The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World Read Online Free PDF Page B

elegant, focused, and determined to create an organization to help women lift themselves out of poverty. She spoke for nearly the entire hour it took to drive to her family's home, thanking me all the while for ignoring the international media's warnings about Uganda and coming to see her country anyway.
    Cissy and her husband lived in a modest three-bedroom house with their two young daughters. When we arrived, the little girls were dressed in white frilly dresses that looked like little brides' gowns.
    "Why are you so dressed up?" I asked them. The elder daughter, 8 years old, replied that the soldiers had taken all of their dresses in the war; now they wore their very best dresses for every day because you never knew when you might lose them.
    The girls did their homework at the kitchen table, one of the few pieces of furniture in the living room. It was really more of a card table, but as Cissy said, it would do. Twice already, the soldiers had ransacked their home and taken everything. There were still bullet holes in the broken bedroom doors, and every window had been smashed. Not a single picture hung on a wall. The plumbing didn't work, but there was a well outside where we could get water and take a cold bath with a bucket. As Cissy explained everything to me, she smiled with no hint of apology: This was simply part of her everyday reality.
    We set the table with a hodgepodge of plastic plates and cups that Cissy had purchased at a gas station in Kenya.
    "I'm not ready to invest in anything permanent yet," she told me, pausing before adding, "but nothing really is permanent, is it?"
    Dinner was simple but abundant: matohe, a green plantain staple; millet; a bit of fish; bitter eggplant; and fruit.
    "The most we can offer you is our food and hospitality," Cissy told me. "But nothing else has much value, anyway," she laughed. "Especially not here, especially not now."

    There wasn't a speck of despair in her voice.
    Everyone in the family ate several plates of food. Cissy urged me to eat more, reminding me that you never know when you might eat again.
    That night, I slept with my passport under my pillow, hearing gunshots in the night and anticipating the arrival of soldiers, though I knew it was unlikely. In the morning, I took a bucket bath, wrapped in a brightly colored cotton wrap called a hihoi, sitting on my haunches and squealing as the freezing water cascaded down my back. I ironed my blue silk dress with an old-fashioned iron filled with hot coals, watching my hand tremble with the weight, knowing that letting the iron get too close to the fabric would result in disaster. I couldn't recall ever feeling so fully alive getting ready for a day except during those first weeks in Brazil. There was a rawness and a beauty here that brought every emotion right to the surface, and I loved the feeling, loved being in this place where the best and worst of everything seemed to coexist.
    After a quick breakfast, we met with exuberant, optimistic women who were clear about contributing to peace and helping to build individual and community prosperity in this country so abundant in natural resources and in human spirit. Mostly I just listened to them as they told me the things they dreamed of doing. We also visited some of the women's newly sprung projects-poultry raising, a new kiosk for selling sundries, a tailoring business. Ugandans were putting their lives back together piece by piece, and clearly there was potential to support them in their efforts.
    The trip to Uganda renewed and strengthened my sense of urgency. I wanted to feel useful. I was stunned by the resilience of everyone I met and returned to Nairobi awestruck by the Ugandans' ability to endure suffering and still embrace great joy. That first night back, I slept like a baby, acknowledging the privilege of a secure night of sleep, wanting to live in a world where basic security would not be considered a luxury, remembering again why I loved working in the