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.
November 14, 2009
October 27th, 2009- Johannesburg, South Africa
“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
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
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.
“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
September 20, 2009- Kampala- Snippets of kids
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.
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
September 14, 2009- Kampala- Images
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.
-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 11, 2009
September 12, 2009- Kampala - Only the sounds of crickets
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.
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
August 30, 2009- Kampala- Miniskirts and laugher while waiting in line
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.
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
August 23, 2009- Kampala- Calm after storm, with pink flowers and turquoise shutters
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.
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
June 11, 2009- Kampala, Uganda
“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.
–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 12, 2009
May 9, 2009 - Kampala, Uganda
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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/
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/
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