Short Story #2 Drafts – Shannon's Site

Draft #1:

Shannon O’Roak Short Story #2

Watered Down Dreams
The sun is the first thing I notice in the morning. Is the sun radiating on to my back? Do the puffy white clouds cover it? Is the sky blanketed in gray and grumbling in the distance? Then I noticed the smells of the Earth which I have become quite skilled at. I have a knack for being able to tell when it is going to rain. This doesn’t happen often near my village, but when it does, it’s usually celebrated. In addition to the days weather, I also notice patches of grass where animals have tracked, and if I can see their prints in the dirt, I often try to identify them. When you walk almost four miles each day to fetch water, you tend to become in tune with nature. As I walk through patches of tall grass and dry stretches of dirt, I admire all that the Earth has to offer me. I have to maintain this positive outlook, otherwise my life would amount to a repetitive and draining sadness.

You see, I am the only girl in my family, and in my village that means I have to go get the water. This means most of my day is spent walking to and from our nearest water source. I carry a large jug on my head to hold the water in, making my trip back home much longer than the trip there. The jug is nearly 40 pounds which is heavy for most people to carry for miles atop their head, let alone a girl who’s 13 like me. Nevertheless, I carry my jug day in and day out, because it’s what my family needs from me. Without retrieving water, mother wouldn’t be able to cook and none of us would be able to bathe. Water is also essential to grow our food, which is where our village gets their primary source of nutrients. We need water every day, and somebody has to be the one the go out and get it.

Since fetching the water is such a long, strenuous process, I usually can’t do much else during daylight hours. Of course, this means school is out of the question. Most of the girls in our village do not attend school once they are old enough to go out and collect water. It’s customary where I’m from that the boys need to be educated more than girls, because they will be the ones providing for their families. As a girl, I’m being prepared to take care of a family by helping mother prepare our meals and taking care of my younger siblings. I hate this part of living in my village the most.

You see, I’m not like most of the girls here in my village. I yearn for something more than caring for a family and fetching the water. I desire an education and exploration of more than these tired dusty paths. I try to be thankful for the life I have been given, none of my family has fallen ill from the water and we have enough food to fill our stomachs. Yet I still find myself feeling disappointed with this life. I have dreams bigger than the heavens mother always says, but my dreams are what keep me going. My dreams are a fire burning deep inside of me, they shine so bright at times that I imagine they could pick me up and carry me away from this place. Sometimes I feel as though I am stuck and will never escape the endless cycle that is my life, and I won’t live long or bold enough to see my dreams become reality.

All of a sudden, I heard a low rumble. I had been so lost in thought that I hadn’t realized how black the sky had become. I felt a rush of heat throughout my body as I felt my heart beginning to race. I was not too far from home, but this was not the kind of rain we rejoiced over. This was the kind of rain that damaged our land and murdered our crops. Even though I’m supposed to be more mature now, I am still afraid. I hasten my pace as I walk back towards my village, hoping and praying that I make it back in time. As the rumbling grows louder, I suddenly become numb to the pain in my shoulders from carrying the jug and in my feet from walking so fast. I try to shut out the sounds of imminent danger while I continue to walk and pray. Walk and pray. Walk and pray.

As I enter my village, I can see the horizon being lit up by numerous but fleeting volts of light. I can see mother waiting for me with my little brother Azibo. My mother is wearing a concerned look on her face, she’s a strong woman, so fear is a quality I rarely see in her. My mother is also a very tough woman, so as I continue walking towards our home, I know a warm welcome is not what’s ahead.

“Mandisa you get inside this house this instant! I have told you time and time again to watch the sky when you are walking, if you had been caught out there in that storm, you would’ve never arrived home and imagine what that would do to our family!”

“I’m sorry mother! I promise it came about so quickly, I didn’t mean to scare you and walked–”

“I don’t need to hear you excuses, get in the house and start boiling that water so I can get dinner started before this storm hits.” Mother said in a slightly less irritated tone.

