Stories from the sub-Saharan

Websites of interest

2007-06-02T06:58:00.000+02:00

The following two links show videos using a program called gapminder. Both deal with issues of public health - the second specifically about slum life in east Africa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwS1uAdUcI

http://www.gapminder.org/downloads/presentations/a-slum-insight-2006.html

Misc, The End

2007-05-27T03:42:00.001+02:00

Saturday 26 May, 2007 – 16:46 – Coralville, Iowa

I’m home, as the heading probably tipped you off. In fact, I returned to the US two weeks ago to prepare for summer school should I not be accepted (last check put me 6th on the alternate list for medical school at Iowa) (fyi, canceled the internship in the bush as well). Being home early also let me surprise my Pops for his 80th birthday, thanks to a couple of friends who generously escorted me across the US during a week-long road trip. A bit strange to go from public transportation in Dar es Salaam, where one can be inside a van, look down and see the road between their feet, to cruising south down smooth roads through the US in a 2007 red Mustang convertible. And strange also to walk through stores and see all the products, down medicine aisles and see all the creams for any medical ailment imaginable, but each day gets progressively less shocking.

The birthday surprise actually was not all that great partly because I forgot how much my dad hated surprises – and additionally because my family panicked with last minute rearrangements. And then I had an accent that through folks for a loop. They were a bit cautious at first – gauging who I was, why I spoke as I did, and trying to guess a statement this speech was supposed to make, but have since become more open to simply welcoming and accepting me. It is wearing off though, the accent, and hopefully within a few weeks will no longer be a source of confusion for me or them, or random employees in check out lines at grocery stores.

In the mean time, I’m still plugging away trying to make sense of all I have experienced. In particular of late, I think a lot about the bus trip from Dar to Arusha and back. Each way was 9 hours, and at each town through which the bus passed, slews of people of all ages crowded along the sides hoping to sell food stuffs and small items for next to nothing prices. Women arduously carried big buckets of tomatoes, and from an elevated position within the bus, anyone could look below and have their pick. Taller men simply locked their elbows and held heavy barrels above their heads. Kids bore wooden sticks with nails protruding from the top on which they pierced cobs of cooked maize. They steadily held their sticks at window level while competing for proximity on the ground with the older, stronger sellers. One little boy raised three pieces of burnt corn, and that was his living – that dusty old town, lifting what Americans use as cow feed to passerby’s day in, day out. I bought a piece of corn from him for 8 cents, the asking price, and picked the kernels off one by one. I ate it in silence, looking out the window, taking what I saw and holding it against where I’d soon be. My fingers were sore when the corn ran out. I looked down and found blisters where I had been plucking kernels. That was the one of the most subtle but obvious signs of my wealth and therefore privilege and fortune – the food that kid eats every day gave me blisters.

There are other people I think about too, like the boys outside my house who played soccer in the street. Most played barefoot, but some shared a pair of shoes so that one had a left shoe on his left foot and another had the right on his right. How could it be I have accumulated so many shoes back home that I have my own storage box in the basement for the ones I don’t use that often?

As is usually the case when traveling, I brought my fair share of junk that I never used; before returning home I gave a lot of my stuff away. When I tossed chap stick to my friend, she studied it carefully then asked what it was. “Oh,” I said, “it’s, uh, chap stick. You know, we put it on our lips to make them soft when they feel dry. Want it?”

She wrinkled her brow and furled up her nose. Slightly puzzled and still unsure of what this thing was, "sure," came her reply. Her voice, however, belied the honest answer, which was, “no, not really, but because it’s a gift, thanks”. I felt silly with this special wax tube, and never realized how luxurious chap stick was until I tried to explain its use to a Tanzanian.

This journey continually forces me to confront difficult questions about life, humanity, purpose, myself, what is right and wrong, and where the criteria for this dichotomy is derived. It challenges me to grapple not just the difference between good and evil, but also the differences between good and right, good and helpful, and good and productive. What is the value of sincere generosity if it is naïve, not having assessed or fully understood the context in which it is being received? Can a doctor who devotes his life to underserved, underprivileged, people groups, rightfully eliciting respect and admiration for his or her noble character, contribute good to the world through his or her intentions and yet leave having not actually helped the people he or she served? Can you alleviate pain in a manner that allows you to feel good about your contribution and yet in a way that fails to bring your patients and their subsequent generations any closer to a sustainable escape from the trap of poverty? These are all open questions, but ones whose answers bear heavily on the future I pursue.

Post-note insert: Here's a clip from a recent email that balances the last paragraph, which I appreciated, and which is a good reminder to anyone regardless of where their passions lay -

"If your return to Africa is dependent upon convincing yourself that it will be worth it, you may never go back. Millions, and I mean millions, of people have tried to fix Africa in one way or another. In some respect, you are fighting a forest fire with a garden hose. But that doesn't mean that you can't try, or that you shouldn't try.

It's the trying that has to be worth it. It's the journey, not the destination. Because if it was the destination then we would all be terribly depressed at the fact that we will end up 6 ft under (baring the afterlife, of course). But we don't just hole up and wait to die, because the journey is worth it.

Your contribution to this world is done. It's a forgone conclusion. It doesn't depend on what you do from here on out, but rather who you are from here on out (which doesn't seem to significantly change). This trip, as I see it, is a symptom of your condition. Your wonderful human condition that will spark progress regardless to what you devote your life. The difference between going to Africa and making an impact and going to Topeka, Kansas and making a difference is a mere formality. You will make unfathomable impacts that cannot be weighed or compared lest you spoil God's curriculum.

When your brain, your heart, and your passion all point in the same direction, you've hit the trifecta. Be sure to run with it."

On a lighter note, I will miss 10-cent avocados, 8-cent tortillas, and 4-cent savory bread rolls.

As for the final take on missions work - gosh, I believe there is freedom in the church, but I've seen it so twisted that I don't know whether or not I could be a bonafide career missionary. At the moment I'd like to return and work as a doctor, hold my own Christian faith (not sent by a mission agency) and let the interactions I have with others and the respect/love I give them be the catalyst for personal change. Maybe in treating people with dignity, those interactions 2000 years down the road will manifest themselves into positive change and a different world.

Before leaving, I picked up The Shackled Continent by Robert Guest, a journalist for the magazine The Economist. In his book he tries to answer why Africa is so screwed up, addressing its past, present and future. It’s brilliant writing and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to understand African politics. But I bring it up because he closes with these paragraphs that resonated with me:

“I will always be an outsider in Africa. I have never been poor or oppressed, and I grew up in a country where African-style poverty has been unknown for generations. When I wander around Africa, I do so wrapped in the armour that money provides. Where there is violence, I can afford to stay in a hotel with security guards. Where there is sickness, I can buy medicine. Where there is hunger, I can always find something to eat.

“Africa constantly reminds me how lucky I am to have grown up in a rich, peaceful country. If I’d been born in Africa, there’s a good chance that I’d be dead by now, and almost no chance that I’d be racking up so many frequent-flyer miles. I’m a foreigner, so this is an outsider’s perspective, for what it is worth.” – Robert Guest, The Shackled Continent

And so that’s it, the end of the blog. Thanks for reading. And thank you to the ones who have supported me financially and emotionally, and for those of you who prayed throughout these months. I have learned a lot and hope that through this weblog you have also picked up more about these parts of the world and the thoughts, challenges and lessons they hold.

Thank you and sincerely,
Benjamin Huntley, Sojourner, Friend

Closing In On The End

2007-05-27T03:40:00.000+02:00

Saturday 5 May, 2007 – 08:03 – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The laptop beneath my fingers seems to have slowly taken on a strange feel, having not written much since coming to Tanzania. There are many stories, but at the end they all come down to the same fundamental links: the depth of poverty, the vast and widening expanse between haves and have-nots and the signs of grotesque inhumanity. From the standpoint of shock value, these are awfully fascinating to discover at first. Then they become fascinatingly awful as understanding sets in. Newness wears out and intrigue decays until one looks at reality and sees it as just plain awful. When you get to that point, you don’t feel like writing.

I caught a lift into town a few weeks ago from a lovely older woman who turned out to be Tanzania’s only female oncologist. In a short period of time we covered a lot of ground and suddenly the day’s shakedown switched around so as to first accommodate a walk through the hospital before continuing on with my already made plans.

Her office is a crumbling cubicle, and on the wall hangs what looks like an engine block – a light box to read X-rays. Coming from fancy American clinics, however, one would never believe its functionality until seeing the ancient beast in action. Dispersed throughout the long hallway outside her office lay approximately 70 patients, all hers, all to be seen that day. This is the African waiting room. No chairs, no Dixie cups or water jugs, no secretary to complain to. There are no queues, meaning no apparent order, and yet there is no disorder. Patients just wait. Some stand, leaning against pillars. Others spread their grass-woven mats out along the floor, wrap themselves up in an assortment of colorful blankets, and sleep for hours. And still others sit in the middle of the walkway, all with straight backs and right angles at their waists, sort of as if they were leaning against a wall – except that they are not, and not at all as if they were leaning against a wall as you might imagine. When Westerners lean against walls, our backs still curve; we don’t actually put our butts snug to the corner but rather sit a few inches away and lean back to rest on our shoulders. Africans are all about the right angle, and because they’re comfortable without a wall to lean against, the distribution of bodies in the “waiting room” is pretty homogenous. So when you picture this hallway, don’t just put bodies on the sides, imagining there is a straight, narrow width that runs down the middle of the hallway where you could walk – because it’s not there. But also when you imagine what this place must be like, don’t add noise – don’t add complaining and don’t even add crying babies, because although they are dying, these people wait patiently. Time is elastic in Africa and few keep it, because few have reason to keep it.

That was the outpatient wing. The inpatient section was much like the other hospital I described a few months ago in Rwanda – more patients than beds, some sleeping on the floor. My friend introduced me to a woman from the Comoros Islands. How she got to the mainland nobody knows because she is too poor to cross the ocean by herself. The doctor found her dying in the streets, already a bilateral mastectomy patient – although maybe patient is not the right word, because that implies some sort of continuity of care. When she undraped her bed sheet I nearly gasped. Of course I could not be emotional in front of her, because that would be unprofessional, and she needed every ounce of hope that could possibly be fused in her mutilated body. Her breasts were previously removed, Lord knows where, but it looked like this was done in more of a butcher shop and less of a clinic. Most sadly, not all the cancer had been removed. When she returned to the street the disease spread – everywhere, and that’s when the doctor who gave me a lift found her.

Moving on. It started to rain heavily, and the lesser-sick patients ran outdoors with large 30-gallon plastic jugs to collect drinking water from the roofs. If you have not already done so, pause for a moment and picture what that looks like.

As we left, the oncologist softly spoke some understanding words, “I think you have seen a lot today. You will have a lot to write about”. I nodded, still trying to process it all. Yeah it is a lot to write about, but it is poison that I’ve already choked down. And there are lots of these poisons everyday – kids without shoes, piles of burning trash in ditches, flood waters from the African rains that wreak havoc everywhere. So the next question is what can I do about these bludgeoning realities? I don’t have any answers yet, other than to say I’m hungrier now than ever before to get back to the classroom and continue my education. Einstein claimed he was not inherently different from anyone else and that he had no intellectual super powers that were not also available to the rest of the world. What set him apart, he said, was that he never quit. He never stopped thinking about how to get answers – and could even sit in a chair for two or three days, staring at a problem until he made headway. Perhaps the next few years of education, through the lens of these experiences, will be that chair for me.

One of the most shocking truths I’ve discovered in my return trip to Africa is the universality of ignorance. Recall that last year I spent some months in rural Kenya where the warriors my age wore feathers in their hair, and a noticeable percentage of the patients were nomads who had walked upwards of 80km through the desert for health care. It was the fantasy - everything we romanticize about Africa. But it left me with an unbalanced understanding of the region. In the bush, by necessity of survival, people knew each other and wealth was fairly evenly shared. Maybe the chief owned four times as many cows as the average man, which seems like a big deal when you live within the parameters of that life – but step back to look at it from the standpoint of urban wealth and that is merely splitting hairs.

In urban regions there is a disgusting discrepancy between rich and poor. People neither understand each other nor care to understand each other. Previously I believed that only the West cared so little about the present state of pain and suffering of other humans in the world – but it is every bit as present in Africa as well. Many here have no idea what life is like for the majority, nor do they care to ever let their children step foot down the muddy places people in the Swahili parts calls streets. They live in fancy houses behind big fences and pay much less than they can afford to a handful who tend their gardens and guard their houses. And these are Africans I’m talking about, not just expatriates. How could there be Africans who didn’t know Africa? Growing up, I remember whenever food was left on a plate inevitably someone would say, “There are people starving in Africa and you aren’t going to finish your food!?”. The snotty response every vegetable-wary child rattled back was an order to box their leftovers up and ship them over. This extravagant life is indeed hard to swallow, but what pains me about humanity even more is that people are not starving because of any shortage of food – they are starving because all the food is at their neighbor’s, who unfortunately don’t give a damn.

But just because I’ve made this analysis does not mean I am immune from the same ignorance. Over my weeks in Tanzania I have become good friends with a white Zimbabwean who wants to know how I can be so curious about Africans and know so little about Native Americans. I don’t have any good answers to give him and must settle for realizing my own ignorance.

There are loads of beautiful things here: shimmering sunsets, sparkling children, and wonderful landscapes – and I could write pages of analogies, using brilliant adjectives to paint fantastic pictures for your minds to visit, but I don’t see the point in getting all romantic about them. Here are some things I have enjoyed, however.

To greet someone who is of an older age set, one says shikamoo, meaning “accept my blessing”. The response is marhaba: “blessing accepted”. When children use Shikamoo, adults stoop down so the young ones, who have already eagerly raised their hands, can touch their elder’s forehead, a physical gesture of blessings being passed.

