Beauty from the Ashes
I watch as the colorless roadsides flash pass in a droning blur as I drive down the paved road. I count the billows of smoke that rest heavy above raging flames engulfing wild grass. My children make a game of it, trying to be the first to spot the bush fire as we travel from our home in a quiet Northern Ugandan village to the bustling capital city of Kampala. Though we are very familiar with the traditional approach of burning of land to prepare for the upcoming planting season, I can’t help but hold my breath every time I see the small patches of the lingering green leftover from last rainy season be extinguished too. We experience months of falling ash yearly, just as one would step outside and try to catch snowflakes gently twirling on their way down, in other parts of the world. But, not here. Here, we are deep into the driest of times where terracotta dirt coats everything with a thick layer of its dusting daily. We are where the heat radiates off the sun, f...
