Bosco

The first day I came to town I met a young man named Bosco. He is 23. I was told by my friends who had been here before that I would like him, but what I did not know, or anticipate, is how quickly I could come to love someone. He is a bright and beautiful spirit, a musician, a poet, a thinker and more. He has the soulful eyes of a sage and a smile that pulls at the corners of your own mouth when he gifts it to you. The first day we sat and talked he told about his music and played his guitar for me I knew that his was a talent that deserves to shine on the world.

He told me about the eucalyptus trees and how they rent the water table so that other trees and smaller plants can’t survive and how the atmosphere is changed because of the water they emit to the sky, and of tobacco crops that leach the soil and rob the farmers of better livelihoods because of the multicorporation that owns the rights, and of his love of computers, and people and the rights of people. All of this in one go, and then he played me his own songs of warlords and child soldiers and I let myself cry a little inside. He’s the sole employee at the Peace for All internet café which he runs with competency and great care having only learned computers not so long ago from my cohort David. He runs the café with professionalism and greets everyone warmly and takes pride in his skill and aptitude in the humblest of fashions. He told me of his dream to do his own music, his own way. To not let the popular, jingo-y, commercial music despoil his art and I nodded in solidarity because his is the kind of spirit that if it perseveres, will lead to the changes we are all hoping we are brave enough to stand for. I am honoured to know him. He brings light and music and love to everyone he touches.