Adventures of a Reluctant Nomad

March 4, 2011 - Jacmel, Ayiti - Onions

2011-04-15T16:23:00.003-05:00

I've been lying to you about Haiti (Ayiti). Not lying exactly, but not telling most of the juicy bits. The truth is, it's complicated, with more layers than a truckful of onions. But I paint roses because it is very important that you love Ayiti. The truth is, your health and happiness depend on it--but that is about as easy for most people to believe in as faeries are.

The truth people more willingly believe is that Ayiti needs you to engage, deeply, with love (not just your checkbook). But it's mutual--we need each other because our way of life is off-kilter in a way Haitian culture can help us put right.

How do I share with you, those I love, the many layers of the truckload of onions--bit by bit, as they are revealed to me--in a way that brings out the flavor of the place you need to understand, without making you flee from the truck in tears?

I'm searching a new balance in this, so be warned, and keep in touch about how I'm doing.

November 30, 2010--Port au Prince and Jacmel--bigger than elections and cholera

2011-01-01T19:38:00.003-06:00

Who the peacekeepers are

It seems pretty clear at this stage that the UN peacekeeping battalion started the Cholera epidemic in Haiti. It was an accident, of course, but it angers people that they won’t admit openly to it and try to rectify what they can. Some were angry already, seeing the peacekeeping mission as an occupying force of foreigners that soak up a lot of needed resources, keep them from fair elections, and block their constitutional right to “public clamor” when they don’t get what they deserve; many others see them as a force that, all too often, sexually exploits and abuses Haitian women. Other people believe they are needed, to keep peace and from gangs from taking over.

Now, we seem to be in an unhealthy spiral of anger at peacekeepers, which causes unrest which helps people justify further peacekeeper presence.

And the rest of us?

Well, we’re trying to figure out how to help the people we know to buy bleach to drop into their drinking water and teaching each other what we know about cholera. There is a local expert coming to talk to our training group tomorrow, and everyone gently reminds each other to wash our hands often. A room full of people are volunteering 4 days of their time to talk about positive and negative uses of power, violence against women, and HIV. They decide they want to use their power to talk about cholera too.

My boss and friend was feeling the weight of it all today. She is speaking at a conference in Puerto Rico about children’s rights and child slavery. She says it is so beautiful there. She says she keeps wondering why Haiti can’t be like that—it is so close. There is too much heaviness to bear some days. I reminded her of history, of context—all of which she knows. I told her of a few miracles I saw today—everyday heroes that don’t make the headlines. She responded by telling me about more small miracles Haiti has brought to her, over her lifetime here.

Small miracles are everywhere—and neither young men with guns nor old ones with neckties have any right to steal the headlines from those people who perform them, every day, right here. Not hearing about the miracles simply makes Haitians doubt themselves more, and Americans take one step further away from understanding all that we have to learn from Haitians, toward a time when our understanding of the other side of the coin will make us both more free and full.

One person, several votes

Leading up to the elections, there were a couple of debates—I hear that was unusual. We had a meeting for work with some local journalists, and had all these great plans to plant them with questions for when the candidates came to Jacmel to talk about issues. The journalists just laughed. The candidates don’t come to talk about issues or let people ask them questions, they said. “They come to distribute t-shirts with their faces on them and make a lot of noise.”

Indeed, this morning, I heard a beautiful song in the style of old Haitian folk music. My amateur translation:

“Pretty t-shirts, pretty t-shirts, pretty t-shirts

It is this that keeps our country from moving forward

There is only one problem, always repeating

If you don’t have connections, you stay in misery”

The election was a disaster, to say the least. On the roof at sunset, election day, with one of my favorite neighbors, we discussed politics and food. We could see the black smoke rising from the burning tires in the road, near the protests the other side of town. A peaceful protest that felt more like Carnival time ran by, probably 200 strong, dance-running and chanting “get him out of here!”—that is, whomever wins, just get the current guy out. Not everyone was so upbeat . . .the radio says they broke into the election office and tore up ballots. So many voters were turned away because the poll was closed or didn’t have their name listed. One can imagine, in cities that were nearly flattened by the quake, some stellar planning would be needed to ensure people knew where to go now to vote, and to be sure only living people were still on the voter rolls. Stellar planning didn’t happen. 12 of 19 presidential candidates asked to annul the elections, before any votes were counted. The process is unfair.

None of this is funny, and yet people find a way. I first noticed it in Africa, this ability to laugh or be funny in the middle of a horrible situation. Haitians have it nailed. I hear people laughing about polling places that were closed, with all votes already collected, by 6am election day, with everyone who turned up after that turned away. “Amazing how excited people were to vote this year! They all got up at 3am to be done by sunrise!”

I also hear some of the protests in Port au Prince and their chants—“Jude Celestin (president’s son in law) paid me to vote for him, but I voted for Micky anyway”. Sweet Micky, a musician turned politician famous for dropping his baggy pants below his bum and dancing in the crowd after an election speech, has a pretty strong following among a certain crowd. It’s not as silly as it all sounds—none of the traditional politicians has worked out very well; they want change. I’ve heard two men say the same about Madam Manigat, the female candidate with arguably the best credentials and most in-depth analysis about things. One of my public transport motorcycle drivers recently shrugged and said “well, men seem to have done a terrible job at being president—why not give her a try?”

I know Haitians deserve good leadership, fair elections. I also know that maybe our measuring stick is off—maybe it will not be Haiti’s legacy to have that in 2010.

Maybe Haiti’s magic comes in things we don’t know how to measure, but that bring more happiness than any politician ever has. Maybe that secret is at the heart of what it takes to go through what people have been through this year, and still make jokes about it all with their neighbors.

November 2, 2010 - Port au Prince - Small taste of Fet Gede/ Halloween/ All Soul's Day

2010-11-07T10:30:00.007-06:00

First real night out in Port au Prince, if you don't count the overrun by aid workers, where Djaloki, Coleen and I all felt out of place. This is more like home--Fet Gede/ Halloween/ All Soul's Day for the Haitian politically aware/artist/ musician crowd and a smattering of interested aid workers. I come with Carla, who comes with the band.

The drums make the night--when they are good, you feel them in the pit of your stomach.

An old, respected, grey-haired musician with long dreds under his hat drums as a famous, mysterious graffiti artist in a skeleton costume and mask paints, in moments before our eyes, the scene of a woman's face--half beautiful and half skeleton, a voudou dancer in Gede's purple, and a male drummer with hollowed out eyes and pronounced cheekbones. The drums sound like they are coming from inside us. We all breathe deeply, quietly, not wanting to disturb the moment. Awe.

23 October 2010 - Jacmel, Haiti - Haircut

2010-11-07T10:02:00.005-06:00

Getting your hair cut in a place where you are the ethnic minority is a bit of a trick, anywhere in the world. Luckily, I have easy-to-cut hair at this point.

In Liberia, while my hair was growing out from being shaved, I went back and forth between having friends hack at it on the front steps, and going to a hair salon aptly-named "Where Else?" Where Else was run by a Thai family that made its money following multi-ethnic aid workers and their multi-ethnic hair to emergencies around the world. When Timor Leste got too calm to have clientele and Darfur got too dangerous, they came to Liberia.

In Haiti, there are always the missionaries, and Haitian hair comes in a diverse spectrum, so I get the hunch it's easier here than it would be, for example, for an African American to find a place to get their hair cut in most of rural Iowa.

But then there's the Jacmel phenomenon. It's too close to Port au Prince--2 hours--and people seem loath to start businesses selling things people could get done just 2 hours away.

-Want masking tape? Go to Port au Prince.
-A dentist? Port au Prince.
-Dairy products that require refrigeration (shouldn't the ones that don't scare us all)? Port au Prince.

I could go on.

According to the first three people I ask, white lady haircuts are on the Port au Prince list. But, this afternoon as I head back from the market with Dieunie (lugging our bag full of dry beans, Haitian rice, balls of chocolate to be boiled with cinnamon and sugar for hot cocoa, fresh greens and some fresh made peanut butter) I decide my buy-local kick should include haircuts. There is a hair salon right next door to my new apartment. Can't get much more local than that, right?

The place is tiny, and three punked-out, spikey-haired fashionista sisters in their late teens/ early 20's, along with the oldest woman's 3-year-old, sit and chat and watch bad French TV until I come in. They're happy to have the business. They swear they can cut my hair. I'm dubious, but willing to give it a shot to bond with my neighbors.

