Three Evening Scenes

• Tuesday night had already been a full day when I arrived at the Troutdale City Hall. I was there to talk a little bit about Yo Ghana!'s partnership with Reynolds High School, but mainly I was there to support two of our students. One of them was Rando, a small, ebullient Muslim girl from East Africa who has been interviewing family elders to relate their journey through civil war and refugee camps to America. Her voice started very faint, then became stronger and stronger as she shared the remarkable story, and the council members' eyes filled with respect and wonder.
  
  About two hours later I boarded a transit train and heard the voice of Diana calling to me, another one of our students, a girl from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who in the rainy night was in charge of her little brother and wheel-chair bound mother, all of them struggling to understand a new language and new skills such as how to negotiate the transit system in a wheelchair. But they seemed much more resolute than frail and not at all deterred by missing a stop.
  
  ​Then I joined an apartment full of Ghanaians full of joyful expectation. The wife and children of a leading volunteer were about to arrive, ending a separation of nearly five years. When they stepped into their new home it exploded with noise and joy. The eyes of the three young children were wide. So much to take in. Twenty years from now they'll still remember that night, and by then they'll be doing great things.
  
  ​Americans often ponder going to Africa and helping Africans. But Africa is also coming to us, and Africans' resilience, warmth, and determination are helping all of us, now and far into the future.