A Thank You Reflection

I wrote the following as my Thank You Letter to people who donated to my trip. I thought I would post it on here for all of you since it is also a reflection on my trip and even though you may have not donated monetarily if you're reading this you deserve a thank you for being my friend.

I have been thinking lately about what the opportunity to go to Uganda means to me in order to better understand exactly why all the generosity of my friends has struck such a powerful emotional chord with me. A few weeks ago when discussing my trip with my mom she commented about how fortunate I have been as a child of a widow graduating from college with fairly low debt. She was making the point that perhaps going to Uganda should be seen as financially out of reach for me. While she certainly has a valid point, I know I am beyond privileged to have had many of the great experiences and opportunities I have managed to have thus far in life.

The more I think about it, the more I can see that a quiet determination has led me to the right choices to accumulate the past experience that may ordinarily not be available to a single mother average yearly earnings only slightly above the poverty level. Being in Plano as a stubborn teen probably contributed to this determination, I tried to explain to my mom that because I was in an unfortunate situation that shouldn’t ruin the chance to do things that would benefit me personally and professionally.

In the past I used this stubbornness or determination, whatever it may be called, to go to conferences, summer camps and even college without driving my mom or myself into heavy debt. I was fortunate enough to receive financial aid and scholarships to most of these activities. I even chose to intern in DC last summer ignoring the fact that I would deplete a good chunk of my savings doing so. It is horribly unfortunate that even great students have to sacrifice interning or traveling abroad because of financial constraints.

In the end, I also sacrificed traveling abroad so that I could spend a summer in DC. I do not regret it, last summer was an invaluable experience filled with great work and great people. Thanks to the AJWS Volunteer Summer, I may end up having the chance to have some version of the student travel abroad experience in Africa doing work that, as mentioned before, will be benefitting me personally and professionally.

I try to live my life by one of my favorite quotations from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison: "It's winner take nothing that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by playing in the face of certain defeat." We are all trying to make the world better in our own ways and I truly believe by playing in the face of certain defeat and by supporting one another we experience Uganda, build a school for HIV/AIDS effected orphans, end genocide, and all the other ambitions we each have as individuals and as a group.