First Place: Floral and Gingham by Brooke Striegel

First Place: Creative Nonfiction Floral and Gingham Brooke Striegel

I packed so many skirts for nine weeks in Uganda. I had a navy and floral silk-like skirt that made me feel like a real teacher, as Fede watched me grade her work. I had the bright, colorful skirt that I wore when Fede crawled into my lap, one day. I had an orange and blue geometric skirt that I wore at the community concert, when I told Fede goodbye, and I had my favorite black and floral skirt that I wore on the first day in Bulike that led into all of the rest.

I remember the first time I wore that black, floor length skirt with the pink flowers and blueish-green leaves in Uganda. It was my first day in Bulike, the village I spent my summer in. Full of red dirt roads, goats roaming at every turn, tall green crops, and incredible people, Bulike was a beautiful place to be. On that day, my team got to go to Church, and see how the people sang and danced and prayed to worship God. They just had an open-air, one-room brick building with dirt floors and wooden benches, but they had so much joy, and seldom – if ever – had I seen people show it so obviously.

Soon after that day, I met my sweet friend Fede. At five years old, she was still so small, and could sit in my lap, almost like a doll, but her size didn’t stop her from being full of huge smiles. Her little, bald head was precious to me, and her tiny, little hands could fit perfectly around my pointer finger. My friend described her as an “angel,” one day, as we drove away from the school, and this description was true. She was so sweet and gentle hearted, but this didn’t stop her from scrunching up her nose at something or trotting around the schoolyard, leading a whole squad of girls. For such an angel, she had her fair share of sass. I saw Fede in two different outfits, during the entire summer. Most days, my sweet friend was in her purple gingham school dress with the adorable white collar. Sometimes, not very often, she was in a red polo with a black and white plaid skirt. Maybe, those were the days that her school uniform was hanging on a line to dry after it was hand-washed in a bin of water fetched from the well. Everyday, Fede drank her porridge, out of the same white, plastic cup, surrounded by her friends — some with porridge, some without. She sat in the same spot on the same crowded bench and wrote in her workbook. Everyday, Fede was bright and smiley and beautiful, all the same. I met Fede at Bulike Community Primary School, a place that was once a gathering under the shade of a tree, but had grown into a collection of three simply constructed buildings covered in bright blue paint. Illustrations of the human body or the alphabet or of animals lined the walls of the school, painted on the sides over the blue. Each age group had its own square room, inside, with wooden desks and paper posters stuck to the walls with porridge.

Every morning, I walked into the Baby Class, and was greeted by the bright and eager faces of my three to five year old students, each shouting in (for the most part) unison: “Welcome, Visitor. This is the Baby Class. Our motto is: fear God and retain wisdom.” I wish I could put on paper how this sounded in their accent, but put an “e” in the place of the letter “i,” and you’ll get pretty close. After about two weeks in Uganda, being greeted in this way several times, I was standing at the source of the river Nile in the city of Jinja, Uganda. The murky water was flowing around the large rock I stood on just by the riverbank, and, when I looked down at the seemingly endless river, I could almost imagine everything that had taken place in its waters before me. After all, so much was happening there, now, with a chaotic city called Jinja just a mile up the road. Jinja was full of life, not quite in the obvious and abundant way I was seeing in the village, but in a packed and bustling sort of way. People filled the market street, vendors calling out to us to enter their shop, and find a beaded necklace or goat-skin drum to buy. Even the culture had slightly shifted. After only two weeks, the thought of going to a restaurant seemed like a huge excursion. The world was less red as the dirt roads had turned into pavement, which I had never recognized as so smooth. People wore pants, and even that was a stark contrast to the village, where knees were promiscuous and skirts were far more respectable.

