My friend and brother Jeane Marie in Entebbe,Uganda |
I
met
Jean a few months ago, that was after I had just written the about the Police
Brutality in Uganda and the continued harassment of the major opposition leader,
Dr.Kizza Besigye.I had just published a blog
article, [THE EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES],
that he met in our circle of friends (we weren’t even friends on facebook then)—we
became friends thereafter, just because of the article. He
was distraught by the insurgence his country [Burundi] and
he told me he wanted to come and seek asylum, we kept in touch until he came
and settled here for a while until he went to another country.
He
has been a brother to me and I could bet I have equally reciprocated the care,
love and Protection. Like me, Jean is a blogger, mostly in French and working on
his road to blogging in English. While he was around, we could often sit and
talk to each other saying—Jean to me: “I want to be able to blog like you in English someday”
and I would say back to him: “I also want to be able to blog in French like you some day”—a
win-win situation for both of us.
An online app gave me these results,so sweet,thanks @POTUS. |
I
would tell Jean about two things every day I saw him; that I want to meet
President Obama&Michelle, Hillary Clinton & President Bill Clinton—secondly,
that I want to have an executive bathroom from my writing career. To all these,
my brother Jean always signaled “YES YOU CAN” and gave me the green light at
times even supporting in ways that are more than just the words. I want to
assure you that I am at work every day of my life. I am relentlessly saying STRONGER TOGETHER because I know surely, nobody can
do it on his/her own, we always need a little help from someone.
I
have made so many true friends online, most of them I have never met them
physically, but they are part of the reason I wake up each day with a very big
smile on my face. It is good to know that no matter how much noise there is in
the background, there are people who will never give up on you, not because you
have bribed them but because you don’t live a life below the line of being your
authentic self and they love it.While chronicling my university story, [MY FIRST COLLEGE DEGREE], I emphatically brought in my
utmost gratitude for understanding world views, a course unity I did then.
Quoting Suzy Kassem, I said: “Everyone should strive to be a
world citizen. Boundaries were created by man, not the creator. There is no
such a thing as THEM vs. US. There is only ‘WE’”
I have
shared these words with my brother Jean but I can’t afford to miss sharing them
again, the words from President Obama’s speech while
speaking to Howard College graduates earlier this year: “when your journey seems too hard, and when you run into a chorus of
cynics who tell you that you are being too foolish to keep believing, or that
you can’t do something, or that you should give up, that you should just settle,
you must say to yourself a little phrase that I have found handy the last eight
years: YES WE CAN”
PHOTO SOURCE:Taken off the web,Spirit Science. |
As I
write this I want to encourage everyone reading it that surely, there is more
life than material things, and a lot if we embrace God’s intended purpose for
the human race. When I wrote my birthday piece [THE DASH BETWEEN THE YEARS], I categorically made that crystal clear. We
can disagree always, but surely, the battlefield of brilliant ideas should never
be stepped on. I will close it out with a very serious piece of advice to
everyone that loves writing and giving commentary: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION. And to you my dear brother Jean,
we may not be able to change the world at once but whatever good we do, just
three feet in front of you; that’s what it means to be the change you want to
see: just like the crew saving people from a shipwreck pick one person at a
time, let’s keep positive and do whatever we can as long as we still have
lives. God bless the work of your hands.
Grace Abaho Sr is an INDEPENDENT BLOGGER: “A FRIEND CALLED
JEAN-MARIE”
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