I had learned over the years that it was best not to argue with mother. Even when I felt she was acting completely insane, I couldn’t disagree, or I would be in a world of trouble that would make walking to the water seem like paradise. I meant it when I said my mother is tough. I did as she said and went inside to boil the water. I could hear the wind gusts from inside the house and could see mother and father trying their best to secure the crops. These kinds of storms often brought our village and villages like ours massive destruction.

We have to boil all the water we gather from the watering hole, because often it is not clean enough for us to drink otherwise. Even after boiling the water people in the village still often get sick. Our family has been lucky enough not to fall ill from the water, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen to us. Just last week one of the men in our village grew so ill that they had to bring him to the hospital. The hospital was over 10 miles away from our village, so many people do not survive long enough to be treated. We still do not know if the man from our village will return, or if we will have to grieve his loss like so many others.

At that moment mother, father, and Azibo came in from outside, they had secured our crops as best as they could. Father wore a concerned look on his face and seemed so tired. His shoulders were hunched forward and the wrinkles on his forehead had become more prominent. He eased himself into one of our kitchen chairs, and my focus turned to mother.She brushed up against me nodding towards the spoon I had in hand so the water wouldn’t boil over.

“I can make dinner on my own tonight Mandisa, go help you brother wash up before supper.”

“But I don’t need a bath! I’m clean see!” Abizo exclaims as he puts his hands up, palms facing outwards.

“Well let’s see your feet then if you’re so clean” mother says to Abizo with an unimpressed look on her face. Abizo puts his head down and heads back towards the tub, he knows his feet are filthy from being outside all day. As I filled the tub with some of the water I had already boiled and let cool, Abizo was dancing around, as if all of his disdain for the bathtub had melted away.

“Disa Disa guess what? Today in school I got to practice math and scored the winning goal at recess!” Abizo exclaimed with pride.

“That’s great Abizo, it sounds like it was exciting” I said less enthusiastically.

“Oh it really was Disa, I’ve decided that I’m going to play football all over the world, and I’m going to score the most goals ever!” before I could get a word in he quickly added “you can come with me Disa, and then we can travel together in the real world instead of just our story books!”

I smiled at him and said “I would love that Abizo.” And I really would love that, but I was older than Abizo and I knew how challenging our actual lives were, let alone how impossible it would be to create a new one. If I’m being honest with myself, I’m quite jealous of Abizo. He believes in his dreams whole heartedly and I wish I had the kind of courage to believe mine would come true too. Abizo also will be able to finish school and end up being much more educated than me. Going to school was always so exciting for me as a girl, and I was heartbroken the day mother told me I could no longer attend. School was my escape and only chance at reaching my dreams. To be educated means you have more opportunities. Being an educated woman in my village is rare and only happens if someone else can collect water. Sometimes in large families if there were two girls close to the same age one could continue with her education, at least part time. But this wasn’t the case for my family since it’s just Abizo and I. All I had were the dreams in my head and the hope that one day I would be presented with an opportunity to achieve them.

After I finished bathing Abizo, I dried him off and he changed for dinner. We then sat down as a family as we did every night and discussed our days. This was my favorite part of every day, because I felt that it was the same everywhere. When we are at dinner, we’re just people enjoying each other’s company. There’s no pressure to complete your duties, to sound smart, or to pretend you’re happy. If you had a bad day you could say that, and you didn’t have to feel inferior to anyone. In my mind, doctors, lawyers, and wealthy upper-class members across the world were of the same status as the poor during dinner.