I play with the 3 year old while her mom lugs in a big bucket of cold water with which to wash my hair. They grill me about my relationship status and we start to banter about jealousy, fidelity and love. When I lean back to get my hair scrubbed, I start noticing the pictures of Catholic saints strategically placed: one behind a hat near the ceiling by the door, one low on the wall behind a chair next to a cup of water, and one out in the open for all to see.

For centuries of slavery and missionary zeal, Voudou--the original, unifying religion for most African-descended people on the island--has been repressed and misunderstood. Most Americans still equate it with sticking pins in a doll to cause pain to someone.

Not that Voudou has never been misused to cause pain--it definitely has--but considering centuries of forced conversion and slavery by people claiming to be Catholic, one wonders what religion hasn't been misused by some of its followers.

The result of a long history of suppression is double meaning of Catholic imagery, to fold in African spirits. The spirits in Voudou are not God--Voudou practitioners believe in one God--but, like saints, the spirits are sometimes seen as easier for people to relate our daily experiences to. (We're not so different--when American Catholics lose something, I understand sometimes they pray to St. Anthony.)

So, in my little neighborhood salon, we see St. Peter, the Virgin Mary, and St. Jacques. Or, we see Papa Legba, the master of the crossroads and the entry point to the spririt world, Ezilie, the spirit of love, and Ogou, the spirit of strength, healing, and battle. I don't know my new neighbors well enough to know which set of beliefs they hold, and it's not something you ask about openly or expect an open answer to.

After the haircut, we sit for awhile and chat while the 3-year-old dances around and half-watches the Chipmunks, dubbed over in French. I mention my need for Haitian cooking lessons, and it turns out the hairstylist also has a diploma in culinary arts. Cooking lessons start soon.

I don't yet look punked out or fashionista enough to be part of the club--but the haircut is a definite improvement. And I have four new great people to sit with, who can teach me about my new street and all its stories.

September 2010 - a bit late - Jacmel, Ayiti - lemons and trumpets

2010-11-07T09:53:00.001-06:00

Today smells like lemons.

It looks like a grey-white, rock-filled road and a turquoise door,

a balcony and

a ghost slave ship sailing past the pastel cemetery.

It feels like a deep breath, a cool stream of water through my toes,

and an occasional cold stare.

It sounds like a blues song on a street corner

that ends with a smile on the lips of the trumpet player.

* * * * *

What we have to learn from Haitians, part 1:

(just a small inkling of the truth)

Courage: You try losing your family in an earthquake, reconstructing your collapsed house with a small hammer and a dollar a day to eat with, too, and still finding time to make sure your fingernails are painted before you change your clothes and go to church.

Dignity: I had a dream the other night, sleeping on a straw mat on the floor at a friend’s place, of running with a maroon, scrambling in bare feet over rough rocks, being chased, but running still with dignity. Maroons are well known in Haitian history, escaped slaves that lived in the mountains. They called each other to meetings by blowing the low moan of a conch shell, and eventually defeated Napoleon’s army to establish freedom, decades before the U.S. abolished slavery. Maroons refused to live without dignity, to be forced into anything less than what they were. To those still in chains, they were a reminder of dignity and freedom. Slaves heard the call of the conch shell and knew that freedom was not only possible, but imminent. In a hundred ways, the spirit of that refusal to lose dignity is present in life today, every day, in Haitian communities. People can tell when you are giving less respect than they are worth. They can smell the difference between charity and engagement. They refuse to accept less than we have to offer.

Community: When you are hungry, you go to your neighbor and they feed you. When you have an extra plate, you send it for them. When you have a problem, you yell and everyone in your neighborhood comes running. They may give you crap advice, but they’ll be there. They’ll be back tomorrow, too, to check on you.

To be continued, because there is more . . .

August 21, 2010 - Jacmel, Haiti - Now

2010-08-23T17:34:00.003-05:00

Part of the magic of Haiti is that things rarely go as you planned.

-The food not being ready in the morning means I am late for work . . .

-Being late for work means I take my walk late to the bus stop, which means the market is in full swing by the time I pass through . . .

-The light is different this time of morning, and the ocean sun glints fully off the silver hoop earrings of a market woman as I pass, sitting in her bright flowered dress surrounded by breadfruit, soap and bananas . . .

-I am taken aback at the beauty of that moment—it makes me remember how blessed I am to be here, to be alive, in a place that can so fully help me understand spirit and community and to remember the world isn’t here for me to control.

And when I am not in control, sometimes—just sometimes—something better happens.
I meet someone I wouldn’t have. I avoid an accident I might have had. I see something beautiful.

At other times, not being able to control life means the artist doesn’t show up for the meeting and the community members lose faith in us—one more organization that broke its promise.

Sometimes it means there are fish bones and a couple of ants in my egg sandwich . . .

But the second ant makes me drop my sandwich in disgust, which makes me look up, and see the hummingbird on the big pink flowering bush next to the newly painted white wall of the office compound.

Again, there is the spirit and I remember why I’m here.

I’ve started to feel sorry for my old self, back before Africa and Haiti, when I got angry when things didn’t go my way—when the light was red or the meeting didn’t start on time. Haitians don’t really get angry about those things that I can see—they believe something will happen when they see it happen. No one ever says “tomorrow” without saying “si Dye vle”—if God wishes. In the worldview of most Haitians, only this moment is sure—the present is the most important—anything that happens after that is a bit out of our hands.

When I don’t set up an expectation around things going my way, it’s easier to laugh things off, to sit back, and to meet that person I wouldn’t have met before.

I remember to be alive now.

What plan that I had could be more important than that?

Mesi, Ayiti.

May 27, 2010 - Jacmel, Ayiti - Receive from Haiti

2010-05-27T15:58:00.007-05:00

Today as I was walking down my mud-river road to the tap tap station (a colorful public bus of sorts) I stopped to greet a child selling peanuts. I try not to buy from children as a general rule--a lesson instilled in me by a Zimbabwean friend and child labor expert in Liberia who said mothers take their children out of school because people think they're cute and want to buy from them, not the moms. But I didn't think of that right away this morning; I just thought of lunch.

As I was looking for change, I asked the little girl about school--questions she dodged with her eyes, making me feel like the purchase wasn't a good idea--like maybe she doesn't go to school, and maybe there is a similar child labor problem here. I didn't have any change anyway, and thanked her and said "another day". I walked on, but a man by the side of the road saw me and said--"you don't have money? Let me buy some for you. They are a gift."

Random kindness of a stranger happens every day here. I am learning to receive in Haiti.

Outsiders come to Haiti right now with the best intentions to give. People have been moved by the crisis here. People have been moved by crises here for many decades. Our compassion is a gift--but I am realizing compassion isn't only about giving.

My friend Djaloki is an expert in helping me and others find ways to interact with Haitians in a way that maximizes dignity. My first week here, he said: "2.2 billion dollars for Haiti, and it is stuck in our throats. We are choking on your 2.2 billion dollars--and this is not the first time. All we want to do is give you something. Let us!"

I'm learning to receive here--it's never been easy for me. My host sister spent 3 hours in the sun washing my clothes as a surprise for me. My host mom got the tin roof fixed where it was dripping on the bed (the bed she bought me while she continues to sleep on a mat on the floor). She was horrified that I was momentarily uncomfortable. She cooks for me, gives me the best of everything. The neighbors are patient as I stumble with my words and fail to understand them on the 3rd attempt.

Generosity doesn't begin to describe.

People ask me for things every day, too--but I have seen the looks on their faces when they receive the handouts of toothbrushes or "2 little old scratchy blankets" after standing in impossible lines, handed to them by beaming and well-meaning outsiders. There is a mask there, even if it's smiling. And I have seen people's faces when I say I don't have tents, I can't pay for their medical visit. When I say it in Creole, here is the strange thing--they actually light up at the 'no'.

I do want to give--but I am learning that charity is not the best option, even in an emergency. Engagement is. Equitable exchange.

Still not sure what that means for a 9 year old peanut seller, but I am trying. And for now, selfish as it may sound, I am receiving the most amazing gifts every day, and it is beautiful. I invite anyone who wants to explore compassion with Haiti to come visit me. Nope--I don't invite you, I challenge you. Engage.

May 17, 2010 - Port au Prince, Ayiti - Sweat

2010-05-17T12:25:00.006-05:00

A week in Port au Prince, filled with mystery and some weight. It's hard not to be affected by the energy of the place. Haitians consider Port au Prince a "hot" place, whereas my home in Kay Jakmel is a "cold" place. This is not about thermometers.

