Thursday, June 20, 2019

"Kadi'jah"


They were in the air!  She was flying to Africa!  The Book Woman Club was headed to Ghana Africa to donate books to start a school library at an elementary school.  And...to see the Mother Land!

Kadi'jah was so surprised when the Book Woman Club members had embraced her idea of travel, especially to the Africa!  She had expected the older women of the group to stick up their noses and roll their eyeballs in the way that some of them did when she spoke about the principles of SANKOFA, "Reaching Back and Retrieving Your Roots".  But they had enthusiastically helped gather children's books and some even donated to Kadi'jah's plane fare, knowing that Kadi'jah was perpetually financially "challenged".  Glory "Amen" Johnson had donated $300 to her ticket cost, and 50 lbs of children's bibles with brown skinned children sitting at the feet of Jesus!  Eight Book Woman Club members, of all ages, had joined Kadi'jah on her quest!  They were seated all around her.  An sister circle of book lovers, each of them carrying a 50 lb. suitcase filled with books!  A friend of Kadi'jah's had arranged for one of their family members in Ghana to be their travel guide, and to identify a school for them to donate the books to.

This had been Kadi'jah's dream....forever.   Her 'return' to the Motherland! A dream of a lifetime, since she was in 4th grade and in the madness of a majority white school filled with so many mean kids; mean girls.  She was one of twelve African-American students in a private school, filled with the economically advantaged. When first her Mother, and then her Father finished their Medical degrees and their new careers provided the economics for this change, they wanted to give Kadi'jah the best education possible. Despite all the rhetoric about a post racial America filled with a new color-blind "we all is equal" generation, Kadi'jahs Amerikkka had been filled with intolerance, racism, and hatred. When no teachers were around, and sometimes when they were around, whispered voices ..."Nigger, accusations of affirmative action, pinches, tripping feet, and veiled threats of violence tortured Kadi'jah's days.

In the real world, her sanctuary was the school library.  She would get a pass at lunch time, and instead of eating in the cafeteria with a skeleton crew of adults monitoring, behavior and where her nemesis had free reign, she would read.  She loved books!  And in the sanctuary of her head; in the sanctuary of her soul, Kadi'jah dreamed about going to the Motherland - Africa!

And now, her she was on this plane, wings spread on the wind, heading to the Promised Land!
This had been her dream...forever!  She might not have been born in Africa, but Africa was born in her!  She was going......HOME!

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