After dinner was my time to relax so I usually reread one of the few books we had in our house. Sometimes I was so desperate for knowledge that I would even read Abizo’s schoolbooks. Tonight, while reading it was cold in our home, and I could hear the wind picking up outside. The rain was smacking against the outer walls, annoying me and giving me a headache. I had lived through a number of these storms, and I knew very well that the sounds of the wind and rain were worrisome. We would most definitely lose some of our crops, but the question was how much of it would we lose? If we lost too much, we would suffer immensely in the next harvest season. This had happened to some families in previous storms, and it took years of replanting and growth to no longer feel the ache of hunger in their bellies. In my village, most people didn’t have enough extra food to spare, but we shared with each other as much as we could. As I closed my eyes for sleep, I pictured what far-away places might look like and how I would explore them. At least I would always have the dreams in my head, even if I could never reach them during the day.

That morning, I awoke to the sounds of vomiting. I could hear my mother’s voice faintly, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. She was talking to my father in a distressed tone, and that’s when I realized it. Abizo was sick. I got up and out of my bed, and sure enough, Abizo was violently vomiting into a bucket he was holding in his hands. I could see his body contorting every time he vomited, and he had tears and snot streaming down his face. I went over to him and placed a hand on his back. It is normal for children to get sick, but I had never seen Abizo this ill, or remember being like this myself. His skin was pale and clammy and as I reached around to feel his forehead, I felt my heart sink. My parents were still talking in hushed tones, but I already knew what they didn’t want to say. Abizo had become sick from water.

“Disa, I have to go” Abizo said to me with an embarrassed look on his face.

“You have to go where Abizo?” I questioned, but the smell that came next confirmed that it wasn’t a place he had to go. “It’s okay Abizo, take my hands and we’ll go to the bathroom” I said as I reach for him. He took my hands, and I could tell how weak he was as he trembled getting up from the floor. He leaned almost all of his weight on me as we made our way to the bathroom. I sat him on the toilet and realized I would have to brace him there so he wouldn’t fall over. His condition was progressing quickly, and he kept shutting his eyes for extended periods of time. The smell was horrible, but his hopeless expression helped me suppress the urge to be sick myself. My father suddenly entered the bathroom and look at me, then Abizo, and firmly stated “We’re going to the hospital.”

As my father took Abizo in his arms, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I could not let Abizo know how scared I was though, so I pushed the tears back. I grasped Abizo’s face with my hands and kissed him gently on the forehead. He opened his big brown eyes and looked at me. He gave me a small smile and mustered up the ability to say to me “I can see our dreams Disa.” I was barely able to utter a simple “me too.” He was able to give me a feeble wave as father carried him out the door. I waved back to him as I watched him disappear from my sight. That is the last time I ever saw my brother.

My father returned merely hours after he had left. He returned without Abizo, and the look of horror on my mother’s face is something that will forever be imprinted in my mind. Abizo was buried in our village in the same place where all of the people we have lost are. There was a ceremony a few days after his death, but I honestly don’t remember much of it. I had never even considered the possibility of losing my brother until he was already gone. When you’re young, you just don’t think of things like that. Every night I now imagined my brother and I going on wild adventures together like he’d always wanted. This brought me some comfort, but mostly just reminded me of how alone I really was.

After Abizo’s death the village was talking about it for weeks. He was only seven and losing a child is always especially painful. I kept hearing people in the village referring to his illness as “the Cholera.” I did not know what this meant, but I didn’t really have a desire to either. All I knew was that my brother was gone, and I would have to live with that grief for the rest of my life. My family had not been the same ever since we lost Abizo. We all walked around as if we were in a haze, and I wasn’t sure if we would ever be happy again.

A few weeks had passed since Abizo’s death when I was walking back home from the watering hole. When I entered the village, something seemed off. Everyone seemed so hopeful, and there was a large group of children playing soccer nearby, laughing and smiling. People were singing and dancing in the street. The storm before Abizo became sick had ruined many crops and even some of the houses in the village. I was perplexed, I didn’t know how there was any joy left to muster in my village, but in that very moment I saw him. Someone was in the village I had never seen before, and he didn’t look like he belonged. His shoes were brown and looked like they had only been worn a few times. He had on blue jeans, no holes, and a grey t-shirt that fit nicely. His hair was neatly trimmed, and he looked around as if he was trying to solve something. Just then I saw my mother smiling with a few other village women. It had been so long since I saw her smile, I had almost forgotten what it looked like. I went up to her and asked

“Mother what’s going on? Why is that man here?”