The word for bird, ndege, is the same word for airplane. Imagine how that came to be.

And speaking of language, rangi means color. Example: rangi nyekundu is red, or literally the ‘color red’. Now hang with me for a little bit. The suffix adjective –zee means old, and putting an m in front implies it belongs to a person, so mzee is an elder. Alright, one more step before putting it all together – damu is the word for blood. I already told you how to say ‘red’, but now comes ‘maroon’ – rangi ya damu ya mzee – or literally, the color of an old man’s blood. That’s pretty sweet.

As bumpy and painfully uncomfortable as un-graded dirt roads outside the city are, there is something nice about imperfection – something that causes you to appreciate other things in life that might otherwise be taken for granted, and something which I will miss when I am home.

Each night I fall asleep to the sound of waves from the Indian Ocean that lap against the shore – nothing quite like that in Iowa.

Although they can be incredibly uncompassionate toward each other, people here cannot be faulted for any lack of hospitality. Having a guest is more than an honor, and there is no concept of over-staying one’s welcome. It is, however, possible to under-stay your time, which becomes obvious if you try to leave after only staying in someone’s house for a week.

See you in a few weeks-
BJFH

Ps. Something of potential interest. Whereas pregnant women in the West tend to crave chocolate, pregnant women in Tanzania crave Udungo – which is dirt, caked together and rolled into a rod-like shape. It is fine, not too course, and tastes like a dusty road.

Moshi/Arusha

2007-05-27T03:39:00.002+02:00

Wednesday 25 April, 2007 - 16:22 – Kilimanjaro

Last Saturday in Dar es Salaam a thief rendered me deflated, stealing my phone and a good chunk of money. The lady I live with urged me to continue on with my travel plans or, as she so adamantly believed, the thief would win – walking away with more than just what was in my pocket. For me it’s not about winning or losing, but taking an adventure with the momentum of eagerness, curiosity and ambition riding behind me. Although these were snuffed out prematurely when I lost my naïve trust in humanity, after some pouting I took my fear to the bus station and set off to Moshi, 7.5 hours north, with neither plans nor even so much as a place to stay.

About halfway up I squirmed a little when I realized what I was doing was crazy, then sent a barrage of text messages to the only four numbers in the directory of my replacement phone. To my great fortune, a woman who gave me a lift a few days earlier had family in the area, and wrote back saying her father would pick me from the station, adopt me as a temporary son and take me home.

As Africa goes, we arrived late. The lot was full of hustlers and hawkers, packed with pushing people and helplessly overwhelmed police - all causing a great bout of anxiety to well up within me. I called the father-figure as the bus parked, who eased my worries with a few syllables: Ninakuona – I see you! There were a trillion people on the other side of the window, but with a click glance I spotted him as well - the same way we pick out the main character as a movie opens; something quirky about the way he or she is dressed tips us off. Although to me the man I’d soon call Baba was a stranger, he could not have been anyone else in the crowd - a stout, pot-bellied old fellow, cloaked in a sky-blue blazer who carried an umbrella that functioned as a cane. Mustered beneath his hand-me-down feathered hat were some scraggly white hairs of a rather mellow beard. We became instant friends, quickly whisking away to his home.

I about wet my pants when a tiny window in the smothering clouds opened to reveal a corner of Kilimanjaro. Baba was clearly honored to have hosted my first glimpse but embarrassed that, in his eyes, I received a measly introduction to his mountain. He insisted we somewhere to get a better view – from his father’s house. Never would I ever have imagined we’d actually live on the mountain for the next few days.

It was a quick ride in a daladala (or matatu, as it’s called elsewhere – again, these are the overcrowded public transport vans of Tanzania) to the base of the mountain. The next leg was equally crammed, but taken standing up in the back of a pick up truck, encircled with metal bars to keep everyone in – and it went up the mountain, bouncing back and forth between rivets until the path ended. The rest we crossed on foot, hiking alongside and over crisscrossing open irrigation streams that cut through the rainforest, eventually making their way to maize fields below. I never wondered where water came from before. At home it comes out the faucet – piped from somewhere, but I never think of the pipes. But there it was, flowing through thin, age-old trenches that have been passed down from generation to generation for longer than anyone can remember. When streams need to cross paths, one is dug down a bit while the other passes via a hollowed-out tree-trunk-bridge. This way no farmer steals from another’s rightful supply.

We took some locally brewed banana beer, caught our breath, then continued on our way. One more stop to give condolences to a family grieving the death of a grandma before finally reaching home. Babu (his father, my grandfather) is an equally pleasant man, although has been set back with a mysteriously and incredibly swollen leg. He is happy to be in the village, though – because everything he needs is there.

Life in the rainforest was a splendid discovery. The mountain was exactly how I have always pictured the garden of Eden to look – food is just, well, there. And in abundance. Who ever knew that bananas grew like packets of food on trees? Certainly not I, who always thought they came from the grocery store. There are many varieties too – bananas for eating and those for beer – and within the eating subgroup are sweet bananas, like we eat, and starchy bananas, like potatoes. The forest is also donned in a plethora of trees, bushes and shrubs that produce avocados, cherries, mangoes, raspberries, tea leaves and coffee beans. To top off their food choices, locals also raise chickens, cows and pigs.

But back to the fruit: please allow me to be your mental tour-guide through perhaps my most interesting food discovery. It is called Finesi in Swahili, but more popularly referred to as the most bizarre fruit known to man. Picture yourself, arm out, holding a pear in your hand. Pick a color somewhere between green and yellow and feel the pear’s weight as it rests in your palm. Here comes the fun part. Hold the pear’s shape, but now imagine it to be the size of one’s abdomen. Replace its smooth skin with something more prickly, like the dodecagon you constructed out of a zillion pieces of paper folded into triangles half way through Junior High math. It’s green, heavy, pokey enough to leave indents in your skin but not so much that it hurts. Now cut it in half lengthwise. Peel the halves apart to find what looks like a pineapple-esque interior. But what look like the grains of a piece of pineapple are actually pods of fleshy fruit packed together, each impregnated with its own seed. Remove one of these meaty casings, the fruit, and notice that now held up it looks like Rigatoni pasta, except that inside is a sort of amniotic sack that nourishes the growing nut. You can even spin the nut round and round by gently squeezing your fingertips on the outside. The nut is edible, and anything that might be left over is fed to the animals so as waste nothing. The limp, macaroni fruit smells awful, but is darn sweet and great finger food. Grossed out? Intrigued? It is called Jackfruit in English – feel free to pause for a moment to run a google search if you need to see it to believe it; I won’t go anywhere.

The following morning a local fellow and I went for a 45-minute hike through a valley and back up the mountain on the other side. We crisscrossed the same stream half a dozen times but at different altitudes, cut through hand-me-down plots and their respective grass huts, and finally ended up at the butcher’s shop where he bought a couple kilos of beef, hacked off from a dangling carcass. We did stop twice for his asthmatic relief – which turned out to be a small glass of locally brewed whisky at each break. I took a sip, not knowing it wasn’t water… about died. He drank whole glass. Ironically enough in spite of the alcohol, I tripped and stumbled, up and down the mountain, a whole lot more frequently than he did… but then again, he was born on the mountain, and I come from a place where people now get to and fro on Segways so they don’t have to walk.

After a few days left the village, walked down the mountain and into town. There I caught a bus from Moshi to Arusha, and stayed the week with Baba’s son. He and his wife were a lovely couple, in their late 20’s or early 30’s, and shared a small living space, made significantly smaller when it accommodated a third person. But it was a real home – a place with character, somewhere one walks in and feels warm – and they love having guests. In fact, for them it is an honor. Although for all intents and purposes, I came a stranger, from the first day they loved me as nothing less than family – and when I left they nearly cried. They begged me to stay, and put on the guilt trip for returning early (it had only been five days). We were friends, cooking together, sharing everything, laughing with one another and even traveling to see some animals a close to their home. Late into the evening of the night before I departed, well after the lights were out, she came into my room, checked that I was still awake, and presented me fabric – a gift they wished to send my sister when I return home. And this I found to be characteristic of most everywhere I went within the country. Tanzanians, at least those with whom I interacted, are in incredibly hospitable and welcoming people.

Dar es Salaam 2

2007-05-27T03:39:00.001+02:00

Saturday 21 April, 2007 - 22:31 - Dar es Salaam

Today was an all around pretty rotten day, mostly because bad things happened to me and I failed to choose a positive reaction. It started off well – a phone call from home and an hour-long conversation with my mom. We did not talk about anything serious, but it was nice to hear her voice and be cared about from so far away. She convinced me to carve out time to see animals and check out Kilimanjaro before returning home. I do not normally choose to spend money on myself for luxuries, but it seemed like a nice idea - a treat to myself after all these months - so I went into town to withdraw money from the ATM.

There is a machine just opposite of the main bus stage that I have always sworn I’d never use. The glass doors and the ATM’s proximity to such a busy area practically invite pick-pocketing. But today was hot, I was tired, and it was only going to be once. Like lions picking out a meal, they must have been sitting back, watching people, looking for targets – otherwise they would never have picked me with my dirt-stained shirt and holed shoes, carrying a grass-woven basket and some wooden spoons from the market; I did not look like the wazungu with money who take taxis and wear ties. But they watched everything I did – analyzed my moves, calculated their chances, and determined I was it.

The money was in my front pocket, zipped closed, along with my other valuables – phone, camera, et cetera. Just like every other day, a zillion people were trying to get in and out of the matatu simultaneously. I was somewhere near the back of the bulge trying to squeeze in when the commotion kicked off. I’m not sure how I knew I was being robbed – perhaps it was the slight shift in weight, or maybe a sixth sense? Somehow I knew. The rest happened really fast. I turned around and immediately picked him out of the crowd, then lunged and had him in my arms, screaming so as to draw everyone’s attention. But good thieves work in teams, and already the first handoff, half my money, had been made. He threw his half on the ground and all eyes followed, creating a distraction for his partner to slip away. When I bent down to pick it up, my phone was there too. Quickly, though, the guy next to me (probably the one who was about to take the next hand off) told me it was his, so, confused, I handed it to him – then he was gone. By this time onlookers had gotten involved – younger Tanzanians were holding the thief while outraged elders slapped him across the face. They were all ashamed of their countryman.

People wanted to report him to the police, so half the mob went together. We got there in a hurry, but I realized my phone was gone, as was the other cut of money. Neither were recoverable, and seeking just punishment was not going to change the situation – nor would it have changed his behavior. So, deciding to save time and energy on the follow-up work, I cut my losses, declined the report and let him go. We spontaneously shook hands – twice, actually, one after another - which was kind of odd. The first was to convey that what was done was done, in the past, and that we should move on. The second had a more intentional feel, more knowing, less settling – something closer to forgiveness. I was not fully there yet, but could not stay in an angry state much longer without suffocating in my own evil – hatred, pride, and self-centeredness. You know how it goes – before attempting forgiveness all one can do is dwell in victimization and wallow in self-pity – and what useful purposes do those serve?

But I’m no saint. Like a float toy at the base of a dam, my mind cycled through tension, confusion and anger the rest of the day. Things happen for a reason, yes – but trying to figure out what that is, is a waste of time because I’ll never know. At best I might stumble across a reason that is good enough to appease my angst, but who knows if that will be right? So I relinquished control of the reason thing as well and just tried to move on. What I do know is that at least I walked away from being robbed without any bullets or knives – and I still have four working appendages, ease with breathing and an intact mind, and that’s more than enough to be grateful for.

Dar es Salaam

2007-05-27T03:36:00.000+02:00

Friday 13 April, 2007 – 06:01 – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Although one month’s time has long since passed without any new entries from Bongo (east African slang for Dar es Salaam), there is certainly no shortage of stories to relay. It is a shame, though, that so many tales have amassed – because it seems now they are being reported out of a sense of duty rather than told out of a sense of joy. But I’ll do my best to recreate the colors these experiences first came to me in.

Let us start at the airport. Whereas in the West passengers file through a gauntlet of security check points before being funneled through an enormous metal sock leading directly from the gate to the door of the aircraft, in Africa they walk out to the airplane, greeting it on the runway, and they deplane in the same manner. It was late into the evening when my flight landed, but when stepping into darkness I was immediately aware of the ocean’s proximity. The air was humid, smelling like salt and slowing all movement, but I waded through its weight, picked up my bags and carried on to find my ride.

But in Africa, little ever goes as planned. So at 10:30PM I was alone in a new country, stranded at an airport, without communication, I did not know my host and there was nobody to meet me. As kindly ladies always seem to show in these situations, an African sister took both notice and pity, letting me place a call from her cell phone. However, my host was so ill and hoarse te into the evening when my flight landed, but when stepping into darkness I was immediately aware of the ocean’s proximity. The air was humid, smelling like salt and slowing all movement, but I waded through its weight, picked up my bags and carried on to finshe could not speak – and after a long-winded introduction of who I was, how she knew me and a question about how to get to her house, all I heard in response were a few groans of unrecognizable instructions before she hung up. Without warning I was back in Africa, alone, with no clue as to what was going on. Pretty typical, though, and not cause for panic by any means. Through a series of SMS messages and calls from friends of hers, I reached my new home by taxi safe and sound enough.

She lives in a beautiful house – both by the Rwandese standards I had come to adopt and by American standards I once thought were, well, standard. We are two in a large home, with the exception of the garden boy and his wife who live in a smaller structure in the corner of the property. And on that note, the whole property is a garden – palm trees, cactuses, and an array of colored flowers of all shapes and sizes carefully hedged, clipped, trimmed and sculpted to perfection. The interior is also lovely.

