Kindness to me is acting in service. It is what we do for others, either as a gesture of care or to allow them the space to shine on their own. Kindness is the medicine our society needs to remember that compassion is the important brick of our foundation.
My name is Huda Fadlelmawla and in 2011, I got the chance to go back home to Khartoum, Sudan. After 12 years away I got the chance to visit that fold that formed my identity and learn more.
My mother took me to family homes, local schools, universities, and the most memorable part of the trip was to Mygoma Orphanage.
I saw 200 kids in one of the most heartbreaking scenes. Broken physically and forgotten by the world. Limited beds, restricted access to medical care, limited access to food and little connection to the outside.
This poem is for kids of Mygoma Orphanage. One of the hardest poems I have ever had to write:
Your voice is like a call to prayer.
Dear ray of hope, taken in like oxygen
Don’t leave
We need you
They need you
I need you.
Don’t leave the spaces that without you would be filled up with fear and demons that are now hiding under our beds waiting to disturb our sleep.
Don’t leave our voice boxes because without you, our words are like shattered glass cutting everything in its way.
Don’t leave like shadows when the sun has set… stay as if you were a smile on an infant’s face… stay.
We need you to whisper our secrets and our dreams too, so that our worries don’t turn into nightmares. We need you to keep running this race, we need you to turn these pillows into a place our minds go to rest, not a place our eyes go to realise. We need you so our blankets aren’t covers for our insecurities. We need you to fight these odds.
They need you to use the spaces to dance. To use the empty tablets where food is meant to like canvas to paint… use the empty cupboards where clothes would be hanging to undress themselves from fear that darkness is meant for them.
They need you to breath like their lungs are pianos and their giggles are the lyrics, their hearts are the drums and hands are the audience and their minds are studios.
I need you to imagine, to make pictures out of clouds, dance in the rain, build in the sand, chase kites, and hope for a better tomorrow.
The end.
On Thursday, November 29, 2018 I take the first steps into translate acts of service into a community movement in Sudan. I will get on plane and take 500kgs worth of goods and keep the hope alive.
Kindness is the language of love. It’s an act of service to humanity that needs only to start.
Kindly, Huda
Poet & Magic Maker
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