“Mandisa, that man and a few others have come here all the way from America, and they say they give us access to cleaner water.”

“Cleaner water! Don’t you think we would have found that by now?” I said with irritation. These men knew nothing about our home, yet were trying to fix it?

“They say there is clean water in the ground, and they have brought us tools to find it. We are going to build a well Mandisa, right here in the center of town”

“They say it will last decades did you hear that!” one of the women said excitedly.

“Yes, I did. This is going to make our lives so much better, no more going to fetch water, no more worrying about water for our crops, and especially clean, safe water to drink” my mother replied, I could tell she was thinking of Abizo by the haziness in her eyes.

I looked over at the man again, who had now been joined by others like him. Some of the men from our village had now joined in too and were helping them pick out a spot for our new well. I couldn’t fully comprehend what I was feeling. Happiness, opportunity, grief, fear, and mostly the longing I had for Abizo to see this. I thought of my little brother now and imagined how excited he would have been. He would have been playing soccer with the kids in the street and trying to make me laugh. It was then that I realized this well would give me my opportunities. The opportunity to be educated and go on to become a doctor and help kids like

Abizo or a teacher and give children the opportunity to learn. I would be able to travel the world and go all the places Abizo and I had read about in our books. I would go back to school and I would travel, and I would do it with Abizo in mind, taking him with me every step of the way. As the calm breeze brushed past my cheeks and the sun shined down on our village, I knew he was right here with me.

Journal #9: Reflection

Through today’s workshop I got to receive feedback on my story, and it helped me figure out which suggestions I wanted to use if I revise it for a final draft. I appreciated the comments I received about my foreshadowing and the ending of my story. I’m also glad I captured the perspective of a 13-year-old girl well, because I struggled with this during the writing process. For my revision, I would like to start by adding in more inner struggles/emotion for Mandisa. I want to go into painful detail about her walk back from the village. I also want to make her rage with the American’s coming into her village more obvious. I also really liked a comment Isabella suggested about giving the village people more of a role in the well building process. This was my initial intention, but I would like to make it more apparent in my story. Isabella also gave me a suggestion about a forming friendship between the girls who fetch water, and I found this idea interesting as well. Lastly, it’s really important to me that my story raises awareness for poorer communities who may not have access to these things most Americans have so easily, such as drinking water. I also want to raise awareness about the lack of education for many young girls and water-borne diseases such as cholera.

Final Draft

Shannon O’Roak

You see, I am the only girl in my family, and in my village that means I have to go get the water. Most of my day is spent walking to and from our nearest water source. I carry a large jug on my head to hold the water in, making my trip back home much longer than the trip there. The jug is nearly 40 pounds which is heavy for most people to carry for miles atop their head, let alone a girl who’s 13 like me. Nevertheless, I carry my jug day in and day out, because it’s what my family needs from me. As I carry my jug, I can feel the weight baring down against the bones in my neck. The stiffness in my upper back helps to keep me steady as I place one foot in front of the other. With each step I can feel the muscles in my arms tensing, begging me to stop torturing them. My feet press into the ground as I walk, like they’re try to shove the pain of my

muscle aches and creaking bones into the dirt. If I didn’t know how old I was, I would guess 50 because of this overwhelming never-ending tiredness.

I yearn for something more than caring for a family and fetching the water. I desire an education and exploration of more than these tired dusty paths. I try to be thankful for the life I have been given, none of my family has fallen ill from the water and we have enough food to fill our stomachs. Yet I still find myself feeling disappointed with this life. I have dreams bigger than the heavens mother always says, but my dreams are what keep me going. My dreams are a fire burning deep inside of me, they shine so bright at times that I imagine they could pick me up and carry me away from this place. Sometimes I feel as though I am stuck and will never escape the endless cycle that is my life, and I won’t live long or bold enough to see my dreams become reality.