Hot is aggressive, dominant, loud, active. The sounds of traffic and construction, the buzz of people trying their best to rebuild, the thousand heavy thoughts stuck to every crushed cement block--these make the place hot.

I spend the week with friends driving me around the hills and traffic-stopped roads, to women's organizations now operating out of tents or temporary buildings or alternate locations. I go there to humbly introduce myself and hear about their work. I listen all week, mostly to things not said. The unspoken and the energy of things are what are often most important to people here.

There is so much energy in Port au Prince, it fills you and heats you up, too.

The energy of the women's organization leaders is skeptical--the kind of heavy skepticism that people sometimes put in front of hope, to protect themselves from disappointment.

The energy of the priest is peaceful and kind, as he sits with grey-black hair and kind smile in a plain room full of spirits. Sometimes he just looks at me and laughs, not saying anything.

The energy of the party above Port au Prince, in a house full of artists and musicians, is alive--at least while the drums are playing and the songs begin.

The priest gives the best advice, in the end: "Do not separate yourself. LIVE. To understand people and function at a higher level of compassion, you have to sweat. Don't be afraid to make mistakes--you have to sweat! Jesus did this--you come from a culture that knows that. Buddha also did this. You must sweat! You will make mistakes, but none so serious that they will take you off the path of what you are supposed to do. Sweat! Do you hear me? Sweat!"

Not separating myself is uncomfortable. It means people laugh at my Kreyol because I am not only speaking to friendly people. It means people reject me sometimes. It means they tell me painful stories about the neighbor they don't know how to help--the one who lost his wife, his 3 kids, his house--the one who doesn't know how to go on. It means I have to open myself up and trust boys every so often; after all, there are some cute ones. It means I have to engage, especially when I want to be alone.

That--say all the various denominations of holy people I know here--that is what I am meant to learn here. I needed a hot place to learn how to sweat. And then I can do what I came here for.

---
Dear friends: Please send cold water and a fan when you are able.

May 11, 2010 - Jacmel, Haiti

2010-05-11T12:41:00.003-05:00

The poetry is inescapable, sitting on the remaining part of the second floor of the collapsed art school in Jacmel. The breeze passes quietly over my skin and scattered, forgotten canvass. Crumbled cement chunks grate against my shoes, broken wall revealing the turquoise sea. The sea and the courtyard below, filled with tents and bright sculptured masks--and artists with more hair and smoke and inspiration than clothes.

The waves mix with the wind sounds through mango tree leaves, mangoes at eye level now. To my left, the energy changes. Broken red door and stairway to the abandoned office, crumbled wall opening the view of the UN compound, soldiers overly armed, with vehicles outnumbering people behind a high fence.

I still haven't understood if the school's director died here or in his home.

A salamander wiggles along the broken wooden window;

a goat along the beach forages and bleats;

the men sit around, slapping down dominoes.

I sit apart, just for today, letting the spirit of what this place used to be touch me, hoping it can help me to better enter the energy now.

April 20, 2010 - Jakmel, Haiti- the secret of balance

2010-04-20T13:40:00.008-05:00

An afternoon trek with friends leads us to a small hydroelectric plant which gives us our occasional electricity, and beyond to the bright turquoise porch of a family friend.

The walk is an adventure I am very ready for, after a weekend full of being at home, chatting in a language I barely understand about household chores I am still inept at doing in the Haitian way.

On the road: many friendly faces, hot pink houses, impossibly green fruit trees growing out of white rocks seeming to be dry as bone.

A few old women along the route gaze at me like I am stone until I greet them in Kreyol and they melt into smiles.

The kids are cheeky and full of life.

Men are not as easy for me, in any country. It's just a function of personality and perception, maybe. We pass a group of men with loud music. One of them stands up, chanting to the beat, "blan kraze peyi nou"--whites collapse/destroy our country.

Uncomfortable, but generally true.

The other men who overhear him don't greet me back fully when I greet them. Very odd in rural Haiti not to greet someone back.

We continue on, my friends chatting away and teasing my little 3 year old friend as we go.

The white stone is stunning, the little waterfalls, the ease of things.

Later, coming home again, we approach the place where the men were gathered, though the music has stopped.

Friends who know Ayiti (Haiti) had told me, but it amazes me how true it is: hundreds of years of power imbalance related to skin color and country of origin can indeed be momentarily dissipated if you are willing to publicly humiliate yourself.

As we approached the group of men with the music, my friend Dieunie balanced a large bag of dried beans and plantains we were carrying on her head, to carry it more easily in the Haitian way.

"Let me try," I said.

"You're going to try?" Dieunie asked, laughing.

We walked along slowly as the bag slipped off my head a dozen times and all the men laughed themselves silly at the "blan" and my amusing inability to perform normal Haitian tasks.

The negative energy from before disappeared. I might be a fool, but now I'm their fool--in 1,000 ways, a 1,000 times a day. Opening my arms to let in the laughter, getting a little bit bigger every time. One day I may be big enough to truly call this home.

April 15, 2010 Kay Jakmel, Haiti - no mangos with roasted corn and the color red

2010-04-15T15:42:00.005-05:00

There is an auntie at my house who is full of magic. She likes to greet me by squeezing me all over, grabbing places that might be offensive if she weren't an old woman. Startling at first, but now I know she is just being warm.

She knows what leaves are good for what illness, how to make my little two year old friend laugh, and what you can't eat together if you don't want to get sick. No mangos with roasted corn on the same day, for example.

She's also got magic. There's something going on there under the surface, and--at night when the stars are out sometimes and we're sitting on the porch with the banana leaves swaying--I think I might catch a glimpse.

Soon I have to go to her with a notebook and drill her about when it is appropriate to eat fruit--because the soursop, the mangos, the papaya are amazing, but every time I'm sitting down to eat one she says, slightly exasperated at my dense nature and amused--"No! Not now! That one is for later. It will give you gas!"

The fruits are falling of the trees--please auntie, just one mango?

This morning she was helping my Creole tutor explain the meaning of colors to me. Red is for joy, blue for sincerity, yellow for betrayal, purple for the dead.

Even small children here know this. Here I am, a small child again, happy to have someone who knows about life to help me figure it all out.

April 7, 2010 - Port au Prince, Ayiti

2010-04-15T14:29:00.001-05:00

I just came from a displaced camp in Port au Prince that is a pretty tough place. There is a zone within the camp where a lot of the prisoners went, who escaped when the prison collapsed. It’s not an easy place to be a woman.

When I first entered the camp a couple of weeks ago, I came looking for potential support people for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. I asked a lot of questions about who was listened to and respected in the community—who were the people women fled to when they needed help? I talked to the women who were named by others as those people who could help.

I got more and more discouraged, because one by one, the first 8 I talked to didn’t want to be involved. They said: yes, women are beaten here all the time, and raped. We hear them screaming and there is no one to help them. Sometimes they come to us, but we don’t want them to. If we don’t know them, we turn them away. It’s too dangerous to get involved because their husband might be one of the “vagabonds”. Little by little, we found women who were not afraid and wanted to help. They had incredible spirits and guts and life to contribute.

They mostly didn’t know each other, but we invited them to training. We held several days of reflective training on peer counseling and basic community network building related to violence against women. Yesterday was the last day of formal training, so today I went back to check out how they were thinking about things now and what they had learned. They did role plays to show how good they’ve become at listening and non-directive options giving.

Then we started to chat. They started to sing a song they’d learned from other women in training, and we got up to dance. People’s capacity for spontaneous joy in places that don’t make it seem possible is astounding to me. Other women looked and laughed and came out of their tents to see what the joy was about. Then the women wanted to show us their homes, and we marched through the part of the camp that so many had considered to be too dangerous to help survivors in.

Big, tough guys stood among children and families, looking on as these 10 incredible women marched through their neighborhood like they finally owned the place. We met the families of the participants, and we danced together. And here is the miracle that keeps me going: seeing the joy of those women who are unafraid to be joyful, other women started smiling.

THAT is what I get to do for a living. How lucky am I?

March 22, 2010 - Port au Prince, Ayiti

2010-04-15T14:19:00.002-05:00

Yesterday and today I am in Port au Prince, doing an assessment for a short training with long term follow up for the emergency organization where I worked in West Africa, now in Haiti.