Those who know say the best Swahili in the world is spoken in Tanzania. So to TZ I went, with the sole objective to learn – because in the future I want to return as a doctor who is not isolated from his patients by a language barrier. Within two days classes began – and three weeks later yours truly graduated from beginner level and started life in the big world of intermediate Kiswahili.

Each morning I walk, run or bike to class 5km on the beach along the Indian Ocean. The other day the tide was out and two fishermen had carried a defunct boat to the flat of the sand where the water previously sat. They propped it on stilts and set it ablaze – the boat fully engulfed in flames. Because the sun was rising behind them, everything was silhouetted except for the intensely red and orange fire. The heat billowing from the boat cause the colors form the flame to mix with the silhouette of the fishermen as if they were painted with oil pastels. And of course the pockets of water sprinkled across the flat sand where the tide had receded shimmered with the morning sun. As always, it was a beautiful morning in Africa.

I love the beach for its unpredictability. Some days I see boats burning, other days I find incredible sea shells, stop to help fishermen pull their nets in, or pass youth and elders alike practicing kung fu – totally crazy, but oddly totally normal. And on the best days I get to do all of these and more. When I’m home before the sun sets, sometimes I catch pick up soccer games with the Maasai. We all run around together – me with shorts and a watch around my wrist, them with robes and billyclubs and sometimes machetes around their waist.

At the end of three weeks of beginner classes I composed the following letter. If you find languages interesting, have fun reading the Swahili (a mix of Bantu, Arabic and English), but if not then jump down a bit and I’ll translate it to English.

Habari Zenu Rafiki Na Familia Yangu-

Hamjambo? Maisha hapa ni mazuri sana. Sasa niko Tanzania, lakini kabla ya kuja Dar es Salaam nilikaa Rwanda. Huko, kama mnajua, nilikuwa mwalimu chuo kikuu na nilifanya kazi hospitalini na rafiki zangu wanyarwanda.

Lakini, kama nilivyosema mwanzao wa hii barua, nimekuja karibu na bahari kusoma Kiswahili. Kila siku huenda shuleni. Ndani ya darasa mwalimu wangu na mimi tunajaribu kufundishana. Nataka kujifunza harakaharaka lakini siwezi – kujifunza lugha mtu anahitaji muda – hivyo (kwa sababu sijifunzi haraka) sina furaha kila siku. Lakini hakuna matata, nitajua – kila wiki ninajifunza polepole. Oneni – sasa hivi ninawaandikia hii barua! Nimejifunza!

Nimekaa Mbezi Bich, karibu sana na bahari ya hindi, ndani ya nyumba ya rafiki wa mama mdogo doto yangu. Jina lake ni Sue, na yeye ni mwema kabisa. Ninampenda sana, na mimi napenda kulala ndani ya nyumba kubwa na nzuri (tunakaa peke yetu kwenye nyumba moja) lakini tunaongea kiingereza pamoja. Nilipolala huko sikujifunza kiswahili haraka. Hivyo mara kwa mara nimeamua kulala na rafiki yangu John uswahlini kwa watu maskini. Hapa ninajifunza mishemishe – kula chapati kwenye takataka na matope sana, kwenda choo kichafu, kulala bila umeme – sisi ni watu watatu kwenye kitanda kimoja – kuamka kwenye kelele za watoto wafrika – kuwa na furaha bila hela. Nitakaporudi Marekani, nitataka kurudi hapa Afrika kukaa, kuishi, na kupenda. Lakini ninaelewa lazima niendelee kusomo shule ya dawa hivyo nitakuwa daktari, hivyo nitaweza kuwasaidia watu na matatizo yao, hivyo nitaitambuusha dawa kwa romtakatifu, na kuaombea wagonjwa na sisi wote tutakuwa karibu na yesu kristo. Hiki ndicho ninachotaka – basi.

Hii imekuwa safari nzuri, lakini sasa nikotayari kuwa pamoja na familia yangu. Nimejifunza vitu vingi vingine pia, lakini tunaweza kuongea nitakaporudi nyumbani Marekani. Asanteni kwa kusoma mpaka hapa na tutaonana mwezi kesho kutwa.

Awapendaye,
Ni mimi rafiki, kaka na kijana wenu,
Benjamin Huntley

How are you all, my friends and family –

Are you doing well? Life here is very good. Currently I am in Tanzania, but before arriving in Dar es Salaam I was staying in Rwanda. There, as you all know, I was a university teacher and worked in a hospital with my Rwandan friends.

But, as I said to begin this letter, I came close to the ocean to study Swahili. Every day I go to school. In class my teacher and I are trying to learn together. I want to learn quickly but cannot – to learn a language one needs time – so (because I am not learning quickly) I am not happy every day. But no worries, I will learn – every week I am learning slowly. Look – I am now writing you this letter! I am learning!

I stay in Mbezi Beach, very close to the Indian Ocean, in the home of a friend of my aunt’s. Her name is Sue and she is very nice. I like her a great deal and love sleeping in a nice, big home (we are the only ones for the single house) but we speak to each other in English. When I sleep there I do not learn Swahili quickly. So from time to time I have decided to spend the night with my friend John in the slum with the poor people. Here I am learning the ways of the people – to eat local food in the midst of garbage and tons of mud, to use dirty bathrooms, to sleep without electricity – we are three people in one bed – to wake up to the noise of African children – to be happy without money. When I return to the US I am going to want to return here to Africa to stay, to live and to love. But I understand I must continue my medical studies so I can become a doctor, so I can help people with their problems, so I can introduce medicine with the Holy Spirit, pray for the sick and all draw closer to Christ together. That is all I want.

This has been a good trip, but now I am ready to be with my family. I have learned many other things as well, but we can discuss these when I return home. Thank you all for reading to this point and we’ll see each other the month after next.

With love,
It’s me, your friend, brother and son-
Benjamin Huntley

The slum is a wild and electrifying place, packed with people, movement, and business – buying and selling, eating and drinking, loud music, rhythmic life, mamas, babas, and aunties, baba’s babies and baba’s babies from baba’s babies’ other mama, laughing children, crying children, kids with clothes and those without, vegetable stands - ripe and rotten… I am tempted to describe it as unity in chaos, but this is only accurate according to the lens of the life I know, not according to their norms. My perceptions are not their perceptions, nor can I say they are better or worse – just different. It is dirty, though. The streets are narrow passages of mud, crowded with markets and shacks on either side. But it’s not mud like you and I might picture mud – it is blackened from oil, garbage, gasoline, trash, vomit, fish guts – waste of all sorts that turns walking through the slum into a game of hopscotch, only you don’t dare reach down to pick anything up – that is, unless you’re a kid, in which case everything becomes a potential chew toy.

This is an abused land, dating back a couple of hundred years to the beginning of the slave trade in the 16th century. Half hour up the road by car is a town called Bagamoyo, the former mainland slave-trading hub of eastern Africa. Here were brought peoples from what are the present day countries Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. Let me break down the town’s telling name. In Swahili, moyo means heart – and bagamoyo, coming from the Bantu verb kubwaga – to lay down - means to lay one’s heart down. This was the last Africa slaves touched, aside from a layover in Zanzibar, before being shackled and hauled to India, Oman, and other northern slave-importing countries. In spite of David Livingstone’s contribution and the Christian church’s fight to abolish slavery in east Africa, the Arab-Islamic influence remains much stronger than that of the Christian church (I specify Arab because there are many Arab Tanzanians, and much of the culture, even the artwork, has been filtered through an Arab lens). On the island of Zanzibar, for example, the population is estimated to be 80% Islamic – and both black and Arab Africans worship in mosques harmoniously.

I was to Zanzibar last week for a mini-vacation (By the way, interesting fact – the mainland was formerly called Tanganyika but when it merged with Zanzibar as one country the two names put together became Tanzania. Strangely enough, although Tanzania is one country it has two presidents – one for Zanzibar and the internationally recognized one for the mainland Tanzania). The island is a photographer’s near-paradise. Although by ferry it is only 2 hours (or about 15 miles) off the coast, it certainly has its own feel. Stone Town, the largest city, strongly reminded me of Damascene alleyways – fruit stands, mosques, children sitting three wide in an open doorway, old buildings, Koran recitations and friendly people – half of whom are Arab. The island is best known for its doors, though. Zanzibari doors are carefully, delicately and beautifully carved masterpieces that in older days told a family’s genealogy. In Stone Town is a large church, the pulpit of which stands intentionally and directly on the former slave stage. As I said, Africans were taken from the inland to Zanzibar. At that point, they were then chained and starved for two days in a tiny underground pit. A trench ran through the middle of the pit (see picture) that filled with sea water at high tide, washing the feces away. After two days detainment, the men were taken to the whipping post – those who screamed, a sign of weakness, earned less money. Under pressure from the British Navy, the former Sultan of Zanzibar abolished slave-trading in the late 1800’s, but it continued as an underground practice (literally, the slaves were kept in caves and shuttled out 50 at a time to touch and go slave ships) until 1907.

But like the rest of Africa, there is more to this place than gut-wrenching stories of weakness, abuse and horror. Traveling around the island, I discovered plenty to do. One afternoon my host ordered grilled shrimp and a bottle of wine to go, and we set off by boat with local fishermen to swim with dolphins. What beautiful creatures they are, the dolphins – massive yet incredibly caring. They seemed to effortlessly swim against the current while I kicked as hard as I could to keep up. Imagine me neck and neck with a school of dolphins. From the boat you might see my head, a constant above the water, and then fins of dolphins curve in and out of view. They swam beneath me, behind me and to either side. But unfortunately just when it seemed I was having a beautiful moment with nature, the one in front shat in my face mask. So if you ever tell me you swam with dolphins, don’t be surprised when I bitterly ask if you were close enough to see them poop.

But all joking aside, there are lovely moments on the island. There is the beauty in watching a fisherman catch squid, casting a throw of line that is tide around his waist off the side of a cliff and pulling it back in hand over hand in a fluid motion for the evening’s meal. The white man needs his gear – the nice shoes, a fancy belt to hold his new rod, tension-tested nylon string – and he is either disappointed when the hook comes back empty or overly elated when it comes back full. The African man is free – poor with ragged clothes, but rich in spirit – free from contrived emotions. I have wondered a lot this week if, given the opportunity, I would choose his life or mine. Perhaps the ignorance of the island is not ignorance at all, but knowledge and the ability to be spiritual. And perhaps – if materialism comes at the cost of spirituality – my cultural upbringing put me more further back than it did further forward. At one point I decided I would have still selected my life, because I at least have choice in how and where to live – but then I realized that although I can choose to visit him (whereas he cannot choose to visit me), knowing where I come from, I could never mentally live as he lives. Even with money and privilege, I cannot access his world just as without money and privilege he cannot access mine. I am still trying to figure out who has the upper hand.

I carried a sketchpad with me to jot down my thoughts. Originally I hoped to expand them into full stories, but this is getting to be quite lengthy as is, so here they are in short (take me out for coffee or something when I return and I’ll tell you all about them):

One day we were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, off coast of Zanzibar, and kicked off a smaller island.

Another day I went snorkeling with an mzee (old man) and found a giant clam on the ocean floor. We wanted to take it ashore, but it was stuck and had to be pried loose. We alternated turns - banging on, wiggling, twisting, and pulling, trying to get it out. As a young, fit early-twenties kid, I could only hold my breath for thirty seconds by the time I swam down there before racing back up for air. He was old and frail, but had spent his life chasing octopus underwater, and each time gently glided down to the clam, staying for a minute or two, before coming back up. Lovely to watch.

On Easter Sunday I sat around a communal bowl with seven local fishermen and shared dinner by the ocean as the sun set. We had a large mound of rice, and one of the men was in charge of placing a new fish (eyes, tail and all) on top when the old one ran out. We ate with our right hands, as is customary, scooping a fistful of rice, squeezing it a few times between fingers and palm, then reaching forward and pinching some meat off the fish skeleton with our handy opposable thumbs. It was not anything I would order, and yet you could never pay for the company.

When I was in Zanzibar I got up early one more to go for a walk along the ocean. As the sun was rising a guy in a boat passed close-by. With his permission, I waded out to the boat, hopped in and off we went to the middle of the bay to go octopus hunting. He jumped in the water with snorkel and fins, swam off and was gone for a long time – so eventually I followed suit, only jumping in to swim a great distance back ashore.

Oh, and one last story from before Zanzibar. As I wrote, I had been staying in the slum, walking around at night through streets lit by the flicker of candles from the occasional octopus stand, or by the kerosene lamp of a mama selling tortillas. In Swahili they use a word mishemishe to mean the ways of the people, and I had started to understand the life that meant. One night, however, I decided to go back to the mzungu house to use the internet to communicate with the States. But my key broke and I was locked out (my mzungu host friend had left the country). She lives on the outskirts of town, about an hour’s walk to what you could start to consider city, and it was dark, which meant it was dangerous to be white and alone on the street. So like anyone might do, I went to the neighbor across the way, rang the bell and sweet-talked my way into spending the night. Bear in mind that I smell, having been sleeping on a mildewy mattress, I’m covered in a combination of dirt, sweat and mud from having just played barefoot soccer out front, and I have bloody feet for the same reason. Not a big deal – my neighbor just turned out to be the sister of Joseph Kabila, current president of the Democratic Republic of Congo – and their father, Laurent, before his assassination, was Congo’s former president. I ate a piece of her son’s birthday cake before going to bed – because, you know, they have fancy things like cake. The next day I was back in the slum, hunched over in a dirty corner with four mamas, cooking food together, laughing and continuing to learn mishemishe.

Layover in London

2007-04-17T21:58:00.000+02:00

On a short note, I am going to have an overnite layover in London on my return trip to the United States and was wondering if anybody knew anyone in the city that would like to host me for an evening. Please email me, or have them email me, if you can help me out in that respect.