As I enter my village, I can see the horizon being lit up by numerous but fleeting volts of light. I can see mother waiting for me with my little brother Abizo. My mother is wearing a concerned look on her face, she’s a strong woman, so fear is a quality I rarely see in her. My mother is also a very tough woman, so as I continue walking towards our home, I know a warm welcome is not what’s ahead.

“I’m sorry mother! I promise it came about so quickly, I didn’t mean to scare you and walked–”

“I don’t need to hear you excuses, get in the house and start boiling that water so I can get dinner started before this storm hits.” Mother said in a slightly less irritated tone.

I had learned over the years that it was best not to argue with mother. Even when I felt she was acting completely insane, I couldn’t disagree, or I would be in a world of trouble that would make walking for water seem like paradise. I did as she said and went inside to boil the water. I could hear the wind gusts from inside the house and could see mother and father trying their best to secure the crops. These kinds of storms often brought villages massive destruction.

We have to boil all the water we gather from the watering hole, because often it is not clean enough for us to drink otherwise. Even after boiling the water people in the village still often get sick. Our family has been lucky enough not to fall ill from the water, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen to us. Just last week one of the men in our village grew so ill that they had to bring him to the hospital. The hospital was over 10 miles away from our village, so many people do not survive the long walk to be treated. We still do not know if the man from our village will return, or if we will have to grieve his loss like so many others.

At that moment mother, father, and Abizo came in from outside, they had secured our crops as best as they could. Father wore a concerned look on his face and seemed so tired. His shoulders were hunched forward and the wrinkles on his forehead had become more prominent. He eased himself into one of our kitchen chairs, and my focus turned to mother. She brushed up against me nodding towards the spoon I had in hand so the water wouldn’t boil over.

“I can make dinner on my own tonight Mandisa, go help you brother wash up before supper.”

“But I don’t need a bath! I’m clean see!” Abizo exclaims as he puts his hands up, palms facing outwards.

“Well let’s see your feet then if you’re so clean” mother says to Abizo with an unimpressed look on her face. Abizo puts his head down and shuffles back towards the tub, he knows his feet are filthy from being outside all day. As I filled the tub with some of the water I had already boiled and let cool, Abizo was dancing around, as if all of his disdain for the bathtub had melted away.

“Disa Disa guess what? Today in school I got to practice math and scored the winning goal at recess!” Abizo exclaimed with pride.

“That’s great Abizo, it sounds like it was exciting” I said less enthusiastically.

“Oh, it really was Disa, I’ve decided that I’m going to play football all over the world, and I’m going to score the most goals ever!” before I could get a word in, he quickly added “you can come with me Disa, and then we can travel together in the real world instead of just our story books!”

I smiled at him and said, “I would love that Abizo.” And I really would love that, but I was older than Abizo and I knew how challenging our actual lives were, let alone how impossible it would be to create a new one. If I’m being honest with myself, I’m quite jealous of Abizo. He believes in his dreams whole heartedly and I wish I had the kind of courage to believe mine would come true too. Abizo also will be able to finish school and end up being much more educated than me. Going to school was always so exciting for me as a girl, and I was heartbroken the day mother told me I could no longer attend. To be educated means you have more opportunities. Being an educated woman in my village is rare and only happens if someone else can collect water. Sometimes in large families if there were two girls close to the same age one could continue with her education, at least part time. But this wasn’t the case for my family. All I had were the dreams in my head and the hope that one day I would be presented with an opportunity to achieve them.