I arrive in Cham Mas, the displaced camp outside of the collapsed presidential palace my first day in Port au Prince. I weave through the rows of families, many sitting outside their tents to escape the heat, only to find more heat. I am led by one of the Coordinators of KOFAVIV, a group that has long worked in neighborhoods around the area, as survivors of sexual violence who want to help other survivors. After hearing so many stories in another camp about fear of getting involved with survivors of violence against women because of possible retribution from perpetrators, I am impressed when they tell me all they do to support survivors. I ask what inspires them to keep doing their work, even when there is no money and it is sometimes dangerous.

One of the women says: "If our ancestors had been too afraid to stand up against slavery, we would be in a very different position now. But they were not afraid to stand up, and we are benefiting from that today. So we as women decided to put ourselves together and stand up, too, so that maybe someday our daughters and granddaughters will not have to be afraid."

We have to leave the meeting quickly, because Clinton and Bush want to visit the camp--the traffic is overwhelming and a protest is brewing. But after some tricky, backward driving by a brilliant man, we're out of traffic in no time.

March 20, 2010 - Jacmel, Haiti (Ayiti)

2010-04-15T14:10:00.002-05:00

Ocean light fills the marketplace and makes the white stone look like it is lit from within. The market women are clearly lit from within, too, with gold hoop earrings and sassy banter and swirls of colors. A man walks past and starts an animated discussion about the lottery and who will win and who will lose. Or at least I think that is what it is about. At this point, I only understand some of the words—but the spirit is somehow easier to enter into, if not comprehend. The white stones have life here, just as the smiles do. Spirit is everywhere.

Everyone grows up sometime, incorporating a new, chosen family into the tapestry of the family (and friends) they came from. One week with a family here--and I am home.

March 3, 2010 - Iowa

2010-04-15T14:04:00.004-05:00

Just a note--it's not a deliberate omission. I haven't figured out yet how to write about home and family--the stream of people who are so available and fun and ready for a good laugh.

Sitting around a table with family tonight and celebrating my Grandma's 90th year of gracing this planet was irreplaceable.

February 22, 2010 - Zen Center, Vermont

2010-04-15T13:58:00.004-05:00

Back in Vermont.

Beloved monk from Japan, quoted somewhat imprecisely:

"May peace prevail on earth. I cannot give what I don't have. Maybe a person is in front of me and what they really need is a piece of chocolate cake. But I cannot give them chocolate cake if I don't have any. No matter how much they need it or how much I want to give it, I cannot give what I don't have. We are here so peace may prevail on earth . . .

"I meditate because it is like we are all in the desert. Everyone is thirsty but I am thirsty too. There is a spring, with a trickle of water only, but I know if I keep digging enough, I will get more water. I know that--maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday--I will reach a huge reservoir of water that has no end. So every day I get a small spring of happy, and I dig, dig, dig, thinking--ohh! Maybe today I can find more happy! Oh! More happy! Dig, dig, dig--make more happy!"

February 5, 2010 - Zen Center, Pennsylvania

2010-04-15T13:56:00.002-05:00

The bath fills, hot
Snow falls through Zen windowpanes
onto white birch, dark pine
the floor is heated
the paint spring green.

The mind is calm.
The heart, meanwhile, beats Ayiti, Ayiti, Ayiti.
No struggle, just togetherness.

January 28th, 2010 - Zen temple, Pennsylvania

2010-04-15T13:53:00.003-05:00

The day J.D. Salinger died I spent 7 hours polishing candlesticks in a Zen temple.

I found out a day later,
tonight,
sitting at a wooden table in the winter corner of the temple library,
having just copied down my lineage,
carefully,
trying to memorize by lamplight.

I can think of no more fitting memorial.

"All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of holy ground to the next." -J.D.S.

January 26th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Pennsylvania

2010-04-15T13:48:00.005-05:00

I feel peace after a long day.

This morning after meditation at an art gallery, we went to visit a man about my age in the hospital, dying of cancer. Mike.

His family was taking him off life support today. He is, as they say, survived by his parents, wife and 1 1/2 year old baby. Sensei of the Plains was awesome. She held his hand and did a guided meditation with him. Though he can't talk, he calmed down visibly when she said that he could welcome all the fear and anxiety he has, just sit with it, and welcome it as a sign of love and caring for his family, friends and life. Through welcoming it and sitting with it, he could find peace.

His big, Midwestern-feeling dad sat on the other side of him and held his other hand and cried. Sensei filled a space she knew they needed. It was beautiful.

The rest of the afternoon, I sat with my own anxiety about Haiti--about not knowing or doing enough--wishing I was more, that I was better able to help. Zen and the art of going to Haiti, to home. On CNN they say the U.S. is legislating ways to make adopting Haitian children easier.

A mixed bag, that--but here it is, a step on my path.

May I do it well, sitting with the anxiety and fear as well as a brave man I barely had the pleasure to meet.

January 24th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Pennsylvania

2010-04-15T13:45:00.004-05:00

"Sometimes if we don't do anything, we help more than if we do a lot. We call that non-action. It is like a calm person on a small boat in a storm." - Thich Nhat Hanh

To send peace, I must be peace.

---

Running down hills and gullies in Pennsylvania,

with springs, rusts and browns, and pine

behind a Zen priest of the plains and her very happy dog.

---

Yesterday, Sensei of the Plains said:

"I am Haiti. Would I starve my finger? Of course not--it doesn't even make sense."

Interdependency.

January 21st, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T13:43:00.001-05:00

Today I learned to chant my lineage, teacher to student, all the way back to Buddha.

Wow.

No pressure or anything.

January 20th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T13:39:00.003-05:00

My alarm didn't go off and Sensei had food poisoning in the night. When I didn't appear at my usual Ungodly Hour, she dragged herself out to my cabin to be sure I wasn't dead.

I only had a touch of what hit her fast and terribly, making its mark and moving along. She said, laughing, that she passed out in the bathroom, thought she was going to die, and wrote me a note saying "Don't eat the sprouts!"

Glad to know what her parting message of wisdom would be to me. Perfectly Zen.

As my stomach gurgled and threatened all day, my body became tired and I struggled to meditate. Then I remembered what she said about being buried. Stop struggling and remember how to get to the center. Know how to get there from wherever you are.

She says I need a mantra or some reminder, so if death or pain comes quickly I can think of that rather than "oh, shit!"

I practiced quieting my own struggle tonight, sitting through a lot of pain and exhaution and sickness. It's the best possible practice. Exactly why I am here.

Tomorrow I try again.

January 19th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T13:35:00.002-05:00

I decided, fully and completely, to stay. I will be more ready for Haiti in March.

I answered emails today, rethought short and long-term partnerships in Haiti, and my center didn't become muddled.

I stopped struggling in meditation, in moments. The pain remained but I sat in peace. Sensei said that had been her prayer for Haiti. She buried herself alive and sat, and sent peace. Stopped struggling.

January 18th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T13:12:00.003-05:00

I now understand why they put monasteries in the middle of nowhere. Half of us would make a run for it if there were anywhere else to go.

---

Sensei asks me to write a letter to my formal Zen teacher. What to write to an older Japanese man who speaks in cryptic riddles and who I don't understand in the least but would trust with my life? Sensei is out, so I spend a few minutes of rebellion thinking of highly inappropriate ways to begin the letter . . .

"Yo Sensei--what up, dawg?"

After days of staring at a wall, it seemed like the funniest thing on earth. Almost peed my pants laughing.

The rest of the afternoon, I folded complex origami envelopes to hold a special New Year's formal greeting for my teacher. Confusing, but after the initial bout of swearing, ridiculously happy-making! the key is to keep in mind how he will feel when he gets it, and now to care if the first thing he feels is amused at how bad Americans are at precision.

---
108 bows and very, very sleepy.
suddenly with knees of an old lady.
in the monastery they do 1,000 a day.
crap.

January 17th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T13:03:00.002-05:00

Day of meditation with 12 people. Lovely to share the day that way.

Sensei gave a talk on Haiti and the cause of suffering. Over carrot juice and boiled tofu that tasted like the best stuff on earth, she explained.

Haiti is on everyone's mind. We must address it, and dedicate the day's sitting to Haiti. She encouraged donations, and a re-examination of the root cause.

It was not an earthquake. If people's houses had been properly built, non right on top of one another . . . And why were all those people in the capitol? (Or on the island in the first place, I add.)

Systems of greed. A good conversation over tea after the day's sit, between the 12 of us. The conversation again encircled Haiti, our privilege, our way of taking things for granted. They talked again of donating. I said something about remembering not to get too "oh, those poor Haitians" about it all.

