Trying to...

convey best what I see in the most descriptive way I can.

Outside

Black, exhaust smoke trails along concrete byways and lifts into the air
Burqa clad women brush shoulders with street hawkers
peddling fashionable skirts
a Matatu with "God is Good" written on windshields pick up taxi fair,
and dark skinned people walk
through the congested traffic jam (dangerous), on their way to
shoot breezes
with their community.
Eyes watch the familiar and foreign.
The city's music are the voices of its people crying
out greetings, cars honking, bota botas picking up motorcycle speed,
and the cuckoobarros greeting the afternoon humidity.
A sleepy 3-year old begs in the street, nodding off, hands out;
while another is held firmly above her mothers big hip, secure
in fabric--bright printed colors,
looking to the throngs, petitioning
"Muzungu! Muzungu!"
The sun, from above, observes all the going's on of African heritage,
and the students walk to class, walking the red, dirt clad streets
eager to learn; receiving new eyes.

Inside

In Post-Colonial African Literature, my teacher reads her poetry to her little class,
in the little, run-down room, where she helps us discover the African mind.
The view of the city stretches for miles. We listen and are amazed. In a line, she
speaks the truth I'm looking for.
"We do not write poetry. We live it."
-------
Rachel, Becca, and I are going to Sanyu tomorrow. It's a baby orphanage on Mengo near the King's palace. We, as Americans, tend to sensationalize starving African orphans with snot running down their noses, with no one to nurse their swollen bellies. And its not like that in Sanyu at all; I'm positive. What surprises me is I just never expected to feel this burdened feeling when Julia pointed it out to us.