drops of jupiter

"Did you miss me while you were looking at yourself out there?"

The first thing she noticed was the air. Lakeisha had grown up in L.A., and had never ventured more than four hours from the city limits. Lakeisha had seen movie stars, was at the beach every weekend. But she was amazed by this place.

She stepped off the bus at the camp, and the doubt she had been suppressing since she boarded the plane at LAX surfaced along with a violent wave of nausea. Even from the edge of the camp, the smell was overwhelming. She hesitated dramatically, then realized she was an ocean away from home. There was nowhere to run back to.

Lakeisha soon came to know the pungent smell drifting around the camp as the smell of desperation. She got over it and did what she came to do. Although she would never admit it aloud, this trip was more about her. Seeing the world. Finding her role in the universe. Gaining perspective.

She was stationed at the camp for two weeks. She picked up parts of the native language. She saw despair in the refugees eyes, and realized that a child's natural glimmer of hope can be destroyed. She saw bravery conquer fear, and love triumph unbelievable odds. And she saw the loneliest, saddest, most helpless people she'd ever seen in her life.

Her two weeks ended. She packed her duffel. She kissed the children. She hugged the mothers. She shook hands with the men. She got back on that bus, back on that plane and cross the ocean. She got home and took a deep breath of the smog-ridden L.A. air.

But there was a trace of the camp's smell that lingered. It led her to the homeless man on the corner. The rehab center down the street. The orphanage two miles down. The ghettos across town.