I said it, I hope, more kindly than it is written here.

Just as the systems of greed bound us up together, my liberation is bound up with Haiti's. I need the community connectedness, the spontaneous expressions of joy. Even this week, I am relying on an African-Haitian belief that my sending of energy can be felt by a man holding a gun and taking advantage of the chaos and the fear.

Brother, put it down and use your strength to rebuild your country. As one of the lovely, older women today said: "All anyone ever needs to feel is that they are whole, and ok just as they are." Brother, you are loved. Stand up to your friends and put down the gun. Look around you.

As Sensei said, the best way to help is to simply make yourself available. People will draw out what they need. Haiti is one symbol. There is suffering (and, I add, liberation) everywhere.

Sensei gave me the temple's 2010 dedication card. The Japanese characters: Open, Liberation, a symbol for a man, a symbol for a woman. She said today she learned why. So did I.

January 16th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T12:59:00.002-05:00

No contact with the outside world today.

Just sitting, cleaning, eating, a walk in circles looking at trees, and a few long talks with Sensei.

Tonight, a sink full of Zen dishes put on the wooden counter, well washed.

My head is calm. My body pleasantly tired with a little bit of good pain.

Transfixed by how steam looks as it rises from my cup of hot water.

January 15th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T12:48:00.003-05:00

Meeting Sensei's mother, 95 and delighted by bunnies.

Shoveling snow off the roof of the wood shed.

Stacking wood.

A long walk in the woods by myself, and with every step a message of peace for a child in Haiti. It's ok, baby. Walk, find food, find water. Don't run until you see water--save your energy. Walk. You can do it. You are loved.

Or for my future brothers, my love, the men I will meet and those I will not: More strength to you, brothers. Use the anger. Find your superhuman strength and lift something heavy and find the ones still buried.

Or to the women, already connected to each other and singing: May I sing with foreign words til you teach me your songs?

Every step a prayer.

---

I got a near job offer with the UN in Haiti today--one I didn't apply for. My first thought was to jump on the next plane.

Sensei was stern. It would have been funny if it didn't hit me so hard. The sixty something year old petite Buddhist priest all but blocked the door. "Sit down!" she said. "Meditate. Think this through."

January 14th, 2010 - Zen Temple, Vermont

2010-04-15T12:30:00.004-05:00

The place is cozy and made of wood, in the middle of a forest.

The priest is lovely and kind.

I use an outhouse in the snow at night and wood burning stoves.

We ate the lunch mom and dad packed for me for dinner and loved every bite.

Haiti is in ruins, and she (Sensei) knows I want to do something. I told her my long-standing plan to go there directly after the retreat, in April. Then I told her more about my relationship with Haiti than I've told most people; it's called me for a long time. She asked if I believe someone can send peace through pure meditation, making it easier for others half a world away.

I said I don't know. I know meditation helps me to balance, and without balance I have made muddles of my attempts to help in the past. At the same time, I said, sometimes people need straight up support, not metaphysical peaceful feelings. Strangely, this is almost what she'd said earlier in the day.

She had said sometimes people need crisis support, sometimes shifting of power and discussion of justice, and sometimes a peacefulness internally. Responding with infinite patience and internal peace isn't always what the doctor ordered.

She cuts to the heart of it, now at dinner, over dad's fudge, as snow falls gently outside the wooden windows.

She says, now I am here. She asked me to try to cultivate the mindset that pure meditation and prayer can change things for people.

She talked about studies where groups of meditators had come into violent places and changed the statistics. She knows I am willing to leave early if there is something concrete I can do. In the interim, while I am here, I should just sit. Sit and cultivate the mindset that the meditation is not for me. It is purely for, as she said, that kid sitting in the parking lot next to his dead mother, with nowhere to go.

Let that kid feel love and peace, enough to find a way to stand up. And, at the beginning and ending of each meditation session, I should beg with all my soul for it to work.

God bless her, that isn't very textbook Buddhist, but I guess that's why I love Buddhists--that was the only thing in that moment that could have made any sense to me. This woman can teach me.

So I turn out the light, look up at the stars through branches of winter trees, and I beg.

November 14th, From Juba to Yei, South Sudan to Kampala to . . .

2009-11-14T23:52:00.001-06:00

Flying away from a week of training for another organization’s staff in Yei, South Sudan. The few-hour drive coming in from Juba was gorgeous, on an ugly road.

Round mud huts with thatched roofs and bamboo fences.

Men sitting under trees and chatting.

Army checkpoints, passed through with a smile and a wave.

Huge, rocky hills with flat tops and green and brown shrubs impossibly rising from the otherwise flat landscape, with only a few trees to otherwise break the flatness.

People seem so gentle, waving and smiling.

The man breaks my heart when he inquires politely:"Can you please offer me a lift to Yei?" and we have to say no because of the history, not because of him.

In the middle of the week of training, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement leadership announced a week of holiday so people can go register to vote. I know so little, but basically the vote is a national election, which will set the stage for a referendum in 2011, to determine whether to officially and permanently split South Sudan from the rest of Sudan. A long, hard fight preceded the choice, and there are a lot of fears around it. Almost 70 political parties registered for the election, but the woman who works there told me there is no real choice. She said it is weird when trucks full of men with guns are encouraging people to vote, when there’s no real choice but to vote for them . . .or the Sudanese Government.

Meanwhile back at work, participants agreed to stay through the holiday and the training continued. In the evenings, Evelyn and Jojo (my coworkers from Uganda) and a few great people from UK to Zimbabwe who work in South Sudan, danced and made trouble as best we could. We celebrated the new law against domestic violence that our organizations in Uganda finally pushed parliament to pass. We discovered new wines in individual serving bottles that taste dangerously like juice and strolled around the dusty, flat town full of more round thatched houses, graceful, polite people, and overgrown graveyards. Evelyn became obsessed with getting me a husband so I won’t leave East Africa, and kept pointing out particularly drunken and messy looking soldiers slouching by the side of the road as hot possibilities for me, just to see the look of amused horror on my face.

Today, we fly away, back home to Kampala.

At the field that doubles as the Yei airport, we sat and waited for our tiny plane to land with their passengers from Kampala, so we could get on and they could take us back. A man rolled up in a vehicle decorated in ribbons and bows, to greet a Mzungu (white person) who appeared to be a missionary coming to visit. Jojo laughed out loud, out of earshot of the men, and said to the man seated next to her: “He had to decorate his car to come and pick up the Mzungu!” The man laughed. I turned around, giggling, and asked, “Yeah, so Jojo why don’t you decorate a vehicle and come and get me from the airport?”

“Ah, Sara,” she said, “You’re not a Mzungu anymore. Now you’re part of us.”

Apparently you can cross over, at least with certain people and in certain situations. You can stop being white first, and just be a person.

And it’s somehow a weird, elusive accomplishment.

I’m reading a lot these days about the Haitian revolution. There was a point in Haitian history, after the slave revolt turned successful to create the world’s first independent black republic, where the leadership ordered the killing of all the “whites” in Haiti. I didn’t realize until recently that the definition of “white” wasn’t all about color. If the person was part of the community, if they’d crossed over somehow culturally, then they were no longer white.

It’s such a long road to trust building. Evelyn and Jojo are my sisters, totally—I have finally gotten to that point with them. And here I go again. Off to Haiti, soon, to start new. Hopefully I’m better at it this time. Every time, getting better at being patient, waiting to be adopted by yet another new family to add to mine. . .and getting better at helping others make merciless fun of me in the process, when I still just don't get it.

October 27th, 2009- Johannesburg, South Africa

2009-11-14T23:46:00.000-06:00

“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” –Nelson Mandela

You enter the Apartheid museum through entrances marked “whites only” or “non-whites only”. For the sake of my visit, I was non-white. The rooms take you through the rise of Apartheid, the brutality, the struggle, and the change. There is room after room of interactive exhibits and footage of the leaders who never made it to the day of Sisulu’s release, the un-banning of the ANC or Mandela’s inauguration. It’s kind of like trying to breathe under water, with the weight of something that should never have been.

The Mandela exhibit has quotes inside the walls of a cell made after the one on Robben Island, as well as introducing you to the people around him that I never learned about in school—as though Apartheid had been toppled by just one man. The quotes and the footage show them to be brave, heroic, and also human—and the storytelling that makes them human makes them so much greater than if they were only entirely heroic. The footage makes them people you can relate to. There is a quote by a fellow ANC political prisoner about Mandela that says something about their time on Robben Island, and how it helped Mandela to grow, and to focus on the spiritual in a way that would never have happened if he hadn’t been forced into it.

