Posts Tagged ‘uganda’

This week had Alison in a tizzy because at the last minute she was invited to participate in the school’s annual Christmas & book sale.

She makes earrings and some other jewelry, and one of the moms she sits for suggested it. The second day she wanted to expand and took some Mardi Gras throws I’d picked up to add to her line, making her own sign and display:

I wasn’t sure anyone would want to pay that much for them, but she sold out immediately and then went on a rampage in my inventory, looking for more items.

Well, yesterday was the last day, and when I picked Ali and her friend up at school for a quick change before they went out on the town, I asked her how she did, and she looked miserable and didn’t want to discuss it.

I figured it was because she didn’t want to get into it in front of her friend. She got in around 11 and when I wanted to try to comfort her about her sale, she floored me. That stuff- you know, the sale she was so stressed over mere hours before- was petty and pointless, she said.

Her problem? Not low sales, but… UGANDA. Where she now passionately wants to go. And, oh, I should go, too.

In Global Issues class they watched a documentary made by American students in Africa called Invisible Children and the whole class bawled (except one girl, who is now branded a heartless beast). The teacher bawled. The next period, when the teacher asked what was wrong with everybody, they bawled again.

They’re all ready to pack up and go kick military ass and reintegrate these child soldiers, feed the victims and generally save the world.

All admirable, but I wish the school had given them a bit more African history. Ali seems to think it’s all about the information- if Americans knew, they’d be up in arms and we could just sort of…you know, fix it. Today. Tomorrow at the latest.

And if an American student got killed there, then the military’d surely rush there to kick ass, no?

What do you say to that? It’s this strange sort of sweet naivete mixed with martyresque conviction, and it’s all so convoluted it makes the Gordian Knot look like a kitten’s plaything.

So what did I say to all this? What brilliant Mother’s Wisdom did I bring to the table?

I did the only reasonable thing. I stalled. “Kiddo, unfortunately you’re not old enough to go. Let’s talk about it again after you turn 18, okay?”

I should be able to come up with something to say in the year and a half before she’s of age, right?