12.11.2006

Tunnel Vision



It's finals week.
Studying etc is going pretty well,
but I want it to end.
I want to finish my work, leave these hallways and get back to the world outside where there is life and real things - I want to leave this cave of shadows.

By the way,
here is what is outside of the cave of shadows:



These are some of the kids I volunteered for over the summer.
You'll notice they each have a writing pad and a pencil. This is a great step up for the school from last summer. They are learning English, Music (songs), drama, and art. They might have math now that we're back into the regular school year.

While I'm sitting indoors on this couch reading scholarly articles about group theory and hyperbolic representations, wishing I could finish this and move on to the real world, ...

In the real world, kids are hundreds of miles away from home, haven't eaten breakfast yet, probably woke up somewhere between 3 and 5 to collect water for the day, and who knows if they'll ever live anywhere else, which they must because their original government has decided that they are not human enough to live and their temporary environment generally despises them for problems associated with being part of an influx of refugees to Cairo. And these are the lucky ones - the ones whose families can afford to send them to school.

And what am I doing?
today, I'm going to take a geometry test.

2 comments:

Rossy said...

what are we all doing here?

Churaesie said...

I hastily scrawled the following on scraps of available paper later on Monday 12/11. They have since been collected into my notebook and now will be typed. I wrote them after running through the rain back to my dorm, before starting my geometry test, and after a wonderful discussion with Rossy in the Library stairwell.

This is something that I cannot, cannot put to words -
it is not hooking up between my brain & hand,

this expression takes entirely a different pathway. It rises in my chest while I run & chokes itself out of my throat in sobs & tears of gratitude

I did not expect it

This is not an adequate description, but I will record what I can in the hope that something other than these words alone will evoke what
I wish
I wish I wish I could explain

Speaking w/ Rossy about going out and DOING something, going out in pairs even, because 2 people, united can stand against the world, - or even in groups
to put all of ourselves all of our energy and potential toward something that the current world systems do not seem adequate to handle

I choked out a thankyou to God for people like her - for raising people up with a vision and thankyou for not leaving us to the wasteland we are creating but sending out others, still others, and idealism to change the world back to the way it could've been,
should've been

Thankyou for fixing me,
for bringing me back from worthless to give my life to this goal.
Thankyou for friends & encouragement from allowing us to know each other
Thankyou for not completely abandoning this world
Thankyou
Thankyou

these words do not nearly convey what I felt as I ran home.

Think of it as though you're holding not only your life, but the worlds' in your throat, & you must speak for all in every action you commit.

You may never reach the end, but still running:
choke:
Thankyou


In a voice that feels its weight as though it spoke for all of mankind
hope for everyone who will not be forgotten
love from everyone who is enabled to bring hope

RUN
You will choke all your life,
but never stop running