I keep wondering: How do you make an experience like that work for you?

Nice to have that first day off to explore the history and current Johannesburg/ Soweto, so I can enter the conference with at least a few more nuances understood. I was invited to present our organization’s work to a bunch of U.S. government representatives, including those from the U.S. Department of Defense in about 14 African countries.

It is a fascinating crowd in which to talk about social change and preventing violence against women. Don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so Che Guevara in a room full of Reagan fans in my life . . .a little bit of shifting uncomfortably, but still some cool people. Three different people have pulled me aside and, completely separately from each other, said “You actually believe in what you do, don’t you? You actually seem to think it works. Maybe I should quit my job.” . . .or something akin to that.

I may not be asked back.

Oops. :)

http://www.apartheidmuseum.org

October 15th, 2009- Kampala- Gain Hips and Bum

2009-11-14T23:42:00.000-06:00

Ads plastered all over Kampala say:

“Gain hips and bum!”

“Get FAT (no side effect)”

Standards of beauty here are just different. Women are supposed to have curves.

This morning, I jump on the back of a boda boda (motorcycle used for public transport), too late for my morning meeting to take my usual walk. I greet the driver, and we zip down the bumpy, dust-red path, past the men and boys endlessly crushing rocks in the sun, past the row of market stalls and creeping cars along the trafficked road, and with a wave past the nice man selling drinkable yogurt on the corner, up the hill to the office.

I jump off the boda boda, and the driver smiles as I reach into my purse.

“You come this way every, every day?”

“Yes,” I say, “but usually I come walking.”

“Oh, I see,” he says. “Sorry—you don’t have money . . . I could take you for free sometimes.”

“Thanks—that is very kind! But I like the exercise.”

“Eh!” he says, surprised—tilting his head dramatically to look with slightly intrigued disgust at my skinny bum. “Madam, you do NOT need exercise.”

I tell my coworkers, and they laugh the whole morning. My little bum SO lives on the wrong continent.

September 20, 2009- Kampala- Snippets of kids

2009-09-20T09:16:00.000-05:00

tiny girl with skinny legs shuffles, determined, up the hill
with her endearingly chunky little sister on her shoulders.
matching orange dresses,
matching orange ice creams,
matching, unbelievably focused orange smiles.

---

late afternoon light, the sun still strong.
family heading to the Mosque to celebrate seeing the moon and breaking a fast
they are mostly looking down or intently for a cab,
beautiful white cloaks and bright headscarves blowing in the dust kicked up by the passing chaos on the road.
the patriarch looks at me warily as I squeeze between the wooden cart full of pungent fruit, the whizzing motorbikes, and his sons.
the youngest one in Palestinian solidarity scarf, scarcely 10, yells out happily--Mzungu, bye!!!
it's all i can do not to pick him up and swing him around.

---
some kid is learning to play the tuba in kampala, past 10pm
wonders never cease.

September 14, 2009- Kampala- Images

2009-09-14T14:04:00.000-05:00

As my friend says, “It’s one of those cases where, when two elephants fight, the grass suffers.” Just a small circle of plastic chairs in a room, we sit and open up for each other. The images echo when I close my eyes tonight.

-An angry mob stops a man trying to get home to check on his family. They cane him, his ear pressed to the ground. He is from the “wrong” ethnic group.

-A two-year-old child hit by a stray bullet. The neighbor is beside herself, hearing the family cry out. Mourning begins.

-My proud friend—always laughing. Her eyes fill with tears. She is powerless—afraid to stand upright in her house for two days because of the constant gunfire that engulfs her home.

-A 9 year old boy sees what a police officer is doing to someone. Mistrust taking over his openness, he begs not to leave home, even now that it is over. His mother, imploring: “What can I tell him?”

-A friend of a friend. Officer killed in the line of duty, a good man trying to calm a riot.

-14 year old escapee from forced prostitution is in danger again. Those who hurt her before know she is old enough to remember them, and she is now replaced on the list of police priorities. Now there is no possibility of justice.

People speak out, quietly—tentatively. These are stories of the North, stories of the past, stories of somewhere else—and yet they happened here, to this small circle of people in plastic chairs. We stand up to go. We thank each other for being alive and ok and—sometimes—we smile and joke as though nothing passed.

People today speak in small circles, or in pairs, to friends. They speak quietly of the possibility that this is pre-election manipulation to get rid of the enemies. They speak of the tricks of leaders, who mention the shape of people’s noses in a radio address, and incite anger that gets played out on the street.

They speak of the powerful, now seeking vengeance. Of the silencing of media outlets. Of the imprisonment of old enemies. Of the plainclothes spying on peaceful gatherings.

Even back at my, unstoppable organization, we cancelled our drama discussions tomorrow. The whole substance of our work is to gather people together to talk about different types of power—and, ultimately, how to share it. We silenced the discussion the communities need most, because we can’t control where that discussion leads, or how it is interpreted.

We ask: How afraid do we need to be? How much can we still achieve? No one wants to be manipulated into submission—into not speaking up.

That is not the nature of the people I know. Theirs is the nature of courage—the nature of everyday rebellions of hope.

Today, they remind me of a friend in Liberia, one of so many who simply refused to be controlled—who joined together from every ethnic group, refusing to hate each other. Instead, they prayed in market places, and visited, in turn, each warlord and demand him—as his mothers, his sisters, his wives—to stop.

They remind me of my friends in Sierra Leone who reached out in compassion to neighbors and friends—and refused to let the community die, even when it was safer to stay shut up in the house.

Love as an act of rebellion, persistent as water digging a canyon. It wins, quietly--eventually.

September 12, 2009- Kampala - Only the sounds of crickets

2009-09-11T23:07:00.000-05:00

It is 5:30 a.m. and I choose to believe the mosquito woke me up.

The only other sounds are the crickets, a distant dog and just now, minutes after waking, the soft sounds of a distant Mosque’s call to prayer. I’m not sure why it sounds so distant, or so quiet today.

Perhaps even the Muezzins are staying home? Perhaps it is just too early?

The truth is, as I sit and type here in my pre-dawn bed, I woke up because of a dream that was more honest about my feelings of this week’s events than I was admitting. And I’m unnerved. Not scared, but unnerved.

So the short attention span version of the unfolding story:

• Kampala, the biggest city in Uganda and where I live, was not always here. It and surrounding territory once belonged to the Buganda Kingdom.

• The Buganda King’s role is now largely ceremonial, moral and cultural leadership—kind of like England’s royal family . . . except for with much more intense loyalty by the Baganda people to him than perhaps British have to their royalty.

• There has been some tension historically between the King and President Museveni (in power since 1986), over land and power. They are most distinctly NOT friends. These tensions very quickly run along ethnic lines. Ethnic tensions hide just below the surface—as though all Baganda are responsible for what the King does, and should blindly stand up for it, and all the President’s ethnic group is responsible for what he does, and should blindly stand up for it.

• The King of Buganda was going to visit (today) a highly contested area on the edge of his Kingdom, and the Government just told him not to. The Government says that he has to meet some conditions first, saying they cannot guarantee his safety there and that his visit will cause unrest. The Buganda Kingdom says he shouldn’t have to ask permission to move freely about his own kingdom.

• There was a standoff, neither party agreeing to talk with each other, and it sparked the tension between the government and the Buganda (Baganda members of parliament walked out of session together on Thursday), and gave rise to all the tensions between ethnic groups—including, for some, Baganda anger that other ethnic groups have taken over Kampala—historically Buganda land.

• (On the off-chance your eyes don’t glaze over at the mention of African political events: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/09/200991191146684575.html or http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8251907.stm )

First, I feel safe, because—like Ames in the VEISHA riots (for you Iowans in the crowd)—most people are good people who just love their families, and are staying out of it. It was dangerous outside in many areas yesterday because of a few roaming gangs of men (didn’t see or hear of any roaming gangs of women), so most people stayed home and the place was simply very, very quiet. I arrived to work in the morning, only to hear that we should all turn back around and stay at home, inside, until at least Sunday. I rode with a coworker to pick up her daughter at school, and she was one of a wave of parents doing so.

