This is about withdrawal and culture shock. or whatever "it" is.
We held an invisible children screening tonight of the new documentary GO. A friend brought me home. And I walked up to my room, opened up my computer, put "Heaven" by Angels and Airwaves on, and began to write. Not that I have anything to say.
GO is the documentary about students who went to Uganda with Invisible Children after winning a competition to raise money for schools affected by the war in Northern Uganda. (see invisiblechildren.com) These students from all different types of backgrounds and all different places around the US "go" to Uganda to witness firsthand the reality of the situation.
And two things always happen when i see it again. when i see it move.
i turn off completely.
or i get this knot in my chest and i can't talk or can't think except this blinding, spinning movie of images and places and names and people and feelings and just the... africa.
tonight it was the first. but it went back and forth between the two. and heaven is playing still... i think it's on its fifth time through... and i'm remembering hearing it the first time in the bed at momma tom's and on the bus from arusha, TZ to dodoma, and again on the train ride of death... and the words always going through... the song about life and death and the pain that's everywhere.
Do you see the hills beneath the clouds?
The stars as trails to lead you out...
Can you sense the pain? It's everywhere
And if you try, you'll never care
And the love you had when you were young
Is right outside for all to come
if you see the light break through the clouds and fire up the distant towns....
I don't have anything to say really. Just random. It all comes rushing back. Like wind in my face or water across my back.
The hard part is the pain and the suffering and the deplorable conditions we saw. Because it's on the tv in front of me. And the girl next to me gasps, but I didn't feel anything. The girl off to the left moans later on, and I look at her, and she's crying. And I turn back to the screen and see blood and bodies in the street and the face that was destroyed by war. Am I just dead inside? Or even more alive? And then I remember what it was like before I saw it in real time, real life. When I got the sick feeling in my stomach that's coming back even now... And the picture of his head that I'm scared to show flashes on repeat through the eyes in my head... the picture i took from behind a lens. that photo is all i have now.... but i saw it with only the lens of my eyes. against the green backdrop and the red dirt and the boy to his left and the yellow shirt and the fly on his left eyebrow and the dead eyes and the pain. of the burns.
and the world spins. and i get sick. and cry.
i'm coming back. little boy whose name i don't know. the man with his ribs showing. the boy kigoma's streets. the baby in bujumbura's. david, vianney, miracle, peter, james, regina, samuel, cliff, john, hannah. i'm coming back. not because i can help you. not because i can save you or make your life better. but because i have to. because we are human. both of us. all of us together. and when i forget you, my humanity fades.
i'm coming back. because you know what it means to be alive. you talk to each other. you know silence. your hands are dirty. but your spirit clean.
i'm coming back. because the sky is huge and the dirt is red. i feel free and alive. and riding that piki into the sunset amongst herds of zebras and buffalo... wind on my face, through my hair.
i'm coming back. because my liberation is bound up with yours.
"if you come to help me, then you are wasting your time... but if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together."
please stay, don't go...
heaven.