Chapter One: Africa
The hot winds stirred the sands. Small bits, tiny grains grated into my eyes. The sounds in the background were the same ones that had filled the silence, shattering the peace. A whistle, oh ever so quiet at first slowly, steadily getting louder until bang, earth shaking beneath your feet as the mortars rained down around you. Panic slowly gets a grip on your for the next sound you here is the sound of yet another weapon going off.
You know that those bullets buzzing over your head are real. You have treated those wounds before. Seeing many young lives cut short from the brass ripping through flesh. You know those could do the same to your own. Yet this was the job volunteered to do, no one forcing to be in this semi-forgotten land. You came because you wanted to make a difference no matter how big or small it was. It was time to make that stance. Back home that never seemed to be there and day to day became the mundane.
The sun has started to set. While you know your reasons sometimes you have to wonder if there wasn't more to things than what you let even yourself to believe. Here in this place I was waiting, waiting for the solitude that would afford the luxury of time to sort out my ever changing world. That which had been nearly stabilized by my grandparents, they were my rock always there as my own parents always seemed to be jet setting off somewhere business was usually the excuse.
30 years and now to a point in my life where I know I shouldn't blame my parents and to a point I didn't. That which I learned about relationships I learned from watching there be very little interaction between anyone. Could and distant that's how the world appeared. I was here overseas now running from a past relationship because I didn't want to or rather didn't know how to repair it.
Somehow for some reason I thought that in coming here I would find the peace to deal with it all, perhaps find the answer on how to do that. Here I was definitely needed. For my skills and knowledge were in short supply and health care was something the people here needed and rarely attained. I wanted to fix that and there had to be some what that I could fix this.
The wind continued to blow, the sky deep shades of purple nearly black. The twilight illuminated every few minutes as the silence was shattered by an exploding mortar bright as the sun in the sky. I kept my head low to the ground. The first time my body shook and I was scared to death I was going to die. This was not something that I had become accustomed to but had become less nerve wracking, still scared that I might die. That fear will never go away no matter how many times I found this intense fighting. Chicago that was home, Africa was the escape. The ground shook under me once again. Abby… Chicago… past regrets, those were the last thoughts in my mind.