Judging by the lack vehicles passing, radios, and other morning sounds, I am taking a wild guess that today will be quiet, too, except for where it is not. I have stockpiled food and DVDs, and have plenty of work to do to keep me busy. Safety-wise, I’ll be fine.

But I’m still unnerved enough to wake up at 5:30am and listen to the crickets, make myself a cup of tea, and just listen. I’m not worried about my safety, but I’m unnerved.

First, I’m unnerved because of the silence of the media.

Some of us see media like oxygen, don’t we? And I am having trouble getting information. Since the Ugandan Government stopped certain radio stations from broadcasting (and, I hear unofficially, banned coverage of the violence on the Ugandan TV news), my best information has come from Al Jazeera and BBC. American news stations don’t cover Africa. (Do they not cover it because Americans aren’t interested? Or are Americans not interested because we don’t know enough about it from the media to know how it connects to our lives?) I have mixed feelings about the Government forcing radio stations to stop broadcast. My American sensibility of free speech is outraged. My slowly-growing sense of this region recognizes this is a place where ethnic tension and hate-filled talk radio have incited war and genocide, within our lifetimes. I’m still not sure what I think, only that the media silence unnerves me.

Second and maybe more importantly, I’m unnerved because I feel alone—I realize how little I know about the world around me.

A friend of mine was stopped on the way home on Thursday, when things were starting to get bad. She’s Ugandan, and was in a car with a few Mzungu (white people), mostly children. They were going to her home together. Her home is in a Baganda stronghold area of town. They turned a corner in their car, and found the road had been blocked by heaps of dirt and tires by a group of men with way too much testosterone going on, and way too many Us vs. Them thoughts. They made them stop, let the Mzungu pass, and made my friend (who is Baganda) get out of the car and sing the Baganda National Anthem. Luckily, she knows it. But later, she was talking to another, mutual Ugandan friend and said what was interesting was how she felt when she was singing it. She said she started to really feel this pride in her people, and loyalty to the King. And afterward, she was riled up—she wanted, like many do, to go with the King on the forbidden visit, to show her allegiance to her people and her King. She wanted to prove that all the stereotypes she’d ever heard about the Baganda being meek and docile—were wrong.

The mutual Ugandan friend of hers and mine was reflecting to me later—if she, our mutual friend:
-has travelled and made friends with all ethnic groups,
-is a female (without common male ideas about being a man who needs to have power over the world around him, and who feels somehow slighted when he doesn’t),
- has a good job and a family who supports her. . .

. . .if SHE can get swept up in it, what about all these young men who believe being a man is all about having power, but who have no power— no jobs, no education or exposure that could have helped them to see things in multiple ways, and nothing to lose? That is unnerving. And, when combined with the greed and manipulation of the powerful, it is the history of conflict.

I have thought many times that, as often as I get confronted with annoying stereotypes about white women here, that Uganda could use with some good, public multi-cultural education. We need that education, plus the community discussions my organization facilitates about power sharing and what it means to be a man or a woman who shares power vs. one who uses power over others. But now all that seems like more than a good idea—it seems like a lifeline.

I’ll think about that more today, as I listen to the birds wake up, and hopefully, look out my window all day, til the crickets and calls to prayer come back in the evening.

August 30, 2009- Kampala- Miniskirts and laugher while waiting in line

2009-08-30T13:23:00.003-05:00

A coworker/ friend of mine wants to introduce me to her cousin so we can hang out. Apparently she thinks we’ll get along. All I know is this woman is a Ugandan woman about 20 years older than me, who does Buddhist meditation, and once—back in Idi Amin’s era when he banned miniskirts--got arrested for wearing one anyway. I like her already.

There are so many people with good stories here—wish some days I had a video camera. I’d help make the film about Africa that actually depicts something useful. (I’m still perplexed about Uma Thurman starring in a new film about Northern Uganda.) First, I’d choose a protagonist who was actually African (imagine?) . . .then I’d let her/ him tell their story, preferably while sitting in front of one of the beautiful, turquoise or pink or green or yellow walls--with peeling paint, but full of life. Perhaps there would be hard stories in there to hear, because that is life. There would also be stories of joy, because that is one of the major impressions I get of the places I have seen in Africa—people who are not afraid, even when all is not perfect, to be joyful. The laughter that comes in the middle of the long bank line on a Saturday morning is pure, not ironic or sarcastic or mean—just people enjoying themselves, where they are.

August 23, 2009- Kampala- Calm after storm, with pink flowers and turquoise shutters

2009-08-23T10:08:00.002-05:00

The rain out my kitchen window is a blessing. The farmers must be sighing relief over their cups of tea this afternoon, and for me it means I get to lose all ambition to go out today. Not that hard to lose, honestly. I just stand here and make stew, slice papaya with lime, and notice the way the thunderstorm sky looks on my neighbors pink, flowering trees, rust-tin roof and turquoise shutters. It's an amazing thing to slow down.

In the last two weeks, I slept in a tree house overlooking an elephant watering hole with no elephants, fought monkeys for my breakfast (and won this time), stared up at chimpanzees, red-tailed monkeys, grey cheeked Magabey's and a great blue turaco in the trees above me.

I toured microcredit programs in Western Uganda and asked tricky questions about how much women making more money translates into women having access to more money, and how much it means they work twice as hard to have more money to hand to their husbands. (Some promising things. . . perhaps, perhaps.)

I organized the content for a conference on violence against women and girls for the organization I used to work for, involving on-the-ground staff leading programs in 16 conflict-affected countries. Kenya Airways was on strike the day they were all supposed to arrive, but little by little as flights got re-routed, I greeted old friends from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and Jordan. In a light moment of a serious conference, women and men working in Central African Republic, Congo, Syria, Sudan, Burundi, Uganda and Iraq, among others, did puppet shows and dances that made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants. My beautiful West African friends--Gertrude, Amie, and others--created a song and dance moves that rhymed and inspired in the span of 45 minutes.

I still sit here, watching the pink, flowering trees post-rain. Blessed today. Thinking still of people strong enough to put themselves in the midst of pain and not lose their capacity to sing, or to make people laugh. Thinking how that, great blue turacos, and tree houses teeming with monkeys are all a part of this place. God, some days I love Africa.

June 11, 2009- Kampala, Uganda

2009-06-11T01:12:00.000-05:00

“And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country -- you, more than anyone, have the ability to re-imagine the world, to remake this world.”
–President Obama, in his speech on the Middle East

I am not sure I any longer qualify as young, but this week was one of reimagining.

This week:

~My new roommate and I also accompanied my painting teacher to a street fair full of painters and art in Kampala, and watched kids get their faces painted.

~I painted a painting on canvass for the first time.

~I emailed to ask life advice from a Voudou/ Interfaith priest in Haiti, who answered my questions with a Zen Koan—and I felt like the mix probably made God chuckle.

~I became obsessed with listening alternately to Jimi Hendrix, Loretta Lynn, Leadbelly, Silvio Rodriguez and Kanye West while I lay in bed and closed my eyes and smelled the Kampala rain. I see no point in picking a genre.

~I came back late from the office to no power at home, and looked up at the stars.

~I fell in love with my work again, when I saw some coworkers in action, changing someone's mind about women, men, violence, and uses of power.

~The space in me that is sure about Haiti grew larger.

~I walked down a busy street from the bus park, behind a traditional Karamajong couple that were dressed as the Karamajong have dressed since the beginning of time, or close to it—and they weaved through modern Kampala, by an electronics store blaring the Gambler.

~I called a Ugandan woman who is apparently an Italian-trained chef, for cooking lessons.

~I took a ferry through Lake Victoria to the Ssese islands to meet a friend who works in a refugee camp in another part of Uganda, for a weekend holiday. We ate S’mores at a bonfire under the full moon.

I wish you could see all this, you all! Africa is wide and tall and diverse. It can fit all this into one week in one country in one person’s life. What a great place! I swear I am going to cough up the $50 it takes to buy Trivial Pursuit-Africa edition one of these days and force you all to play with me, so we can all see how much more there is to know.

May 9, 2009 - Kampala, Uganda

2009-05-12T01:03:00.000-05:00

Evelyn, one of the funniest and funkiest people I work with, walked past my desk yesterday. She stopped, thought for a second, turned around with a playful grin on her face, and said: “I am looking for someone who can talk on my panel tomorrow [on African feminism]. I wish I could paint you Black.” Everyone in the office laughed out loud.

Might just have been the strangest and best compliment I’ve gotten this year (or at least tied with the dude who wanted to give my dad the airplane as bride price).

