Last Showing

After the last showing of A Long Walk Home, a lot of people stuck around to hear me trying to answer questions. I really appreciate the amount of questions asked, even though most were by the same two guys.
I was told later that I presented myself as being rather personable, and that's what I'm going for. I think that encourages people to engage the material and ask questions more.

I really appreciate people being interested and giving me the chance to speak about things which I start to forget until I hear myself saying them again. And I still don't know what it is. There is something, some topic, some theme, some expression - that when my explanation gets too close to it, my throat tightens up and my voice gets wavery and it seems best to stop and pretend to think or to just start the movie because if I try to talk any longer, I won't sound right.

Way at the end, the Student Volunteer Coordinator asked me some questions about what I thought of the organization I went to Cairo with and whether I'd recommend it for other students.

I didn't know what to say.
I wanted to compare it to recommending that someone see Requiem for a Dream, but she hadn't seen that movie.

She asked if I thought it was a good experience.

I didn't know what to say.

I wanted to hear myself say, "Yes, it was a wonderful learning experience, I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to go into summer volunteer work."

But that's just not true.
If someone really looked into it and decided that it aligned with what they wanted to put their energy towards, I guess I'd recommend it, but by then, that person would no longer need my recommendation.


Was it good?

I still don't know exactly how it's been working through my system.

I am continually grateful for the very existence of Ethan Rafal.

It hasn't helped me with school work.
I think it's contributed to a scattering of my sense of relation to other people.
It keeps asking me to question my sense of social responsibility.
It concretely confronts me deep problems in human society that I cannot solve.
It shakes my concept of what I can accomplish and how.
It feels like a dream sometimes.
But I know I can't forget it.
It introduced me to people and places that I chose to love in 5 weeks, and that I may never see again.
It challenged my ability to see justice and injustice
and my own responsibility (and patience) toward that.

It gave me few real answers,
except that God is good and trustworthy.


It was real.
It is real.
It is true. Therefore, it is good for me.
I will learn to deal with truth.

I cannot walk away from it.
It is not over.
I can never talk about it as if it was something that happened.
It is still happening.


Yes.
For me, it was good.
It is good.


But I would like to understand what has been changing in me and how.
And what it means that it is still real
the people I met and places I went are still true.

I forget how deep this goes
until someone asks, and they actually care so
I try to explain

And, I can't because my voice has stopped.
my voice is drowned
because my eyes are overflowing with water.




And I want to do my homework, but I feel rather emptied.