Thank you and sincerely,
Ben Huntley
benhuntley02@hotmail.com

Swahili Places

2007-04-17T21:10:00.000+02:00

I typed a long entry about what I've been up to, but it's on my laptop and I'm not sure how to transfer it to a computer with internet capabilities. The writing is a lot of catching up that I didn't think was too interesting, so in the mean time I decided to write and share with you the small parts of my yesterday and today - everyday life in Tanzania.

Yesterday I took breakfast at my friend's house. Well, it wasn't really his house - there isn't anything to take in his house, so we went to his aunt's house. And there wasn't really anything there either. A big house with couches, a tv and pictures with broken frames in the sitting room. But then I walked through to find the bathroom - and the rest of the house was totally and strangely bare. No furniture - people must sleep on the floors. No finished floors, people must sleep on the cement. Nothing on the walls but dirt, nothing in the kitchen but a sink that dangled loosely from the wall. But his aunt brought me a big breakfast - tea with sugar and nine pieces of bread, on which she spread something that's like butter but without flavor. She was so happy to feed me that I could not be anything but happy to be there being fed.

That afternoon I was at another friend's house. Her family prepared a meal for me: ugali (hot flour pudding - equal parts flour and water, boil off the water), peas, fish, spinach, and cooked chicken heads. One eats everything but the bones, which includes the tongue, the eyes and the brain. I cannot say I enjoyed the flavors or textures, but it made me appreciate, or more wholly understand, life. What a luxury it is to choose food. And what a luxury it is to have fat. Some people here eat everything they can and don't have that opportunity.

Tonight I was in the slum again. It was the first time I felt comfortable in my Swahili - the first time I spoke without hesitation - telling stories and answering questions with more ease than I had previously known. A little boy wanted to be carried so I picked him up and told him not to pee on me - and then on that moment realized I had just told him not to pee on me in Swahili. I like that place. When I am in the center of the slum I am protected because I am known and loved.

It rained most of the day, and consequently uswahilini (the swahili place - the slum) was filled with mud. The kids walked me back to the bus station just before dark and I hopped on the next available daladala (what the rest of Africa has called a matatu). There are seats for 16 people inside. We numbered 26 in all. Imagine seeing us cruise down the main road, sliding door open. Inside people are sitting in their seats, squashed by the other people standing between their legs, leaning against their faces, squeezed into every pocket of space from floor to ceiling. Then three of us, myself included, are situated outside the van, standing on a running board beneath where the sliding door would have been had it not had to have been opened to reveal some room for the inside to bulge. My hands found something on the inside to hold on to - a handle, a wrist - something reliable. And we continued like that for a few kilometers, rain spitting in our faces. That is my Africa, these are my friends, and this is my life, and I like it.

No More Mail

2007-04-11T17:44:00.000+02:00

Hey Friends, Family-

Just wanted to say that because I will have an internship in the bush next month I will not be able to receive any mail. Also, following the internship I am flying back to the States - so if you want to send me mail, rather than direct it to Tanzania, please use my Iowa address:

Ben Huntley
1501 Westview Drive
Coralville, Iowa 52241
USA

My apologies for the time gap since the last post. Much has happened in Tanzania and I hope to soon compose these stories for you to read. Until then, take care.

Sincerely,
BH

An article

2007-03-20T05:57:00.000+02:00

Below is a short article from the US written to college-aged kids about the music project:

You might not have read about it in the American Journal of Medicine, but they’re working on a new HIV/AIDS prevention in Rwanda. This new “drug” may never be endorsed by the FDA, but it sure is a lot more fun to dance to than any other HIV/AIDS medicine on the market.

The guy mixing this vaccine isn’t a chemist, he’s a producer. That is about as far as my cute little analogy can go, but this is something we all should be paying attention to. Right now, halfway across the world from where I am writing, the Kigali Boyz and Miss JoJo are recording a song with a purpose.

These days The Kigali Boyz (KGB as they’re called) and Miss JoJo are two of the biggest Rwandese music acts around. Spend any amount of time with youth in Kigali, the capital city, and you are bound to hear someone reciting words that one of these artists penned. Although the media’s direct effects on public behavior are difficult to measure, we know that when we cannot get a song out of our heads its message is hard to not deal with.

Knowing that, Miss JoJo and KGB, along with the help of few other friends, decided that they’d put something new in Rwanda’s head, a little message about what is happening in their country and the serious public health effects this HIV/AIDS epidemic brings. A message that we all hope will cause people to look at how they are living in a world that is being devastated by AIDS, which also begs the question, “so what choices are you going to make in this new world?” This isn’t a plea for money from the West, or a guilt trip for a rich white business man (although I know Rwanda could use your money, Mr. Rich White Business Man). This is a message from the people of Rwanda for the people of Rwanda, to remind them that HIV/AIDS is literally killing their country, and that if they don’t change how they live, it cannot get better.

Fortunately, getting people to listen to this message should not be difficult for this group of artists. Miss JoJo’s voice is, at the same time, beautiful and accessible, while KGB’s flows carry rhythms that at times even seem to double the background beat. If you never took that music class you planned on taking at your local community college, basically what I’m saying is they’re talented and their music is catchy.

When I say that these artists are stars on Rwanda’s music scene, I mean that. People everywhere know their music, you can’t escape it; it’s constantly on the radio. But the music industry in Rwanda isn’t like it is here in the United States. In fact, it’s not much of an “industry” at all. Superstar artists don’t live in houses that you see on MTV, or drive Bentleys. Most of them work day jobs, laying down tracks because they love making music and people love their music. Without the “industry” of the music industry there really isn’t much money to be made off even the best albums.

That’s what makes this song that KGB and Miss JoJo are putting together all the more impressive. These artists are not removed from the daily hardships of HIV/AIDS because of their fame. If Paris Hilton were to sing about growing up in the projects and about her violent lifestyle we’d all laugh, but when Jay-Z does it we turn it up. That’s exactly what these artists are doing. They’re not coming down from their mansions on the hill for a little public service project; they are a part of the community that is struggling to survive in the face of HIV/AIDS. They are authentic and they are good. What else is there to say?

A Music and Public Health Cocktail: Using Hoi Polloi Heroes to Intervene in Rwanda’s HIV/AIDS Challenge

2007-03-17T09:54:00.000+02:00

Saturday 17 March, 2007 (Happy St. Patrick's Day and belated Ides of March) - 11:41 - Dar es Salaam

I would like to share with you information on a project I created and in which I have likewise been investing quite a bit of time. Simply put, the idea is to use Rwanda’s relatively new music industry to change public psyche regarding sexual behaviour and the transmission of HIV/AIDS. But before getting to logistics, allow me to briefly explain the evolution of this project.

The idea first started forming while returning from a weekend in Congo, coming through Gisenyi, RW. Two teenagers greeted me as I was walking along the Lake Kivu shore – turned about face, and walked with me back into town. It was not long into our conversation before the boys, in efforts to impress me, compared themselves to “KGB”, claiming they could rap like their heroes – even that they could rap not just like KGB, but like P Diddy, Snoop-dogg, and the others from the US. Miraculously maintaining my cool-guy status, I simultaneously informed them that being able to rap like KGB (Kigali Boyz) did not mean anything to me, because I had not ever heard of the group. My new friends proceeded to take me to a local internet café, threw in a USB memory stick and shared their favourite songs. This is amazing, I thought – these young minds are seriously influenced by the lyrics and lines of their hip-hop heroes… more so, it appeared, than of their teachers, elders or government officials.

Back in Kigali around the same time I heard a catchy radio-cut of a song in matatus heading to and from Nyamirambo (the non-mzungu Rwandese/African bumping street-neighbourhood) – and soon discovered the beautiful, rhythmic voice belonged to a lady stage-named Miss JoJo. A co-worker at the hospital heard me singing his friend’s lyrics and gave me JoJo’s mobile number. Soon thereafter, while on a short assignment from the Kigali Health Institute to Butare, Miss JoJo and I sat down for dinner and discussed some ideas that had been perculating in my mind.

All this time I had been pouring through national AIDS data in preparation for a research proposal a friend of mine and I were submitting – and the things we found were astonishing. Instinctively we wanted to design research protocols, implement programs, and change public health through scientific means – but it occurred to me that hundreds before have already tried doing this – some successfully, many others not so. While we continue to plug away on the research, we also looked for quicker intervention strategies.

My mind jumped back to the young Gisenyi boys and I realized that the common people create heroes from within their own ranks because they think they cannot relate to the power and politics of their national leaders. So all we had to do was link their heroes with the AIDS message, back the project with government support, and – voila – the minds and matters of millions of “mnyarwandans” (as they are called in Swahili) can be reached, influenced, and changed to bring about healthier living, longer life, and a more productive society.

The night before leaving Rwanda, Gilbert and I sat down for sodas with Miss JoJo and KGB, the top Rwandese female pop-musician and hip-hop group, respectively, in the country. If one or the other released a challenging song, it would be easy for someone to isolate and disregard their statement. But if these former competitors collaborated their talents and released a song together, they’d easily have the ears and minds of Rwandese, causing formerly unpersuaded people to consider what the NGOs and the government have been saying all along to the importance of ‘ABC’ (Abstain, Be faithful, and Condomize, with priorities in that order). Realizing the power they have to influence the masses, the musicians agreed to intervene.

It costs money to do all of this, though – money for studio time, and to pay a sound-engineer to harmonize the inputs, amongst other needs. Normally musicians front the money and make it back once the song is released. However according to KGB there is a law prohibiting them from making money on songs that address HIV/AIDS, so they would not be able to make the money back. Because they are professional musicians and live off their music, they cannot afford to drop 1000 USD in the studio even if it is for a good cause, so we worked a deal. I committed $500 and promised to promote the song in the US if they fronted the rest and went through with the project. They are excited, as this is potentially their big break to be known in the US, and I am excited as this is potentially an powerful intervention in the public psyche within Rwanda. They agreed to work together, run the lyrics by Gilbert to make sure it is the message we want released, and will start rehearsing soon so as not to waste expensive studio time. Within two months they’ll be ready to record. A slight problem, though, is that I took advantage of my appearance. To them, I am a white American male, probably rich, probably connected, and therefore the path to their professional dream. Taking advantage of that misconception and calculating anticipated support from people I thought might be interested in helping Stateside, I bluffed - promising the cash as if it weren't a big deal - got them started, and now have some fundraising to do before they lay down the studio-cut. If you are interested in contributing, I’ll leave information on how to make a donation at the end of the post.

Next, we wanted to get T-shirts, posters and decals with the song title, message and musicians’ names printed in the US to distribute in Rwanda. Because matatu drivers love to put stickers on their vans, making decals of their favourite musicians that simultaneously promote the song’s message is free advertising and a probable way to subliminally affect people’s psyche. Likewise, with the T-shirts – many Africans idolize western culture, particularly that from the US, and cherish clothing imported from the States. So every time they wear these shirts in town they will also promoting sexual behaviour change. We have been in communication with a graphic design artist and a t-shirt printing business in the US who seem to be interested in donating their time and resources at a discount for the project, with specifications/recommendations for the design and color scheme coming from the musicians who know what their fans will find catchy.

That wraps up what has been established so far. Now I’ll explain where this project is heading.

We are hoping to arrange a meeting between Gilbert, Miss JoJo, KGB and national leaders, particularly the head of an AIDS-awareness organization called PACFA Rwanda. We would like to get the project integrated with national support so it can be in large part owned by Rwandans themselves and not solely implemented and sustained from outside sources. If the people see national leaders working side-by-side with their heroes, they will be much more likely to seriously consider the message we are all trying to persuade them to take into account. The musicians also want to invite a world-popular American rapper named Sean Combs (stage named P Diddy) to put his voice on the project – which would add incredible support in the minds of the common people. KGB is hopeful that President Kagame will not only work with them to issue an invitation to Mr. Combs, but will also help get merchandise printed in the US shipped tax-free to Rwanda through the Embassy.

If you are interested in donating to the project, please write a check made out to my mom (Joan Huntley) with "Rwandan Music Intervention" written in the memo (my parents’ home address is: 1501 Westview Drive; Coralville, Iowa 52241; USA). She has agreed to collect the money and will wire it to Africa when we raise the amount in full. Also, if you have ideas to help facilitate the project, please feel free to email me at: benhuntley02@hotmail.com

As always, thanks for reading, and I will catch you on the flip-side.
BJFH

Correction

2007-03-12T00:45:00.000+02:00

ATTENTION:
After re-reading my previous post, I was horrified by my own analysis. What I wrote was unbalanced and unfairly harsh; I had ideas in my mind that were not accurately translated into words - and unfortunately the translation was unnecessarily negative. If in the last week you happened to log on and read the post, please re-read the edited version as it now stands. And know also that there are a lot of positives happening in Africa now.

Although they are certainly present, not every story is about corruption, mismanagement or despair. And I would point to the Rwandan government as an example of that. With tremendous respect I look at the leadership of Paul Kagame, President, and his incredible ability to balance challenges while maintaining safety, security, and stability within his country. Rwanda is a nation that has its act together and is progressing at a surprising pace - oblivious to most of the world.

Even in Tanzania, its neighboring country, people are surprised to hear that Kigali is a safe town. Tanzanians, as I suspect is the case with the people from every other country, still see Rwanda for its genocidal past and have not given it a fair analysis since. And not only do positive stories come from a governmental level, but also at an individual level there are many tales of success and hard work - many people who fight tirelessly for a bright future.

The people I most closely interacted with in Rwanda were incredible examples of this, working long hours and making great personal sacrifices so their country could move forward. The Western media already paints the continent in its worst, and it is wrong for me to add to that lop-sided depiction. Naturally I fixate and magnify weakness in hopes that doing so, taking a detailed look, will lead to a better solution. Being mindful of this, I will try to also share the strengths I see everyday but have not commented on.

