go home, my routine can't be what was normal. Normal has to be different. Maybe we can do it together, all of us. Maybe we can make a different normal... one where poor children can go to school. One where adults and kids alike can find joy in the simple things and laugh simply because life is good. Maybe it's idealistic, but I am convinced, after being here and seeing these kids, that it's completely realistic. Let's try.