After dinner was my time to relax so I usually reread one of the few books we had in our house. Sometimes I was so desperate for knowledge that I would even read Abizo’s schoolbooks. Tonight, while reading it was cold in our home, and I could hear the wind picking up outside. The rain was smacking against the outer walls, annoying me and giving me a headache. I had lived through a number of these storms, and I knew very well that the sounds of the wind and rain were worrisome. If we lost too many crops, we would suffer immensely in the next harvest season. In my village, most people didn’t have enough extra food to spare, but we shared with each other as much as we could. As I closed my eyes for sleep, I pictured what far-away places might look like and how I would explore them. At least I would always have the dreams in my head, even if I could never reach them during the day.

“Disa, I have to go” Abizo said to me with an embarrassed look on his face.

“You have to go where Abizo?” I questioned, but the smell that came next confirmed that it wasn’t a place he had to go. “It’s okay Abizo, take my hands and we’ll go to the bathroom” I said as I reach for him. He took my hands, and I could tell how weak he was as he trembled getting up from the floor. He leaned almost all of his weight on me as we made our way to the bathroom. I sat him on the toilet and realized I would have to brace him there so he wouldn’t fall over. His condition was progressing quickly, and he kept shutting his eyes for extended periods of time. The smell was horrible, but his hopeless expression helped me suppress the urge to be sick myself. My father suddenly entered the bathroom and looked at me, then Abizo, and firmly stated “We’re going to the hospital.”

As my father took Abizo in his arms, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I could not let Abizo know how scared I was, so I pushed the tears back. I grasped Abizo’s face with my hands and kissed him gently on the forehead. He opened his big brown eyes and looked at me. He gave me a small smile and mustered up the ability to say to me “I can see our dreams Disa.” I was barely able to utter a simple “me too.” He was able to give me a feeble wave as father carried him out the door. I waved back to him as I watched him disappear from my sight, father carrying him on foot to the hospital.

My father returned merely hours after he had left. He returned without Abizo, and the look of horror on my mother’s face is something that will forever be imprinted in my mind. My body immediately went numb. I could feel my breath heaving in and out of my now hollow chest. My eyes burned as I tried to spare my mother the heartache of seeing me cry. Abizo was so young, and now gone, with no more life left in front of him. The numbness soon subsided, and I could feel my body trembling. Every fiber of my body was a reminder that the most precious and courageous person I’d ever known had been taken away. Not just taken from me but taken from all of the people he made laugh, and smile, and most importantly, all the lives he would have changed.

Abizo was buried in our village in the same place where all the people we have lost are. There was a ceremony a few days after his death, but I honestly don’t remember much of it. I had never even considered the possibility of losing my brother until he was already gone. When you’re young, you just don’t think of things like that. Every night I now imagined my brother and I going on wild adventures together like he’d always wanted. This brought me some comfort, but mostly just reminded me of how alone I really was.

A few weeks had passed since Abizo’s death when I was walking back home from the watering hole. When I entered the village, something seemed off. There was a large group of children playing soccer nearby, laughing and smiling, and people were singing and dancing in the street. The storm before Abizo became sick had ruined many crops and even some of the houses in the village. I was perplexed, I didn’t know how there was any joy left to muster in my village, but in that very moment I saw him. Someone was in the village I had never seen before, and he didn’t look like he belonged. His shoes were a brilliant white and looked like they had only been worn a few times. He had on blue jeans, no holes, and a grey t-shirt that fit nicely. His hair was neatly trimmed, and he looked around as if he was trying to solve something, but he wasn’t alone. A woman who looked so familiar to me was standing next to him. Suddenly I realized she was the girl that had lived in our village before leaving to go to America. She wasn’t a young girl anymore and was tall with beautiful hair. I remember hearing about the primary education program she’d gone to on full scholarship when I was younger and felt myself becoming more envious of her each second. Just then I saw my mother smiling with a few other village women. It had been so long since I saw her smile, I had almost forgotten what it looked like. I went up to her and asked

“Mother what’s going on? Why are those people here?”

“Mandisa, they have come here all the way from America, and they say they can give us access to cleaner water.”

