Taller

My son went to Uganda, Africa this summer

and he came home taller

adding one inch

to his five-foot eight-inch frame.

Mom, Africa has captured me….

Traditional Acholi tribal dances

keeping the rhythm men

beating on drums, shaking gourds

hips swaying, stepping

flowing in and out girls

under a blood red evening sun

with colors so bright, so vibrant

they seemed photo-shopped in

Bone jarring potholes

riding busses that fishtailed down

bumpy roads with crammed-in passengers

fighting nausea and hour

after hour numbness

dodging bottomless mud pits

that sucked vehicles whole

Grilled goat

throat-slit and slaughtered while video cameras

rolled and blood pooled on the ground

meat chewed and ripped with calloused

hands as our hosts tacked

up the skins

to dry on the wall behind us

Weather baked bodies

bathing in open water on streets

next to fly-covered trash

fermenting in shallow puddles

seven-year-old brother

scaring for five-year-old orphaned sisters

making my throat hurt

Reaching, smiling faces

yelling “mzungu, mzungu, well-off white person”

delivering Jesus and food to widows

stripped bare by twenty years of civil war

crouching in mud covered huts

with children who dream dreams

of being a doctor, a teacher, a soccer player

a lawyer

My son went to Africa this summer

He came home taller.

©July 12, 2010