Please accept my deepest apologies for posting before proof-reading, and my sincere request that you try to see Africa in a positive light.

Introspection, Thoughts from Rwanda, More Introspection, and my Mbezi Beach Classroom

2007-03-12T00:06:00.001+02:00

Sunday 11 March, 2007 – 20:36 – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Leaving Kigali was not an easy move, but now with just a few days under my belt already Dar es Salaam has become a comfortable and familiar place to live. The other week my Iowa City pastor asked when my return home was scheduled – and in all honesty it took a moment to understand what she meant. Obviously she wanted to know when I’d be returning to Iowa City, but she used the word “home” – and I did not feel away from home. Cliché as it may sound, if home is where the heart is, then I am home everywhere I go – because I cannot help but dole out the depths of my soul to the people I am with.

I have been pondering a paradoxical realization of late in regards to the self. This past year put me through many experiences that profoundly impacted me. The paradox is that while on one hand I know exactly who I have become – that is, I am fully cognizant of the effect these powerful experiences have had on me - on the other I have no idea who I am because I no longer completely relate to any one culture. Certainly I am not African; I was born and raised in the United States. And yet I am not American, because I have matured in Africa. And even within this enormous blanket called Africa, I do not belong to any one people group or culture. With Samburu lips I point to objects, and with Rwandese eyebrows I acknowledge people. Even the Swahili I speak is a mixture of dialects form Kenya to Congo, and my English certainly is not the same. And more than these external markings, I have changed internally too; my whole thought process is different. I have learned to walk places with the chi in my stomach rather than with the swiftness in my legs. It is an African way of walking that I never understood until one day I saw the transformation in hindsight. And my concept of inherent rights has totally shifted. Parts of me come from so many places; I am not sure how I will culturally re-enter the United States.

Last night, for example, I went to a bar for goat and coke and struck up a conversation with a Maasai. A short while later we were head to head in one of his tribe’s rhythmic high-jumping contests – jumping and groaning, chanting, shaking our heads and rocking our chins to the same beat. Stuff like that does not strike me as odd anymore – just fun (by the way, they walk around the city just like they do in the bush, wearing traditional clothing with big holes in their ear lobes and an intimidating whooping sticks in their armpits – and also by the way, I beat the Maasai in his own game… but he was slightly inebriated).

Perhaps I should compose a final analysis of Rwanda, but much of what I learned will likely trickle its way to consciousness over the next few weeks, months, years – so I am not in an adequate position to make finalized statements about the country. It did, however, leave me with a major transformation. I used to feel guilty for my privilege, but I do not anymore. In fact, in this sense I find guilt is a useless emotion that does not lead to anything productive beyond the alleviation of our own pain. The line between guilt and compassion is incredibly thin – and yet incredibly deep. I have crossed into that other land. And not only have I crossed, but I have understood the cross – and when examining privilege, where I used to find utter guilt I now see but utmost responsibility.

In his book Compassion, Henri Nouwen describes the title’s only word as finding the most intense area of pain and making one’s home there. From that vantage point we can assist people to mental, emotional and spiritual freedom. That is the responsibility Rwanda put before me, a lesson applicable whether living in East Africa, The United States, or anywhere in between.

This is not easy to bring about, and it is certainly not simple. When Christians talk about spiritual freedom, religion floods the mind – but it should not necessarily do so because by itself it is not a good answer. I am now realizing that the church has had a terrible impact on people around the world because it has not brought spiritual freedom but religious imprisonment, teaching people to believe and not think. It gives them faith, but not the ability to reach faith via understanding – and this is disempowering. When people are told to merely accept faith, then it is not their own but rather their evangelists’. But mental freedom is not attained when people hold fast to what is true without first testing everything. Because faith becomes a rigorous and measurable system of behaviour choices that, if followed to perfection, will lead to freedom (and not simply an expression of intense love for God), people can be twisted into incredible amounts of emotional anxiety; the conformity they strive for is not necessarily who they are or even who they truly want to become. Even if this sort of control moves people in a positive direction, it strangely resembles dangerous brainwashing of awful regimes from the last century – a sort of blind faith in what someone says. So if people are not being taught to think for themselves, how much have we really progressed? This is blind faith is endemic of the world-wide church, and certainly true of the early steps in my own faith journey

In making these observations I am not trying to set myself apart as more righteous by preaching division from the church, because I do not have a corner on the market of wisdom. These are just some observations from a kid who is in the church, not of the church, but certainly not outside the church, so take them all with a grain of salt. Know that they are just as much criticisms of myself as they are of anyone else... and if we don't have the freedom to comment when we see things starting to go awry, then we don't have the freedom to be honest, vulnerable, intimate, and real before each other and thus, as a body, before God.

The church is not a bad institution, though. It means well in assisting people to healing beyond what the world can provide – and I believe Christ has the power to do that, and the only power to do it completely. Many people have experienced depths of emotional pain that I hope to never know, and yet have come out of their valleys through faith and support of the Church. This is certainly true in Rwanda, where, through the church, people have learned freedom - freedom to forgive, freedom from their past, freedom to reconcile, heal, and love. It is also true of many other parts of the world. But in pushing the end result we’ve often forgotten that the path and process to get there is also important. So how do we bring people to spiritual, emotional, and mental health? I don’t know completely, just that it takes time, deerves attention to the individual's needs, and cannot be formulaic.

As a post-note, I would like to insert snippets from an email a friend sent because I think he more closely and concisely says what I was trying to get at:

***

...you are right in your critique of faith being pawned in our churches absent of critical thinking. What kind of love is that for God when we don't search his ways and explore his mysteries? Is it an arranged marriage with Jesus? Or is there a courtship...a time to explore before committing? At least I think that is what you were trying to communicate. It is prevalent in the church everywhere. Did God say, "Love me with all of your heart and strength", but not with your mind? No, with our minds, too.

What I've found is that I believe everyone is strong in some areas and everyone is weak in some areas. And we need to be humble in all areas. Same goes for churches... they all have strengths and weaknesses (blindspots). How can the Church be humble enough to admit this? How can we be humble enough to admit this? God have mercy on us all!

***

My perception of the root of Africa’s problems has also changed through many conversations with native friends who have helped me to see another angle. Previously I saw Africa as a victim of outside exploitation, and all this business about globalization and neo-liberal ideology really irked me. But I no longer think this is the sole cause of this continent’s problems. While Africa is a victim, it is also a culprit to its own suppression because of mismanagement, slow cultural work ethic and a lack of synchronization in movements to overhaul the status quo. Curious that as outsiders we blame ourselves, yet Africans also claim responsibility.

Anyway, enough of this speculation and back to Dar es Salaam. It is incredibly beautiful here, like a vacation, which makes me feel irresponsible after having buried both children and adults who died from needless causes, knowing these sorts of things do not just stop when I am not around to see them but continue to go on. But my objective here is to learn Swahili and not to single-handedly save the world, so I am trying to learn to loosen up. Earlier this evening I befriended a Tanzanian of about the same age, sitting together at the point of the beach where the soft sand stops and the hard sand starts, just beneath the line of driftwood in the flat spot where the tide comes in. It was wonderful, laying there in the setting sun, learning Swahili as he wrote words with his finger in the sand – with occasional waves clearing the slate for more phrases. Not to brag, but from time to time coconuts washed ashore beside our classroom. And it was nice too, because he wanted to learn English – and we both knew just enough of each other’s mother tongues to facilitate learning without one language becoming a crutch and thus dominating the conversation. We are going to meet again tomorrow on the beach at the same time to continue our learning. So I think I’ll continue like this, taking three and a half hours of structured Swahili courses from a tutor in the morning, then using friendship to improve upon and perfect what I learned in the afternoon and early evenings. Although I cannot see the future or where this skill will take me, I am excited to get there, and until then will continue to work hard. Good night!

ps. If you were wondering, I found out this week that I am 29th on an alternate-list for med school at Iowa.

Contact me in Tanzania

2007-03-08T05:44:00.000+02:00

Hello all,

If you'd like to reach me in Tanzania, please make use of the following:

Ben Huntley
c/o Dar Es Salaam Independence School
PO Box 32391
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Or send an SMS/text message to:
+255786798337

Sincerely,
BJFH

Pushing Cabbage In Congo

2007-03-03T14:35:00.000+02:00

Saturday 3 March, 2007 – 07:40 – Kigali

The last couple of weeks disappeared on me and I’m not sure which direction they went, but all of the sudden these are my final days in Rwanda. On Tuesday Tanzania greets me with the challenge of learning Swahili through a two-month intensive training course, followed by a month-long internship in a remote central-Tanzanian clinic.

The Physics of Medical Imaging class wrapped up nicely, and after that the Kigali Health Institute (KHI) had me on assignment crisscrossing the country to teach and supervise students learning to take blood from patients’ arms. They first sent me to the western city of Kibuye – a quaint town on lake Kivu that overlooks Congo across the water. Gacaca was meeting when my partner and I arrived; prior to 1994 approximately 60,000 Tutsi lived in the area, but 54,000 were killed – hence the community court hearings that still take place. Some of the saddest stories come out of Kibuye, but I wish not to share them, as Rwanda deserves to be known for things apart from Genocide – and we’ve talked enough about the lingering pain.

Being on an assignment for a teaching institution here is much different than what might take place back home. Imagine reaching your destination after a three-hour nauseating ride in an overcrowded van, only to discover there is still another half hour to be traveled on foot out of town, through the woods, along a pristine lake, and passed the fishermen before reaching campus. But what delight it was to be so far removed from the hustle and bustle of Kigali and to make friends with fishermen in their carved-out trees that serve as boats.

The teaching itself was pretty uneventful. We brought needles and what not, and after a short lecture taught the students to take blood from each other. They did well too, most hitting the vein on their first attempt. Only one student passed out in a class of fifty, so I was pretty happy. It did not dawn on me until walking out of the classroom how painfully ironic it was that in trying to help a Rwanda rebuild its health care system I was teaching students to take blood, when taking blood was the very thing that killed their families and crumbled their country.

With an open Monday and Tuesday a few weeks ago, I made my way through the mountains in the north-western part of the country to the north-shore town of Gisenyi. There I hopped on the back of a motorcycle and crossed the border into Goma, of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Fearing petty theft, I left my credit card in Kigali – but unfortunately did not bring with me as much money as perhaps I ought to have. After paying for a visa and one night in a cheap and sleazy hotel (look closely at the picture... on the night stand next to the bed lay a bible and a pack of condoms for the occupant to choose from!) only 100 Congolese Francs remained in my pocket… about 27 cents. The only affordable activity available was walking, and I dearly wanted to visit the base of Nyirangongo – an active Volcano that spread sheets of lava all over the area five years ago – so I did just that… walked… some 20 kilometers out of town, through villages, to the base of the volcano. About mid-afternoon and in the heat of the day, I passed through a police checkpoint and was whistled off the road. My face must have looked exhausted and delirious, because the policewoman, bless her soul, sat me down in the shade and offered both an avocado and a mango. I cannot even remember the taste, but it was the most enjoyable fruit I’ve ever had. She was a pleasant woman, by contrast to the Congolese army who also pulled me aside earlier in the day, but who were not as friendly.

After resting shortly in the shade of her hospitality, I continued. Some time later I passed a beat up truck with a coffin strapped to the back, and a crowd of people gathered around to walk the body to a nearby cemetery – and for some reason they asked me to take a picture. Perhaps it was an honor to be photographed, with a little dignity restored to a sad set of circumstances, I don’t know – but I took some pictures and they were happy.

At last I reached the Volcano and went to take a picture but a park ranger stopped me, saying a permit was needed to do so if standing within the confines of a national park… so I backed up fifteen meters to an area that wasn’t part of the national park, took the same picture, and headed back – on foot – to Goma, now 20 km away.

It didn’t take long before some guys from the Congolese army jumped out from the forest, berets and all, strapped with AK47s – but they were friendly. We exchanged greetings in Swahili, then they helped me try to flag down a car heading back to town… except after fifteen minutes no cars came, so I continued on foot, eventually catching up to some boys pushing cabbage on a make-shift bicycle. Since we were both going to Goma, and I could not just walk beside them as they worked hard pushing a heavy load, I jumped between them and started pushing as well. It was damn funny for the peasants we passed to see a white boy pushing cabbage through Congo – but the laughter was rewarding as it was directed less at me and more at the comical situation.

Some time later a Lorry (open bed semi truck) came roaring by, carrying produce and people from Lord knows how far away. Seeing an opportunity to get back before dark, I bounced out from between my friends, ran down the truck, and with a leap of faith pulled myself up and joined the peasants. They also found this to be funny – but again it was beautiful laughter. Maximizing my limited Swahili, a few of them almost cried they were laughing so hard – and we just rolled like that, barreling through the countryside back to town. When one of the gentlemen came around to collect money, the peasants all stood up for me – saying the Mzungu was too funny to have to pay. And what a Godsend that was, because I didn’t have much in my pocket and was not looking forward to picking a fight in Congo. In a gesture of friendship, one woman even gave me three hand-lengths of sugar cane for free – and oh my was it good; even were there to be no sugar, the liquid in and of itself was healing to my dehydrated body. Lord, bless her soul too.

Last week a friend and I attended a neighborhood barbeque, and the national TV cameras were there as well. Although some local elders talked for three hours about Gacaca and local politics, the majority of the footage that made airtime was of the mzungu eating at a barbeque and listening intently to a speech he did not understand. Sometimes when they spot a white they can become very excited.

