Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: It's a Colorful World (12/03/09)
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TITLE: The quiet souls | Previous Challenge Entry
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12/09/09 -
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We are travelling in an armed convoy, heading northwest to the dangerous border of Sudan and Chad. We speed along the road curving amongst shrubs and dunes, only slightly slowing down when going through a dry river bed.
The men (and they are mostly men) who accompany me on this adventure are masked and armed, not even a glimpse of expression escapes from beneath the helmets, goggles and head scarves that protect from the sun and the sand. We are the armies of humanity, speeding to the assistance of the vulnerable and marginalized living on the edges of the world, barely hanging on.
Or so we think.
Armed with guns and pens we endeavor to tell the world of how we have saved and helped and rescued. We have triumphed, yes humanity has triumphed and we have redeemed ourselves from the atrocities we inflict on each other.
But the colors that light my soul and brighten the harsh landscape are those of the strangers along the road. These are the people we as outsides are trying to lift to our standards of sufficiency and provision, yet they are the ones with the peace resting in their eyes. They are scattered amongst their feeble belongings, yet hold on dearly to each other as a community. They have strength despite all the uncertainty that surrounds them and the authority and respect with which they speak to us and each other again brings a hidden smile to my face: yes, once again, it is the poor and humble who teach us how to live.
A group of women wearing the traditional and beautifully colored African ‘toub’ or cloth they wrap around their bodies walk towards the path where our vans will soon return. We have rushed into their world and leave hurried and proud, satisfied at our meager response. One of the women turns to me and smiles, our eyes meeting for a second. A broad and honest smile; an untainted heart. She lights up my world with the color of her soul and I speed past her knowing that I am the empty one. The beauty hidden amongst the quiet souls of the earth has shown me the Beauty to come. I smile. Yes let it come.
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