I was only a couple hours away from Bulike, give or take an hour (or two or three) with traffic, but it, somehow, felt like I was in a different world. It was hard to imagine the school where I had taken on the role of “Teacher Brooko” — when you take the name Brooke and combine it with a Lusogan accent, the “e” turns into an “o.” The kids at the school in Bulike were learning English, but their Lusogan accent still prevailed. Soon after that day in Jinja, I realized that I had fallen into a steady routine in the Baby Class. I was no longer standing at the corners of the classroom watching the students learn, afraid to interfere; I was a part of the class. Gilimina, the woman I taught with who works full-time in the Baby Class, would greet me, when I walked in, often handing me the only red pen in the classroom, so I could mark up the students’ little workbooks. I would sit at the small, wooden desk where Gilimina kept all her supplies for the students, and correct backwards letters or write “good” next to nicely shaded drawings. One by one, the students brought me their books, smiling up as I thanked them, and pointed them back to their spot crammed between two other students. Fede always lingered, when she brought me her book. She would peek over the edge of the desk, and watch, as I graded her backwards sevens, until I had pointed enough times that she had to sit back down in her spot between two girls…even though I wanted her to sit by me all morning. During the break, I’d track her down in the schoolyard. She was usually sitting along the wall of the school building, drinking porridge out of her little, plastic cup, with all of her friends. Oftentimes, she’d grab my hand, and pull me around the playground. By the end of recess, I’d have her and ten of my other little Baby Class friends clinging to my wrists.

Sometimes, near the end of classes each morning, Gilimina would ask me to teach. I would point to letters on one of the large paper posters on the wall, and ask them to shout the alphabet, as a class, correcting them when they said “ello” instead of “L.” Most days, I also sang with the class, teaching them simple counting and worship songs. Then, the class would sing for me. Gilimina would start, “Clap and I say,” or “Dance and I say,” and all the students would do the action, and chant back, “Thank you, teacher, for teaching us!” My favorite song was the one Gilimina taught them for me:

We are so very thankful for you. When you reach home, Will you write a letter to us? Please, Teacher, Brooko! When you reach home, Will you write a letter to us?

The last few times they sang this song for me, I had to fight back tears. I didn’t want to think about reaching home. I did miss home — two months was a long time to be away, but, still, I tried to push down the thought that I would have to say goodbye to these beautiful people.

Now, I am home, and this morning, when I was getting dressed, I pulled on my black floor length skirt with the pink flowers and blueish-green leaves. It’s my favorite from the summer. I finished getting ready, and went about my day. At lunch, my friends told me how cute my outfit was. At work, my coworkers told me how much they liked my skirt. I told them I got it at Target, and, yes, it was really comfy—all the normal responses. What I really wanted to tell them was that the last time I put on this skirt, I was in Uganda. The last time I had worn it, I was surrounded by some of the most beautiful children you could imagine. I was being tugged around a schoolyard, by a few kids holding onto each wrist as if it was for dear life. The last time I had worn this skirt, I was surrounded by an obvious, abundant joy, with every step I took along the red dirt road; in every smile I shared with a student in my classroom, and during every song we sung in praise of the Lord. The last time I had worn this skirt, it didn’t matter the skirt was cute or comfy.

So, when I wear this skirt, I think about last summer. I think about Fede. I remember how she would flash the biggest smile, when I caught her eye as she danced with her friends, and how she would wave goodbye through the van window when we left the school, or how she sang to “make a circle” when the teachers had us gather in the playground. I can still see Fede putting her hands over her face to pray in Chapel. I’ll never forget how sad I was when I thought Fede wasn’t going to be at the community concert we held on my last day in Bulike, or the pure happiness

I felt when she wandered in with only a few minutes to spare. It was so hard to say goodbye to her, but I was so glad I got to pull her up in my arms to do it. I doubt that Fede ever thought twice, as she got dressed for school in the morning. While I decided which skirt I should wear, out of the many I packed, and made sure to pick a t-shirt that matched perfectly, Fede was starting her long walk to school.

I don’t think I’m supposed to feel bad for having skirts, but I think I am supposed to remember it is not my favorite black skirt with the flowers that carries the memories from this summer. The memories come in tiny moments with people that have huge hearts.

Fede might have worn two different outfits, and I might have worn a bunch of skirts, with countless outfits sitting in my closet back home, but, in Bulike, this didn’t change a thing. We were one American twenty-year-old and one Ugandan five-year-old who got to experience love and joy together, because God was so good as to put us together. And, for all of our differences, even with eight thousand miles in between us, this beautiful thing bonds us.