Last week I traveled with a coworker to Rwinkwavu, a rural village that is home to a Partners In Health Clinic. The place was amazing, and their philosophy radical. Imagine a clean facility with internet in the middle of nowhere – and picture every patient being fed warm, nutritious food. Try to understand that by protocol, doctors make home visits if patients don’t show for appointments. But most importantly, picture an environment that breeds some of the ugliest and far-advanced tropical diseases, and yet even the patients and their families exude positivity. It’s like finding a patch of sunflowers in the slums; we did not want to leave. Since then we’ve submitted a preliminary research proposal with hopes of returning to work alongside friends who graduated from medical school him. If they pick up our proposal I’ll share it with you all.

Little Things From Kigali

2007-03-03T14:33:00.000+02:00

Saturday 17 Feb, 2007 – 14:24 – Kigali

Of course, I have an entire other life apart from crashing thoughts and genocidal encounters that I have not yet written much about. For instance, I am living with a loving family in a safe neighborhood, with the most adorable children. When I first arrived we had two pets, a dog and a chicken – but then we ate the chicken, so now we just have the dog.

He can be kind of nasty though. I was playing rough with him during my second week in Rwanda and he put a tooth through my palm. Within half an hour my mother was on the phone getting the low-down on Rabies prevalence with Rwanda’s top Veterinarian, the mayor of Kigali. It was nice to be so thoroughly cared for. But the next morning I felt awful and slightly homesick, so I stayed in bed dreaming about how comforting pancakes would be. It had not even been two weeks but already I was dreading millet-porridge for breakfast every morning. I waited for noise in the kitchen to dissipate so I could make my own food without being rude. When I finally crawled out of bed and into the kitchen, there were pancakes waiting for me, covered to keep warm. A mother’s instinct when I feared rabies and wanted to be home – lovely.

The other night I was up late reading through a Medical Imaging textbook, trying to prepare for the following morning’s lecture – and completely stressed out. My six-year-old sister came into the dining room and sweetly asked what I was doing. “I can’t talk now, my friend, I’m trying to prepare for class tomorrow”. Seeing how not-together I seemed to be, she then offered: “Well, usually when I need to prepare for school I just color for a while then go to sleep”. Her innocence was so beautiful, I couldn’t help but
push my book aside, smile, and wish her goodnight as she ran off to bed.

We have five house helpers who live with us as well. Some of my favorite moments are sitting out back with them over a charcoal fire, trying to learn Kinyarwanda while sucking sweet nectar out of fresh sugar cane. And then there are all the times getting from place to place by matatu - cruising through Kigali, the driver blaring Bob Marley, feeling that every little thing will be alright.

Teaching has been a fun challenge too. Although it seems pretty tame compared to all the other stuff going on, I’ve enjoyed thinking on the spot – sometimes shoving the chalkboard aside to draw incident photons and ejected electrons on the walls and floors, representing Bremsstrahlung Radiation and the Photoelectric Effect that makes X-ray generation possible. My students laugh, but the unexpected craziness seems to help solidify the physics in their minds.

Last week was a special one for me – a white coat ceremony. This probably sounds shocking if you know me well, as I’ve vowed never to attend a WCC – the first step in a long, ego-inflating process that often separates doctors from their patients. But I have to wear a lab coat at the hospital, and someone stole the one I was borrowing. In the course of trying to recover the contraband, I spiced the laundry department with laughter and made a great many friends. When I came into the hospital on Valentine’s Day there were dozens of patients and much work to be done – but I bopped into Laundry to say hello, and was then presented with my first white coat – specially tailored to fit my frame. Because I am white, they assumed I was a doctor, not just a lab tech, and thus made it extra long. The dimensions are not quite right, my name is written in pen, threads dangle here and there, and my hands don’t fit in the pockets – but I love it… partly because it is my coat, but mostly because, tattered as it may be, it represents the imperfect world I wish to heal and be healed by.

* Post note – the day after I originally wrote this entry my coat was stolen and I was very upset… but I put word out in the laundry department and when it cycled through again to be washed I got it back!

Hospitals are wonderful places to study cultures. In the United States I’ve seen people explode when their headache is not treated in what they deem to be a timely manner – but in Africa mothers sit patiently, even when the child on their lap has Tuberculosis. After work the other day, my friend Gilbert – who is a doctor because the interhamwe did not kill him – and I were talking about politics in the US. After I explained the tension between Democrats and Republicans, he matter-of-factly observed, “at least no one is going to kill your family for their beliefs”. He is teaching me a lot about being positive and seeing things in perspective. Again, he matter-of-factly commented the other day, “say you don’t have a job – at least you have legs. Someone out there doesn’t have a job or legs, so you are actually quite lucky”. Sometimes I hear things of this nature in the United States, but they always seem overly-virtuous and somewhat artificial because everyone has legs – and those who don’t have access to quality health care. Here though, in Rwanda, having no legs is much more probable, and therefore gratitude is a much more powerful lesson.

If you have chance to tune into Rwandan Television, please watch carefully when the Rwandan Coffee commercial airs – you might recognize the white guy. Filming was fun… and knowing that I’m on a commercial in Rwanda makes me laugh.

It was also a great week because a friend from the US, unprompted, pledged financial support – and so in celebration I ate fresh fruits and vegetables. It was the first time in I don’t know how long that I was satisfied on something other than tea, bread, plantains, potatoes, rice, and ugali (equal parts flour and water, boil off the water). When I finished eating – oh was I happy! – I just sat there and soaked up all the nutrients, kind of like moving from the couch to the living room floor on a lazy Saturday morning so you can lay in the sun rays that flood through the window and march across the floor. Growing up, I always heard about nutrition but it never made sense because I took it for granted. But now I understand how absolutely amazing fresh fruits and vegetables really are.

Gacaca

2007-03-03T14:31:00.000+02:00

Saturday 17 Feb, 2007 – 11:36 – Kigali

Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, and its capitol is the smallest city of a million you will ever find. Meet someone once and you are bound to run into them again. Last weekend at Gacaca people greeted me with a great bit of hostility – particularly the woman I sat next to who, for no apparent reason, relentlessly chastised me for jotting notes and drawing sketches. Recognizing quickly that we were not going to get along, I tried to avoid her, but throughout the remainder of the hearing she and her friend glared an uncomfortable, unwelcoming stare – unnerving in its own right, and all the more coming from a foot away. When court adjourned I noticed the killer’s family approaching her, and I turned away. “She’s one of them,” I thought, shuddering, and hoped we’d never meet again.

The following Friday night a doctor friend of mine and I were walking through Nyamirambo – a bustling layman’s neighborhood – when a car pulled up next to us. Friends in the front seat greeted my friend, then introduced themselves to me. With a wink and a smile, I took them off guard in their own language as I always like to do, and everyone laughed. “Rashonje?” they asked. Yeah, we were hungry. So at their invitation, we got into the car – me first, then my friend. After settling into the back seat, I turned to greet the woman next to me. She looked familiar, and I knew I had seen her somewhere before. She spoke first, in a startled voice. “Hi. I know you from Gacaca”. Oh shit. Squeezed into the back of a car – we were cramped just as we’d been in that packed courtroom, and I could neither leave nor hide. Just my luck she was a friend of a friend of a friend – and now we were going out to eat together. Given the choice to pretend nothing happened or address head-on our uncomfortable history, I chose the latter.

Dinner was powerful. As it turned out, both of us wrongfully assumed each other’s identities. Recounting how we came to this realization is not nearly as important as her story – so to save time, suffice it to say that she was Tutsi and present when the man on trial killed her mother and sister – and because I was white and at Gacaca, she assumed I was French – a supporter of both the former genocidal government and the current corrupt judicial system.

In her neighborhood, a community of approximately 500 Tutsi, there were only 17 survivors. The Hutu on trial, an obnoxiously fat man, was a famous killer in the area, directly responsible for murders in at least ten homes - and who knows how many others for which he was an agitator and accomplice. He had previously been sentenced to 27 years in prison, but his family is very rich – and through obvious corruption, his file, stored at the prison, was conveniently erased. When the Tutsi community cried injustice, officials agreed to start the trials over again - from scratch.

Before I arrived at Gacaca, my friend gave her testimony. Her mom was screaming when the Hutus broke into their home, “Mukuobwa, come here – come to mommy”. But she didn’t – she ran and hid nearby. Two minutes later, gun shots that still burn in her ears. Pow Pow. Then silence. After some time, she went back to find her mother’s body stuffed beneath a bed.

The fat man stood and began to speak. “Yeah, I remember your mother,” he feigned a thoughtful, sympathetic voice. And then in a sick and biting tone, continued “she had a distinct face. I remember shoving her beneath the bed. But I did not kill her – I just helped put her there”.

Does that shock you? It sure did me. But try to understand the overwhelming number of convicted murderers (with 300,000 killers, at two trials per day every day it would take 410 years to hear every case), coupled with limited prison space and no death penalty. The judicial system does not have room for mere accomplices – so all he has to do is claim a mere passive participatory status and he is a free man. That gives him freedom to ruthlessly interject pain, admitting, as she stood giving her testimony, that he was indeed there – that he saw the horror in her mother’s eyes as she voraciously grasped for life with one arm and held Mukuobwa’s sister with the other, and that his warm hands knew what her limp body felt like. That’s sick.

After the court dismissed for deliberation, as I said in the introductory paragraph, the killer’s family approached Mukuobwa. That is when I turned away, missing the humiliation and mocking so disgustingly lavished on a vulnerable, hurting young survivor. “Whatever you are saying and doing is only a waste of time because he won’t go back to jail. It was the inyenzi who killed themselves. They were inyenzi, weren’t they?” And I wasn’t watching when the onlookers chuckled in unison each time she spat inyenzi – cockroach – a derogatory Hutu term for Tutsi.

When our conversation came to a pause, my friend quietly added, “For us, genocide is still going on” - a powerful statement coming from a man who effectively escapes pain through Tai Chi and a fortress of other peaceful philosophies. “I really believe survivors are not safe. We will be killed, because genocide is still very much in the minds of people”.

I should pause here to explain this thought. Last week I sat on a balcony with a former UN employee who was here during 1994, and we talked about the genocide until well past sundown. Genocide doesn’t just happen, he pointed out. This thing had been brewing for decades, and its philosophy had been passed down from father to child for generations. This was a very well organized plan – and there are still people who wish to see it completed.

Psychologists say the killing became addictive, and I have yet to find anyone who disagrees. The guilt of murder is so heavy that the only way to lessen the weight of what one did to a single individual is to do it over and over again. That’s why he says present day Hutu hate is really only Hutu guilt manifested – and that the only relief will be to kill everyone who reminds them of their past.

I asked an innocent question that proved to be almost comical to my dinner companions. “Do you think I have seen killers on the street?” Of course. All the time they are being released from prison, making room for others. “You can just catch them on the streets – but they code what they say,” he said. “They call it university. If two were in prison together, then see each other in town after they get out, they might say, ‘Hey – I was with you in university. And they are always being released because the government does not know what to do. It can’t kill them and can’t imprison them. How can there be justice? There cannot be”.

In villages, killers are even judges on the Gacaca panels – and if there are 8 judges in all, quite easily there might be only 1 or 2 Tutsi. This, too, is a difficult position to be in, because Tutsi judges are still killed. In fact, Tutsi survivors in general are killed so frequently, says he, that although he sees it in the newspaper, he doesn’t even bother to read the article because he knows its there and that nobody is doing anything about it.

I asked what the new identity cards look like. He got his out to show me – then Mukuobwa, from across the table, softly said she had an old one, her mother’s, that she pulled from her body that afternoon. And then abruptly, yet quite naturally, we left the restaurant. And it occurred to me that even that moment, leaving the restaurant, was symbolic of life in Rwanda – abrupt, jagged, and yet so accustomed to being abrupt and jagged that it almost seemed fluid.

*Post note from 3 March – last week we went together to hear the verdict. He was guilty on all counts and re-sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Communion/Exhaustion

2007-03-03T14:29:00.000+02:00

Monday 2 Feb, 2007 – 09:26 – Kigali

Of late, most days in Kigali have been difficult, and the exceptions are few and far between. This is not a complaint or solicitation for sympathy, but simply a cross section of life that I want to share; for if this is what it’s like for me, you can imagine what it’s like for most Rwandese. Most of the difficulty is fueled from not having much money; spending five dollars per day renders my account bone dry before I get home. So sometimes I skip meals, but then am hungry and subject to depression. The other night I brought biscuits home and set them on a shelf. When I came back five minutes later they were gone. I asked my little brother how that could be and he told me, “Because you cannot own food – it’s to share”.

Being white and in Rwanda can be hard at times too. Last night I told this to my Rwandese friend, but she could not believe it. “Can that be true? No. In years past we were hostile to whites because they represented the non-intervening world, but Rwandans are much more friendly today”. So I told her stories. I told her about the guy two days ago who got off his motorcycle and introduced himself with a question and a biting tone: “Why do you come here and expect everyone to speak your language?” I was crushed, furious, and defensive. With a cold stare, I wanted to look at him and say, “well, you dumb ass, English is actually one of your country’s official languages”, but that would have been terribly foolish. So instead I responded in Kinyarwanda: “Beetay bjaway?” (How are you?) – then quickly added “Cheh cheh kah” (Shut up). It was a foolish and I’m not happy with myself, but I was hungry and frustrated and tired and – yeah, whatever, I cracked.

Yesterday I went to Gacaca (a community court that still hears cases and sentences killers from the 1994 genocide). Although the meetings are open to the public, throughout Gacaca eyes drilled through the back of my head. Afterwards a noticeably disturbed but friendly gentleman approached and greeted me in English. We talked for a while and he explained who everyone was, what was said, and how the court worked. On our side, three men in pink uniforms were getting into the back of an official-looking truck. “Those are the prisoners,” he said plainly. “Two of them are killers and one is a witness to their innocence, but he lies. The one there,” he pointed, “sitting in the middle – he was on trial today. He killed my mother”. At the moment, I am not sure how to hold that interaction.

