We Learned a Lot Today

It was a hot Tuesday. The sun had no mercy as it blasted its rays down on the parched and lifeless ground. Piles of garbage caused our vehicle to swerve so it could remain on a relative flat but unmarked roadway through the mud and straw dwellings that housed hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons from the Nubian Mountains, Darfur and war-torn Southern Sudan. As the Land Cruiser slowly rolled through an everlasting human obstacle course it appeared as though half the population was under thae age of 15.

It was not difficult to tell when we were approaching the YMCA school in this area called Gabarona. (meaning "forced to relocate"). Children were milling about the entrance of the school a school with the huge metal doors and high mud and straw walls. There was excitement in the air as we parked the vehicle and started to walk toward the doors of the school - believed to be one of only three schools in the entire resettlement area. The five of us carried in huge bags of brand new clothes which we were scheduled to hand out to the 315 of the 370 students of the YMCA school.

As we walked through the doors we were met by a noisy group of students all seated under the straw matting above their heads and waiting for something they could not understand. Why would these white-skinned people from so far away come to visit OUR school? But the apprehension soon got forgotten as they burst into song - songs of happiness and songs giving thsnks. The faces were smiling. The voices were strong and clear....and giving English their best shot.

Some were 12 year olds, much more knowledgeable and experienced than their younger brothers and sisters. Some were babes in arms - in the arms of their older sisters - some only a few years older than themselves. Some had sandels on their feet but most did not. Some were wearing relatively clean clothes, but most were not. Some were sure that something good was going to happen in the school that afternoon, but some were not.

When the singing and the words of welcome were spoken, the distribution of the new clothes to every child in the school began. These were not someone elses discarded used clothes, but brand new clothes still in ther cellophane wrappers. Some had experienced something new to wear before today, but most had not.

As the children squeezed their newly acquired clothes close to their body, they slowly returned to their newly painted benches and began singing thank you songs in the same rough English we had heard when we had entered. It was emotional - no doubt about it. It wasn't the new clothes that were important today. The clothes were just another attempt to help these young displaced children gain some dignity and self-respect...to help these children realize that there is more to life than parched earth, mud and straw huts with one room for large families, questionable water that came from old oil barrels welded together on donkey pulled carts, piles of garbage with paths cleared through them to get from place to place, and people out there somewhere that forced them to move further out into the desert every time they seemed to make new communities in which to live.

There are others out there somewhere that care that they can walk and play in good clothes, that they can respect themselves and each other, that not everyone out there is determined to treat them as less than human and that they can have access to a basic education that will allow the more determined of them to go on and realize that their dreams may actually be possible. And they will.

Now that we have seen the value of the program and seen the depth of the need, and that we can help, will we?

We all learned a lot today, and we were taught by young children.