We Will Go Together

I had retreated into a Corner of Gulu, Uganda, believing a redundant schedule of waking up late, reading paperbacks under an impossibly blue sky, and wandering from one souvenir store to another constituted “living.” Hesitant to leave this Corner, I frowned as my host prodded me to attend, of all things, community breakdance classes I earlier found advertised on a flier.

"This is our practice grounds," Eddie, the b-boy instructor at Breakdance Project Uganda, said with eyes that glided over a grass field and landed on a cement hut. "You start today," he declared, ignoring my befuddlement.

I felt the Corner tremble, unsure of what would come next.

I confessed to knowing nothing about breakdance. “Don’t worry," he steamrolled over my concern, "you start with Baby Classes.”

Baby. The word resurrected memories from a martial arts teacher barking as I grunted, grimaced, and groaned my way across a tile floor dotted in my sweat and tears: "Baby, are you tired? Come on, Baby, we're not finished. Again, Baby!”

"You learn Baby Moves here on Baby Ground. If you try in hut, you might hurt Baby.” Eddie sniffed, patting the grass.

From under his tuque, Eddie spent an hour comparing my up rock, footwork, and Baby Freeze - basic moves in break dance - to a turtle trying to stand on hind legs. Surrendering to upper body strength I didn’t have, I collapsed onto the grass, and listened to b-boys laughing at Baby.

“You know, it’s coming." Eddie reassured me before adjusting his tuque and joining the headspinning b-boys in the cement hut.

I heard the Corner shuffling away a few more feet.

For weeks, my face burned not from the Ugandan sun, but from feeling Eddie’s eyes watch every time I fell under my own weight; I couldn’t ignore the b-boy laughter, but refused to return to the Corner. I woke early to repeat the basics on my host’s grassy land, lived less in books and more with Eddie and the b-boys, and visited each of their homes instead of the souvenir stores. I ate, slept, and practiced as the b-boys did, feeling more and more at home by not being at home. My sweat mixed with the earth, caking my forearms and knees in red clay while the Corner pulled farther and farther away from me.

One afternoon, my feet dangled in the air. The b-boys’ laughter resonated differently in a Baby Freeze; it sounded like the Corner collapsing far away.

I would forever hold onto that moment, remembering to live fully wherever I went.

Nobody would put Baby in the Corner again.