I finally got home last night and collapsed on my bed - and lay there for probably two hours - exhausted, frustrated, defeated. Wanting more than anything to be understood. I pictured putting a USB adapter at the end of an IV so I could shovel my depleted state into words for you to understand. All sorts of tough questions swarmed through my head. Why am I here? Why did I give up the comforts of home? What am I supposed to do with all I see and experience? Then, without straining, an answer just kind of appeared. I came here to serve and not be served, because that’s what Jesus did, and he is my model. And then I remembered something about being part of the body of Christ, about setting aside the self, and how testing of faith develops perseverance. So I got up and went to the dining room, poured wine into a cup, tore off a piece of bread, and took communion. And at that moment, better than ever before, I understood what it meant to take the body “in remembrance of [him]”. Exhausted but not in despair.

Picture to the left is of the church in Kicukiro (just up from where Shooting Dogs was filmed)

Email to Andrew

2007-03-03T14:27:00.000+02:00

Hey Hirsch -

Thanks for taking time to write. I actually have four or five long entries to post but for a number of reasons have not put them up yet. Mostly I like to tell myself this is because I've been busy - but really I know much of it is because things have not been going well - and thus I know the writing is just whining... and how can I whine about life being difficult when I've got an ipod in my pocket, a laptop in my backpack, health insurance, and a plane ticket back to the US? And yet in some respects it has been difficult, and in some respects I have been poor. I have these things because people gave them to me, but for my personal bank account - I'm way strapped. I'll spare the details (and thus the whine), but basically for a while there I was having to skip meals or just eat bread - and I didn't have money for fruits or vegetables - or anything nutricious really. And this became depressing, because I was hungry and tired, and people looked at me like I was wealthy and spoiled - and the shearing between what I felt and how I was perceived hurt. A friend asked how I was really doing, though - and I told him... and after thinking/praying with his wife, they decided to give me $100/month for food... both for me and for others (a contributing factor to my hunger was that street kids needed food more than me - hence I bought them lunch and went without) (don't think i'm righteous - you'd do the same if you were here).

I am actually now at the internet cafe, but the connection is too slow to upload entries. There's lots coming, though - and many pictures.

Something I won't make public (because I don't want people to think I'm full of myself), but which is kind of neat... I went to the Partners In Health clinic with a friend, met Paul Farmer's wife Didi Bertrand - a medical anthropologist - and submitted a research proposal that combines elements of genocide, AIDS, and prison/justice systems. At the moment I've been told to wait, but I might very well get the chance to do research on an untapped topic with Gates/Clinton Foundation money. Sometimes I get too excited and have to chill a bit - take myself less seriously, because at the end of the day I'm just a small dude on a big planet trying to catch a glimpse of a bigger God. So research with PIH or not, I'm not that important, you know?

I've also met with the top Rwandese pop-music artists and think I've convinced them to release a song about HIV/AIDS, love, faithfulness/fidelity, et cetera. Pretty crazy to think I can just change influence them and thus public psyche like that. There are a lot of details to come, but I'll let you know how it works out.

Do you mind if I post this email on the website? It feels better to have explained what I've been doing to you in a manner that isn't overly dramatic, and maybe others would be interested as well (or maybe not... this is all just small dude stuff that only sounds big because it's happening in an area that people are afraid of).

Take care,
Benja

Shooting Dogs

2007-02-10T11:02:00.000+02:00

Friday 9 Feb, 2007 - 21:38 – Kigali

In January, 2005 I drove to Chicago to see “Hotel Rwanda” and cried in the theater. It was a powerful movie that, oddly enough, left me feeling good – like I was noble for caring, seeing it and becoming educated. As the credits rolled I remained frozen, eyes glued to some nonexistent point beyond the screen. I thought I understood.

Two years later, with all sorts of eagerness, I set foot in Hotel Des Milles Collines – the real Hotel Rwanda, an icon of the country and of genocide in the minds of the West. I do not fully know what I was anticipating: something difficult to swallow yet wholesome, something about finality and closure. Part of it was an expectation to be grounded in my humanity – as if being there, in the shadow of a nightmare, might cause me to better appreciate my own evil potential in a broken world. And if I could understand that, then maybe I could recognize its early developments, suppress them, and be good.

But the shearing between what I expected and what I experienced left me raw. It was a remarkable moment, realizing I had been conned. Although the Hollywood film portrays genocide, it dawned on me that the movie is really about hope and positivity; a hero who lives, a family that is reunited, and an ending that is uplifting. But being here, in Rwanda, I realize there was nothing good about genocide, and the ending is not uplifting.

I see the ending on the streets, in the papers, and even still in the health care system. Just last week a little boy was admitted to my hospital with a machete-severed forehead; some one did not want his father to testify to accusations of genocide crimes from thirteen years ago, so they attacked his family. Yesterday I passed a three-year old begging on the streets – alone. Americans cannot handle that ending. It doesn’t make the movies; it doesn’t make the news. We hear all the positives about the Gacaca system, but in truth it is a mockery of justice. Cold-blooded murderers stand in front of their victims’ families and deny the pain they caused, meanwhile their friends cut foreheads, shatter windows, and threaten potential witnesses that can challenge the lies.

If you have enough courage to face truth and want to understand Rwanda in 1994, set aside Hollywood’s entertainment for a BBC film called “Shooting Dogs”. It does not hide or hype, it just tells. The film, shot on location, is so raw and numbing I could not even cry, but only sit and shake, and feel spasms throughout my chest. It will leave you silent and sober, but strangely alive, aware, and appreciative for your privilege. If you do take up my challenge, please send me an email after the movie.

I still think Hotel Rwanda is a good film, but it is not valid if you are trying to understand what took place outside, or even within, the confines of the hotel. Rwandans say it selectively leaves out details from its own story that they find appalling. The toughest one being that only Tutsis who could pay were saved. In fairness, I have no qualm with Paul Rusesabagina’s pragmatic decision, because he used the money to bribe Hutu leaders – but Rwandans think the film makes a hero out of an ignoble man. Thus, they voted him the 2006 Villain of the Year (The New Times, 1 Jan, 2007).

As grim as I’ve been, I should say that not all is lost. Hutu and Tutsi are now terms only used in private conversation; in public Rwandans exist without distinction. People are trying to move on. And it is also true that Hutus and Tutsis work and live together, however this is only made possible with conscious ignorance and chosen forgetfulness. They all know pockets of violence and unhealable wounds remain throughout their Rwanda. At the moment, this appears to be the ending that Don Cheadle’s film left out. But maybe it is just the middle of a longer story. Maybe with the influx of NGOs and humanitarian aid, and with efforts to move forward, necrotic wounds will fall off and instead of living their history, the generation after the next generation will tell it only as a story. At least, that is my hope.

Photo of the blood-stained walls where 10 Belgian UN soldiers were killed, a building adjacent to the KHI campus

Life in Kigali

2007-02-10T10:58:00.000+02:00

Thursday 8 Feb, 2007 – 18:58 – Kigali

At last, the first real update from Rwanda, not on genocide, not on a social justice conference, but simply on what I’ve experienced – life in Kigali. A long list of thoughts have accumulated that will someday hopefully make their way into a coherent and presentable posting, but I do not quite have time to do that now. All along I have wanted to share these with you, but more often than not at the end of the day I have been so frustrated by setbacks, annoyances, and the slow pace everything takes that I’ve been afraid to write, fearing immaturity and lack of patience would drone out meaningful observation.

After the first couple of days teaching Med. Lab. Tech. students, things kind of went downhill due to poor communication and lack of planning on the institute’s part. Essentially, when I finished giving my presentations, the course instructor ran out of immediate ideas for class. This upset me. On the streets people are dying because hospitals cannot treat patients efficiently enough to free beds for the other sick, and yet in the teaching institute, with all the educational resources available and potential for improvement, we sat idle.

Another professor asked for assistance (aka, wanted to know if I was interested in taking over) teaching a Physics of Medical Imaging course. I spent the next week reading textbooks, taking notes, and preparing lecture material – but I was miserable. It felt like I was spending all my time preparing for the next step but never taking it – and I just wanted to jump, to do something, to be useful somehow to someone. Once teaching began, some of that dissipated.

A large part of the frustration stemmed from not having a clinical outlet, as was my original intention. Whereas the world of academia is filled with artificial productivity, being in the hospital never seems like an absolute waste of time. After a series of disappointments, looking for clinical placements, I finally interviewed for and got a joint position in the Emergency and Laboratory departments in a large private hospital.

…

<<>> Ok, look – this is getting really tiring, trying explain how everything has come together… and I understand that context is important, but if it is alright, I kind of just want to share stuff that I’ve been carrying with me, and hopefully it will make sense to you.

Yesterday morning was heavy. I like to get to school early when I teach. It was just before 7 and really quiet – the same sort of stillness you feel when you go outside after a heavy rain. No cars, no music, no wind, no people. And I was walking down the sidewalk heading one way, and this guy was in the middle of the street coming the other way. But he had no legs, so with sandals protecting his palms, he shuffled his body like an ape down that dirty road. He did not ask for money – he just walked like a man walks down the street, trying to make the best of the cards he was dealt. Images like this do not bother me as they used to; they still make me think, but I’m getting used to them and over my privileged-white-person guilt.

Okay, back up a couple of weeks so I can register some stuff before I was able to be at peace with all the third world’s craziness. I got into a half-empty matatu, heading home. Matatus do not leave until they are full. This meant I had to wait. People waiting on the inside of a Nissan van cannot go anywhere, which makes them great targets for beggars. A beggar approached the open door. He was blind – both eyes gouged out – holding the hand of a younger man who walks him around. One of the blind man’s eyelids was turned inside out for extra effect. When he held out his arms, I noticed he did not have much for fingers. In fact, only a right-hand stump and one left-hand finger remained. There were scars where fingers used to live. The guy next to me gave money, so I gave money too. Sometimes when I don’t know how to react I just watch what the local people do. After he collected, he was lead to the next matatu. But as soon as he left the next guy came forward, without missing a beat, as if he had been waiting in a line. This one was in a wheel chair and also had an assistant. Both legs cut off at the shin, both arms cut off at the forearm. Some days I’m never approached, some days these lines are endless.

Today my sister called when I was walking down the street. I was trying to listen, but got distracted. To my right, leaning against a tree, was a three-year old girl. Alone. Begging. What do you do about that?

I don’t give money to beggars anymore. I used to, sort of. Well, not really – but I did on occasion. Giving money does not so much help their problem as it does alleviate my guilt. I also just don’t like to give money – not so much because I’m selfish (although I am), but because I don’t know how they are going to spend it. When I was drinking tea this morning, a man approached me from the street, sniffing a bottle of glue in his left hand and holding out an open palm with his right.

I used to have a long list of criteria that beggars had to meet in order for me to help them, but I got rid of most of them. For the most part I just look at people’s feet – if they have shoes they are okay. A young girl, maybe 9, was shoeless and begging the other night on my way home from the hospital, so I took her to a restaurant and ordered chicken – protein… something that is actually good for her (as opposed to fried potatoes, boiled flour-water, mashed plantains, and rice – a combination of typical meals, all options lacking nutrition). I think it is better to buy food than give money.

An email to my sister from a while back:

Hey Lizz-

Funny I should describe it as a wave of happiness, with the implication being that happiness is not the norm. My feelings here are similar to what I found your feelings to be in Syria. Parts I love, others are absolutely draining. In particular, hearing people shout "mzungu!" (meaning white man) is especially tiring. The term is not usually meant with any hostility or inkling of racism, and yet it's exactly that – seeing someone for their color and not their person. I say 'not usually' because although they claim it's an innocent term, as the recipient it's often received with the implication that white people are rich and ignorant, a constant reminder that we are outsiders… and that the boundary will always exist. It's used like this: "Mzungu!" pointing and giggling, "Hehehe… what is that white man doing, he must be lost! Hahaha!" Or what feels worse is when people shout, "Mzungu" to get my attention, then knowing I don't speak their language, crack a mzungu joke for all their friends to laugh at. It's a term used without realizing or attempting to understand why people like me are here in the first place. Not that people's appreciation should be the determining factor of whether or not we choose certain paths of service, but void of appreciation the paths are much more difficult to travel, and painful in their own right.

Frequently people pose as friends, establishing a relationship, and then two minutes into the conversation comes the sad story and hit up for money. But they don't need the money – they're lazy and want to rip off the gullible. These are Maria's thoughts, not mine. She points to situations like this that she's been in as a person with money. Because she drives a car, people think she has money to dispense. It's a fair assumption, but if their need was as dire as its made out to be, then the pitch would be posed to everyone who's willing to listen – not just the black driving a car or the white wearing a tie.

But then just when I feel exhausted, a barefooted child runs to catch up with me and says in a soft, voice of awe "mzunguuuuu". And he clasps my hand with one of his, and with the other runs his curious fingers through the hair on my arm – like he's come across an odd machine that he really wants to study and know. And I pick him up, and we spin until we're dizzy – then put him down when he is on the verge of wetting himself (a 'short call', as it's named here). Then we laugh and walk and hold hands, and move down the dirt road together. These moments make all the others worthwhile.
With love,
Benjamin

This sort of teasing I described happens all the time. It's ignorant racism; the people mean no harm. But it is frustrating. What's equally frustrating is this realization - that to look at a beggar and not give is worse than to flat out, cold-shoulder, ignore their existence. When you look and try to treat them with dignity, you light hope which, when let down, hurts both of you.

Alright, my work. What do I do? Well, like I’ve said I’m teaching Physics of Medical Imaging (x-ray, CT, ultra sound, MRI, etc). There are only 10 students in the class, which is much more manageable than the 45 in the first course. The schedule is ever-changing, but it does not bother me anymore – I just roll with it. Figured out that getting upset is a waste of time – and once I got that down, everything seemed to go much better. Last week I taught on Wednesday. This week I teach Wednesday and Friday. Next week I teach Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Some days for only two hours, some days four hours straight. What am I saying? Just that it’s confusing, but I hope the students are able to take away useful education.

