## **Chapter 1 – The Red Dirt of Alabama**
The bus rolled into Alabama at dawn, its windows fogged with breath and exhaustion. Outside, the fields stretched wide and silent, painted in the soft gold of early morning. To Mbawee Latanga, barely nine years old, it felt like stepping into another planet — one that spoke a language of quiet struggle. His mother squeezed his hand tightly, whispering in Dinka, *"No tree stands tall without roots, my son. Remember where you come from."*
They had left their homeland behind — not by choice, but by necessity. Sudan had become a graveyard of dreams. His father, once a schoolteacher in a small town near Bor, had watched his students vanish one by one — to war, to hunger, to hopelessness. When the soldiers came, taking what little peace the family had, he gathered his wife and son and fled, trading the familiar dust of the Nile for the unknown red clay of America.
In the beginning, Alabama was not the promised land they had imagined. It was a place of weary eyes and thin smiles, of old houses with peeling paint and streets that smelled of fried oil and iron dust. They settled in a small village so far from the city that buses came only twice a day. The locals called it "Dogwood Hollow." Mbawee's father found work at a chicken processing plant, his hands raw and swollen from the cold water. His mother scrubbed motel rooms for twelve hours a day, her knees aching, her spirit burning like the oil lamps she left on their small table each night.
But in that humble home — one room, two mattresses, and a world of faith — they built something precious. Every evening, when the tiredness in their bones was heavy enough to break them, they sat together over lentils and cornbread. His father would say, "A poor man who teaches his child to think is richer than a king who owns the world." And Mbawee listened. He listened to every word as if it were gospel.
At school, things were different. The other children laughed at his accent, the way he pronounced "th" like a soft "d." They mocked his dark skin and strange name. Some days, he went home with his fists clenched and eyes wet, but his mother would remind him: *"The river that bends does not break. You are stronger than the storm."* Slowly, the laughter turned to silence — the kind that comes when hard work begins to speak louder than ridicule.
Books became his refuge. He read until the candles melted into puddles of wax. He devoured everything from *To Kill a Mockingbird* to old newspapers he found in the library's trash bin. The librarian, an elderly woman named Mrs. Weaver, noticed his hunger for knowledge. "You remind me of my own boy," she said once, slipping him a biography of Abraham Lincoln. "He believed education could make a free man out of anyone — even the poor."
That night, Mbawee pressed the book to his chest and whispered a silent vow. He would study until the world could no longer ignore him. He would make his parents proud — not through wealth or fame, but through dignity.
As the months passed, he began to understand America — the subtle walls, the hidden kindness, the fierce independence of its people. He learned that poverty in Alabama wore a different face than poverty in Sudan. There were no bombs here, but there were invisible chains: low wages, broken schools, forgotten towns. And yet, he loved the land. He loved the way the sun kissed the red dirt after rain, the way church choirs sang until the walls shook, the way even strangers said, "God bless you," after every goodbye.
One Sunday, after church, the pastor invited Mbawee to speak. "Tell us, son," he said with a warm grin, "what do you want to be when you grow up?"
The boy hesitated for a moment, his heart thundering in his chest. Then he spoke, his voice clear and trembling like the morning bell.
"I want to make my parents proud," he said. "I want to be a man who helps people. Maybe… maybe a leader."
The congregation chuckled softly — not out of mockery, but surprise. A refugee boy from Sudan, dreaming of leadership in a land that barely noticed him. But the pastor only smiled and said, "Child, even the tallest tree starts as a small seed. Let the rain of hard work fall on you, and you will grow higher than the clouds."
That night, as the moonlight streamed through the window, Mbawee wrote a sentence in his school notebook — the first words of a dream too big for his small hands:
> "One day, I will speak for the ones who cannot speak for themselves."
His mother found the note the next morning and kissed his forehead. "Then speak loud, my son," she said softly. "Because the world listens only to those who refuse to be silent."
Outside, the Alabama sun rose again, painting the land in fire and gold. The red dirt clung to his shoes as he walked to school — a quiet reminder that even from humble soil, greatness can grow.