“Cleaner water! Don’t you think we would have found that by now?” I said with irritation. These people knew nothing about our home, yet were trying to fix it?

“They say there is clean water in the ground, and they have brought us tools to find it. We are going to build a well Mandisa, right here in the center of town”

“They say it will last decades, did you hear that!” one mother’s friends said excitedly.

I looked over at the man and woman again, who had now been joined by others like them. Some of the men from our village had now joined in too and were helping them pick out a spot for our new well. I couldn’t fully comprehend what I was feeling. Happiness, opportunity, grief, fear, but mostly anger. Before I even knew what I was doing I set down my jug and walked towards them. I could feel the dirt flying up from behind me as I picked up speed. “What are you even doing here!” I began yelling “This is my home, our home, not yours! And where have you been?” I shouted as I shifted my focus to the woman from our village. “You haven’t been here in years! Don’t pretend like you care now, hell why don’t you go back to America while you attend that perfect school with your perfect hair and watch us all suffer! You have no idea what we’ve been through, and you didn’t care enough to protect us until now, what a joke.” I sneered. I’d never heard such pain and disgusted in my voice before. The woman just stared at me, she almost looked sad, sympathetic, I think. This just angered me more, but before I could say anything my mother had a tight grip on my arm and yanked it towards her.

“How dare you talk to a member of our community like that Mandisa! You should be ashamed of yourself these people are trying to help us!” My enraged mother exclaimed. I could feel my face getting hot and my vision became slightly foggy. I was determined not to cry in front of everyone I’d just insulted, but nothing ever got past my mother. Her eyes softened and I didn’t have to say anything at all, she already understood.

I thought of my little brother now and imagined how excited he would have been. He would have been playing soccer with the kids in the street and trying to make me laugh. It was then that I realized this well would give me my opportunities. The opportunity to be educated and go on to become a doctor and help kids like Abizo or a teacher and give children the opportunity to learn. I would be able to travel the world and go all the places Abizo and I had read about in our books. I would go back to school and I would travel, and I would do it with Abizo in mind, taking him with me every step of the way. As the calm breeze brushed past my cheeks and the sun shined down on our village, I knew he was right here with me.

Afterward

As I boarded the plane, I felt nervous and excited all at the same time. After two long years I’m finally heading back home to visit mother and father. I have been attending college in America for the past four years and wasn’t able to go home and visit often. It has been six months since I graduated from university and I’ve finally acquired the job of my dreams. I decided to major in environmental science, with a concentration in sustainability. My job entails working with an organization that saved me. It’s called the Thirst Project, and we are headed back to my home to build more wells like the one still residing in my village. Ever since a well was placed in my village, illness rates have decreased drastically, and all children are able to attend school. That’s how I was able to enroll in an American college and pursue the dreams I’d always thought were unattainable.

I felt the plane begin to move slowly at first but quickly pick up speed and force. I had grown to love planes and admired how graceful yet powerful they seemed. Knowing this would be a long flight, I decided to shut my eyes until the graceful plane had delivered me home again. As the plane touched down, I felt my body jolt to life. I glanced out the window and smiled knowing I was just a few hours away from my village. I would have about a week to spend with my family and then it would be time to help another community.

After a tortuous car ride, I finally began to recognize the village land around me. The first thing I noticed was the wide array of gardens. Green plants that held food to eat were sprouting up everywhere which made my heart swell with pride. I also saw many children running around in their school clothes of all ages. Right then, I spotted my parents. They were smiling and waving at me. As the car came to a halt I jumped out and ran to them. As I hugged them my mother whispered in my ear “we’re so proud of you Disa.” In that moment I couldn’t help but sense Abizo was somewhere up there laughing at me for doubting his belief in our dreams. Now I am getting the opportunity to save lives in other villages and make their dreams come true just like mine did. I hope Abizo is proud of me, and that someday no one will have to suffer without the privilege of clean water.