today is your day, tomorrow will be theirs

i met the most beautiful people today. i sat and talked with refugees from sudan, congo, and somolia. they told me their stories. it was like the things i have read in books, seen on the news, or talked about. but for these people it was their story.
one man was a teacher in the congo. his students were taken by the rebels to be made child soldiers. when he tried to protest he was kidnapped and tortured. he has been in uganda since 2008 but has not heard from his wife or children, he may never see them again. here in uganda he carries bricks for construction workers as his only option.
my heart broke as a woman told me about being raped. i wanted to weep but she did not even shed a tear. another man remembers watching his parents being kidnapped. they fled the village for fear of being killed by the rebels.
i cried with a 19 year old girl from somalia. her eldest brother was killed and her mom was unable to come to uganda with her father and younger brothers. she told me that she was studying law here in uganda at the islamic university. she needed $5 in order to take her examination. since she could not pay the fee she had to drop out of school.
i told her that i was going to university, she told me to please use it. she asked me what i was going to do, what was it that i wanted now that i had seen what i have seen. i told her that i wished that the opportunities i had could be the same other people had... all the while knowing that is impossible and having absolutely no idea why i can pay $32,000 for school and she does not get to pay the $5 for her exam. she asked me what i thought when i saw teenagers on the street. and then said a proverb and she told me it mean that "today you have, today is your day but tomorrow they will have, tomorrow will be theirs"

i am reminded many many time from people that i come from "the land of opportunity" that they too want to come to america. but the thing is i dont know why america was made to have so much opportunity and even more i cant know why i get to be from there, or why my skin is white, or why even in america i am given so many more opportunities than people around me. i am blessed, i know that. but i guess i wont ever quite know why, i just know that with it i need to do something.