So, I couldn’t be on the panel she moderated today, but they invited me to sit there and soak it up.
It was electric. It wasn’t a panel so much as it was a circle of African women of all ages, talking.

They talked about patriarchy (the idea that power is a finite thing we each have to grab or someone else will) vs. feminism (at its most basic, the idea that power is an infinite thing that we can nurture in ourselves and others, so we each have enough). They talked about mentoring younger women, about struggling with their husbands, about being supportive instead of critical of prominent female politicians, about learning to be proud of who we are.

Hope (one of my co-workers, who I lived with last time I was here) spoke on the panel about her own life. Her last name, in local language, means “unable to be uprooted”. She talked about how she loves her mother for naming her “Hope Unable-To-Be-Uprooted”. She talked about how she loves herself, because she knows she is phenomenal. She said each young woman should decide for herself whether she ever wanted to get married or have children. If so, we should go for it, and not allow ourselves to be bought (bride price is common here) or convinced of who we should marry because it is expected of us, but rather do what makes us happy. If we don’t want marriage or children, we shouldn’t be ashamed not to want it, and we should go for what we want instead.
(How many young women in the U.S. really believe that, I wonder? How many of us still think we’re incomplete somehow if we’re not in a relationship? How many people think “how sad” when they see a woman who never had kids—even if she didn’t want them?)

Another panelist, Dr. Gloria, talked about our power as mothers and aunties to socialize our kids differently—how she raised a feminist son. She said, “It is the same patriarchal system that imprisons men and victimizes us as women. We are clear that we are not at war with men, but with patriarchy. Many men would choose something different if there were another, viable role presented to them.” She then talked about how the mothers in the room could socialize their sons differently, and socialize our daughters to love and stand up for themselves.
I could go on and on and on.

In other words, they SO didn’t need me on that panel. I haven’t felt that kind of honest, self-reflective energy in awhile—the kind that allows us to remember that we can celebrate our accomplishments and still realize there is so much we still internalize that keeps us boxed in.

I started to think about how much I apologize for myself, how I still struggle not to think of my self-worth only in relation to how helpful I’m being, how my strategy in my last relationship was to avoid talking about my work (which is a HUGE part of my life) because I know it freaks most guys out. This group of women had so much in common with my own struggles—trying to do it differently in our own lives. The energy in the room was much like how I imagine it felt to be in the women’s movement in the U.S. in the 70’s, where ideas were sparking and no one quite knew yet the immensity or even the direction of change that they were setting in motion, and so much was yet to be determined.

In short, these women rock. It’s so contrary, isn’t it, to the depictions we often see of African women in the Western media?—the victimized recipients of aid after tragic famine and warfare, the overly-heroic mother figures that share some ancient wisdom that we hold on a pedestal and at the same time ignore, the National Geographic exotic beauties or scary witches, etc.
One of the things I love about my organization is how all of our work, including writing, graphics and photographs, flies in the face of all those myths. We publish things showing people as they are everywhere—laughing, struggling, working, playing, and searching for themselves somehow. And, like the women in that room, a force to be reckoned with, equally, on their own terms.

www.raisingvoices.org
www.preventgbvafrica.org

April 17, 2009 Jordan- Moses’ mountaintop

2009-05-12T01:02:00.000-05:00

It’s a clear, windy spring afternoon full of daffodils and green grass. I went up the mountain from which Moses saw the promised land (from where you can now see the West Bank and Gaza) and it was more emotional somehow than I expected.

Moses has long been my favorite persona in the Bible. My admiration is not so much about the miracles or the commandments or the parting of the Red Sea, but the courage it must have taken to have been raised in subjugation and to see something different so clearly, to believe in it so strongly, and to convince an entire people into action.

There’s a great book Zora Neale Hurston wrote in the 1930’s that I read when I was in college—called Moses, Man of the Mountain. It is the story of the Exodus, set in the American south during slavery, told in contemporary Black dialect. Also, the Nora Ephron essay about how much self-criticism women internalize, and how Moses was wise to let a civilization who had been enslaved wander around in the desert for a generation before taking the new generation to the promised land to start a new society—it takes time to root out the mentality of being less than others. Anyway-- Moses, man. What an amazing person.

April 11, 2009 Jordan- the Red Sea

2009-05-12T01:01:00.000-05:00

Middle east resort.

Women with hair and bodies covered giggle by the Red Sea, which is actually quite blue—and windy.

The women in bikinis stroll by, pretending to be more empowered, as we worry about our thighs and the size of our breasts, and whether we are still pleasing to men.

But it all disappears the moment we all hit the water—skin prickles and all is awake and here.

The whole world stops, and is cold, but new and fresh and blue and a whole other way of being underneath. Coral and fish and white, white sand going deeper.

On the shore, a middle-aged couple with sandy shoes and backpacks eat yummy-looking ice cream and don’t smile—not even a little.

And another couple reads to each other and smiles for no reason.

The sea smell and strong tea start to heal my runny nose. My mind stops for a moment and is present, like when I hit the cold water. Arabic music—the slow, haunting kind, begins at the restaurant. The wind stills. A fly alights.

April 10, 2009 Jordan- Petra

2009-05-12T01:00:00.000-05:00

Petra is incredible. It’s one of the 7 wonders of the world (the ancient city carved into the red rock cliffs about 6,000 years ago). The immense sculptures carved into swirling stone of mauve and red and rose and black. But the life that interacts with it, I think, is what makes its wonder. The small 8 year old Bedoin girl, hair fully covered, who skips toward my friend Najwa and I, and asks us the time in 5 languages, hoping to hit the right one and get us to answer so she can start the conversation and sell us one of the necklaces dangling from her outstretched forearm. She swears to Najwa in Arabic that she only does this on her time off from school. She grins and skips away.

Further up, the small boys sell the donkey rides to those of us with sore feet. The camels laze and munch beneath the ancient rock columns. The young men with playful eyes and long hair race their horses up the track, slow down and sell rides and flirt with the young women trudging past. I hear the legends of western women lured by Bedoin culture and married to Bedoin men, agreeing to live as nomads or near-it.

It’s clear why.

Aside from the fact that a couple of these guys look like Johnny Depp with the hair and eyeliner of Pirates of the Caribbean--it’s the idea of freedom. Home for many of us has come to be a place of things designed for comfort and luxury—a world of things which become a greater need to our minds than Spirit, than culture, than freedom. We bend to them. For young people with a strong sense of passion and spirit, the suburbs are like the 7th level of hell. We dream of being cowboys/girls and hobos, long past when those cultures were truly alive back home. Bedoin culture, in a lot of ways is that—the mystery, the rejection of creature comfort in favor of culture and nights full of desert stars.

April 9, 2009 - Uganda to Jordan, via Khartoum and Cairo

2009-05-12T00:52:00.000-05:00

The plane from Uganda stopped in Khartoum, Sudan to offload some passengers and let others on board, before we moved on to Cairo and Jordan. Maybe that’s the source of it; I can’t seem to shake the weirdness of that. . .

Khartoum, Sudan: the home of the Government of Sudan, designers of a current genocide which we’re doing next-to-nothing about. I read something once about the Holocaust that pondered about the ethics of proximity—about how somehow it’s easy for us to dismiss horrible things if they’re not happening in our back yard, in front of our eyes, much less to our kids—but rather in some distant place.

But I was, for an hour, in the same city as the creators and perpetuators of a genocide. In reality, I live only a 2 hour flight away from them, and a 4 hour flight away from the genocide itself. So even if ethics were related to proximity, my lack of action makes me somehow guilty. I sat on the plane and chatted with the Palestinian man beside me about what I should see in beautiful Jordan. People got off the plane and walked out into Khartoum.

And then more people got on—a woman in a gorgeous turquoise headscarf, silver jewelry and henna on her fingers, an elderly man with a white traditional robe and a turban and a cane, a wealthy woman dripping with diamonds, a small child. I have had Sudanese co workers and friends, I have read books, I have heard the stories of friends and colleagues who have worked in Darfur for years, prior to the time most aid workers were expelled—but somehow I’d never felt it like this. This is happening NOW, on our planet. And our lives go on as if it were nothing. I remember that from Victor Frankl’s book about the Holocaust—or at least I think it was him. He sat in the concentration camp and realized, stunned: “life goes on outside.”

But we can do something, surely. Am trying to figure out what and how like the rest of us.

http://www.savedarfur.org/

http://notonourwatchproject.org/