Born a Leader, Died a Friend

Obviously, I dropped off the blogging earth.  Life went crazy, it got hard, and blogging something upbeat seemed too difficult.  So I just stopped for a while.  And then it felt like I had to do so much catching up that I felt overwhelmed at even attempting that.  So I've decided there will be no catch-up.  If you really want to know about the last four months of my time in Gulu, shoot me an email and I'll happily fill you in.

No, now is the time for me to start afresh, to blog about my new project, and all the successes that I am certain are going to happen therein.  But first, there is one catch-up post I need to write.  It regards something I haven't been able to talk about to anyone.  I haven't told a soul.  The current project manager of Paper to Pearls told me, so we discussed it a bit, and then Barbara, the director of Paper to Pearls called me one day and we spoke briefly about it.  But that's it.  I haven't told anyone out loud that Sarah passed away.

Sarah Akot - the beloved chairwoman of the Gulu co-operative for Paper to Pearls -the woman I accompanied to the Galapagos, and the woman who single-handedly showed me how much potential every single woman in Gulu has, died on February 11th of....well, we don't really know.  It looks like she had many health complications.  She always complained of having an ulcer that bothered her, but I was unaware that she had AIDS, so in the end, I guess the doctors decided it was a combination of that, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

I haven't been able to tell anyone, because there isn't a single person I know who fully understands what Sarah means to me and what she did for me.  I'm blogging about it now because I'm still not ready to discuss it out loud, but I feel unable to continue blogging until I address the issue in some form.  So I will try to express what Sarah meant to me exactly, and why I'm devastated at her loss.

I would have quit if it hadn't been for her.  And she doesn't even know that.  She showed me the ropes because the past project manager refused to respond to any of my pleas for help, so it was Sarah who took me to Kampala, and got lost with me trying to find all the places I needed to go to pick up supplies.  Sarah told me how to be tough with the women so they didn't take advantage of me.  And when things got really hard and it felt like none of what I was going through was worth it, I could think back on the moment Sarah danced like a rock-star in front of a room full of admiring artists in Ecuador and I saw the worth of an individual.  Then I knew I was working for the individual women - not for me, not for the demanding director and client back in the States, but for the women trying so hard to care for their own and working so hard at something they learned to really excel at.  And then I knew that it was, indeed, worth what I was going through.   And each one of those women were and are capable of more.  And from there I learned that each woman (and man for that matter) living everywhere, are bigger and more capable of the circumstances they currently find themselves in.  That is what Sarah taught me.  

Sarah and I did get along perfectly all the time, that is no secret.  I called her out once in front of all the women for lying to me.  I felt like if I let Sarah get away with lying to me, all the other women would feel like they could do it to.  One woman was so upset with me over it, she nearly quit coming to roll beads.  Sarah and I had been together pretty much 24 hours a day for nearly three weeks straight when we were in the Galapagos.  And let me tell you, there is nothing like waking up to a big ol' naked African woman sleeping in the bed next to yours.  When I got home, I wanted to hide from her - I just didn't want to be around her.  And there was the time I desperately needed help with my project's endless quality control issues, and I hired a young girl from my congregation to be that person.  The women didn't know her and didn't trust her, and she was younger than they were, so they weren't very nice to her.  And I let Sarah have it for not supporting me.  See, I knew Sarah was absolutely the leader of the pack.  The women all looked up to her so much that if she didn't support me, no one would.

But in reality, I had immense amounts of respect for the leader that Sarah was, for how capable she was, for how much initiative she took, and for her creativity.  Sarah filled my version of Gulu.  I simply cannot imagine the place without her.  I don't do well without closure, and that - I have discovered - is why funerals are so important.  Everything I know of Gulu includes Sarah, and my mind refuses to accept that she's not there.  I believe it will continue to do so until I can see for myself she's no longer running things.  I am unavoidably and uncontrollably jealous of the current project manager who was able to be to her burial, to mourn with her family and the Paper to Pearls women.

I truly thought Sarah (who was only 52) would live to be a crazy 80-year-old Acholi woman, spinning stories with deep wrinkles and bossing her great grandchildren around.  I imagined introducing my kids to her when I came to visit for summers with them.  And now stories and photos will have to suffice.  

The last time I saw Sarah. 

It is for women like Sarah who die too young and of a disease that we should be able to better control, that each of us needs to strive to improve the world.  To help the needy and the sick and the uneducated.  For those of us who are healthy, educated and financially stable, I really believe it is our duty as citizens of this world to do our best to improve these issues.  Even if we are only able to improve one person's life.  What if that one person had been Sarah, and I could still have her for my next African adventure?  Each person is just that valuable.

Sarah taught me that.