Work work. I’m at the largest private hospital in the country, in the departments of emergency and laboratory, and in the operating room on occasion. Pretty much I fill in gaps – triage patients, take vital signs, throw on ECGs, and take blood out of arms. It’s a hospital in a third world country, which I realize sounds exciting, but the work is actually pretty boring and uneventful. The big reason for this is that it is private. That means it’s fancier, cleaner, and for rich people. And frequently rich people go to the hospital for small things – headaches and such. Most of the adults either have high blood pressure or malaria, and most of the children have bronchospasms or URTIs (upper respiratory tract infections… crap in their throat/lungs that makes breathing difficult). Other than the malaria, it’s really not all that different from a hospital in the US.

But what about the poor people? They go to the large public hospital. When I asked about this place, the description I got was: multiple patients per bed, unrelated to each other, different diseases. Men sitting crouched in a corner, IVs coming out their arms, the tubes leading to a blood transfusion bags above their heads.

I wanted to see these things for myself, but did not know how it would be possible. A few weeks ago when I applied for an internship I got the old bureaucratic run-around. A bunch of stupid people wanting to display their power, making life difficult when all I wanted to do was help. So how did I verify what I was told? Let me break here to tell you a story from Nairobi (it will make sense in good time).

I was sitting next to a Maasai (what you picture when you think of tribal people from Kenya – spears, beads, scars, et cetera) and struck up a conversation. At one point I asked him how often he really wears his traditional clothing. “This, my friend,” he said pointing to his outfit, “is a pass that gets me places I would not otherwise be able to go. When people see me like this they’re taken back and wowed. And they also think I must be uneducated, so they don’t even bother to tell me I cannot go through some closed doors. When I wear this, I can do anything”.

From him I’ve learned I can do the same, except at the opposite end of the spectrum. My white skin and fancy clothes are passes that get me anywhere. So I put on some polished leather shoes, carefully made my tie, and set off to the public hospital. Everything I heard was true. A man in an automobile accident, moaning, gaping wound. A fly crawling in his bloody leg. Patients curled up every which way throughout the hallways. They are not supposed to be there, but you cannot move them because they’ll just come back. They contort their bodies to squeeze into the smallest of spaces, hoping to be seen next, and then somehow fall asleep like that. Time is elastic in Africa – people don’t mind waiting, don’t really have schedules, and just kind of do their thing. And so it is in the hospital – people just waiting to be seen.

A TB/AIDS ward – packed, much different from my experiences in the northern-Kenyan bush clinic. Eighteen inches between beds – and there are a lot of beds in a small room.

A story from a friend of mine, from his residency years at the public hospital before he became a physician in the private hospital: A co-worker, responsible for stocking the hospital, one day noticed they were running out of Oxygen, but for some reason did not think to get more. Three days later, in the middle of the night, the oxygen ran out. There were eight children on oxygen – five of them died. My friend was distressed re-telling the event. Parents screaming, crying, “why didn’t you tell us? We could have sold our houses, our everything, and gone to the private hospital”. Stuff like that happens in the public facility. It’s the place you envision when you think of African hospitals - understaffed, underfinanced, overburdened. It’s a mess, an embarrassment and a shame.

Back to the clothes. These fancy clothes did not originally cross the Atlantic with me, but once landing in Rwanda and getting to the Kigali Health Institute, it was apparent that teachers are expected to dress in such fashion. At first I hated wearing fancy clothes in an impoverished because I hated being ‘that white guy’. But then my little Rwandese brother told me sometimes kids go home and brag to friends and family on days they shake hands with a white – as if it were something special, like shaking hands with a President. Ever since then I have not minded dressing nice, because I shake hands with all the street kids – in some small part breaking down the misconception that rich whites are above them. Shaking hands with all of them makes it less special and more normal.

One of my favorite parts of life here is walking. Sometimes when I’m on the streets I catch people looking at me, wondering how much I have really invested in their country – wondering whether or not I speak their language. I don’t, obviously, but I have learned a handful of useful phrases, and can exchange greetings with the best of them. So I wait, timing it just right, then say as we pass each other “beetay bjaway?” (how are you?). Oh they laugh so much with delight, and I smile, but most importantly by the time they settle down to ask a follow up question, I am far enough away to effectively dodge such a trap.

I’ve got so much more, but 1) I’m hungry and tired, and 2) If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably also hungry and tired.

I’ll try to write more often, but so many nights I come home exhausted and it’s difficult to move, let alone think. Thanks for caring, though. I really appreciate it. Many days I feel sustained by the thoughts and prayers of my friends back home.

Sincerely and with love,
Benjamin John Fullerton Huntley

Nairobi - Social Forum, Slum

2007-01-29T12:27:00.000+02:00

18-28 Jan, 2007 - from Nairobi, an airplane home, and the Kigali airport

I recognize it has been quite some time since my last posting, and certainly there is a lot to process, but I’ll start first outside Rwanda, in Nairobi, Kenya, where I have been attending the World Social Forum. With an estimated 50,000 participants, nearly every country was represented in one of the largest gathering of social movements worldwide.

Over the last few days I have been attending a subset of sessions with The People’s Health Movement called the World Social Forum on Health. Along with panels on various health issues, this micro arena served as an open platform from which individuals could speak on health concerns from their countries. In attendance was a mixture of students, physicians, the suffering poor, radical liberals, and a combination of the bunch. But saying the conference was a smash success is constructing a façade. Some positives came as a result, but in general the organization was shoddy, transportation sketchy, and outcome questionable.

At one point mid-week a number of Nairobi City Council members sat in attendance. Kenyan participants did not take long to press their guests on the city’s garbage collection in slums and elsewhere. As it stands, any street functions as waste disposal. Council members argued it was the citizens’ responsibility to bring trash to dumping sites (ten by twenty foot designated plots of land). But that is a flimsy response. To begin with, sites are often front and back yards of homes - surely a health hazard. Economic factors and poor living conditions also make the problem much worse than heaps of coke bottles and rotten food. Have you ever wondered how people go to the bathroom without running water? The simple answer is plastic bags. These toilets are then dropped in dumping sites on the people’s way to work. To the council members’ comments, my co-attendees argued their compliance, saying only when the sites overflow do they set garbage in the streets. And in their support, in spite of tax dollars paid, it seemed that dumping sites were rarely picked up.

But we also discussed issues at a larger level, such as the effect of globalization on health. This is, for me, a new and fascinating topic, as I am starting to understand the interconnectedness of health, economy, and the environment. Allow me to give an example. Cocoa is a cash crop in Ghana, which the European Union only charges a 0.5% tariff to export raw beans into their countries. However, the tariff jumps to 31% if Ghanians wish to export a processed product. So Ghana sells its resources at a low cost in order to have them processed in the developed countries, then buys its food back at an elevated cost. Essentially the people get screwed. Unfair trade results in economic suppression, which means at a family-level less money is available to spend on health care, food, education, et cetera. At a larger level, the situation is not much better. Said one speaker, during the thirty years between 1960 and 1990, African countries borrowed approximately 540 billion dollars. They have since paid back $550B, but still owe $295B because of interest. He went on to point out Africa spends more on paying debt interest than it does on health and education. His point was that although bringing poor countries into the global market was supposed to be helpful, it has actually destroyed domestic economies and worsened people’s health. The blame seemed to be placed on the developed countries for exploiting the poor nations. But surely much of it ought to be shouldered by the governments of the poor nations as well. Adding to the existing problem of unfathomable corruption, they have not organized themselves to get production plants up and running in their respective countries, which is within their power to do.

On the last day, participants drafted health proposals for their respective continents. Those from Asia were concerned with drug companies exploiting their people as guinea pigs. Issues of sexual and reproductive health made their way to the South American recommendation. I helped a young Kikuyu draft the African document, which included issues of sanitation, affordable health care, availability drugs (anti-retroviral and other – which although are readily prescribed, are quite difficult to find, so I am told), and female genital mutilation.

As I fly back to Rwanda and reflect on the week, however, it all seems a big dance. Of course I hope I’m wrong. I hope my pessimism is misplaced and that the political power of the People’s Health Movement (www.phmovement.org), a global health body of local, regional, national, and international health organizations, is stronger than my perception. But without international governmental officials present, I wonder if any of these proposals will be read or taken seriously.

***

As much as I enjoyed working with an international body on international health concerns, by weeks’ end it seems that I have learned much more from those outside the conference than those from within.

It only took two matatus to reach the sports complex where the conference was held from the house I was staying. Sometimes it took more if drivers decided more business was available on other routes. Usually, though, the 15 km (9 miles) stretch could be made in two hours’ time.

Once completing the first leg, there are a number of routes that lead to the WSF. 45 always goes there, and 46 does as well, except the other day when 46 went to a slum. At first this was frustrating; a kilometer walk to the next stage, from which a taxi could be taken back to the main road, where one finds matatus that lead to the WSF. But then I looked around: a grid of blue and gray corrugated tin sheets nailed together like a third-grade science project. Barefoot children and trash heaps. Trash everywhere. Circling around the affordable housing was a trench - a moat of urine, shit and water run-off. A cesspool of filth. Picture a car, stripped of its wheels, thrown in the moat, serving as a bridge to some while housing others. Downstream a woman stooped over and used her hands to fill a bucket with the juice, trickling through all that trash. She poured out the yellowish-brown juice – not tinted, but a thick, dirty color, similar to what snot looks like at mid-day on a construction site. She poured it on some plants, but it was all over her hands, and where will she wash it off? She won’t. So now there is probably E-coli everywhere, and on the vegetables, and people will get sick.

The next matatu drove a short distance, then stopped to let someone out. We waited, as we always do, until it filled up again. We were still in the slum. And I noticed something else. Body odor in Rwanda smells like sweaty-armpit, like a teenage boys locker room – sick, but familiar if you’ve ever missed a day of deoderant. The smell on the bodies we picked up from the slum was of rotten fruit, and feces, and Lord knows whatever other odors their skin soaked up the previous night.

That morning it took 3 hours to go 15 kilometers, but now I understand the World Social Forum. In the opening days it frustrated me to no end, sitting for hours in meetings where the only development seemed to be a roomful of sore cheeks. But now I do not mind all the talking. Obviously I hope steps are taken as a result to bring change, but at least there was an arena for people to share their stories, a place to de-tox from the hell they live in. Meanwhile, each night I go home to a hot shower and eat until I am satisfied. In years past this made me feel guilty – but not anymore. The discrepancy does not bring fault but rather responsibility to use privilege appropriately in order to reduce hatred, increase respect and, for me, preach love through Christ Jesus.
And while I am here, I’ll share another story. On the ride last week I sat next to a rather pleasant, older mother. She looked like she was about 45, so I suspect she was actually in her mid to late thirties. We traded cell phone numbers and the next day she invited me over. Her family lived about two miles further down Ngong Road, past Nakumat Junction for those of you who were with me last summer. We got out and started walking when she warned me she about the slum. Not to scare me, but just so I was mentally and emotionally prepared. “Ben,” she said, “I want you to be here, in the slum, to see how we live so you don’t attend the Forum and discuss issues of health, return home, and never understand what this is”. We meandered down the dirt walkways, through the strip of market space, took a right where the clotheslines crossed, and turned into her tin home. One room for her, her husband and their two kids. It looked like maybe the seat-high table gets pushed forward at night, with the arm-rest width of their chairs designating sleeping spaces. There was a bed that was walled off by a sheet. But that was pretty much it – one room to sit, sleep, do homework and cook – one room to pass time. I took dinner with them – a glass of Sprite, although I think they were going to cook Ugali when I left (boiled flour and water). It was pretty miserable, and yet they did not complain. In fact, most of the people walking around seemed surprisingly happy. Most admirably, although my host told me of the struggles to make rent each month, it was not a sad-story-turned-sales-pitch. She never asked for money – or even implied that I should be sympathetic and give. She simply wanted me to see truth. I think that in coming here, I was hoping to be Jesus to people, to love and to share. But more often than not, they’ve been Jesus to me.

To Bryan, Jordan, Geoff, JJ, Bren, P, and the others

2007-01-29T12:22:00.000+02:00

Wednesday 24 Jan, 2007 23:20 – Nairobi, Kenya

To the friends who are praying for me back home:

I am so far behind logging my thoughts and experiences – but the last few days, tonight in particular, have been incredible moments during which my missionary host family in Nairobi has poured into me. This evening Linnie, a pilot by trade, spent two hours viscerally answering questions about life’s challenges here. He also explained the intricacies of flying in the bush – airborne commitment points, down drafts, the physics that make short runways problematic, and hazards that do not exist in the US like finding grazing animals on runways, or missing wind socks, which up and left to become roofing for someone’s hut.

I appreciate more than ever the commitment these individuals have made, and sincerely wish to follow in their footsteps. As his job is more difficult without the luxuries available back home, so I long to become a great surgeon who knows how to operate effectively even without a full set of tools. And for what? For social justice? For preferential options for the poor? For adding pages to someone’s story when their book was expected to close? Well, yeah, that is all part of it. But more than that, in the name of Jesus Christ, for introducing people to a source of healing that neither doctors can provide nor science can describe.

I should say that it was wonderful to again meet with friends from the bush who have since found sponsors and are now studying in Nairobi. Matt, with the money you sent I paid for two young women to attend the conference as well. The fees for Africans were significantly less than those for Westerners, hence footing that bill seemed like chump change, but they were incredibly grateful. At the end of the first day, they thanked me but said they would likely not be able to return until the end. To get from home to Nairobi, they rode 24 hours in the back of truck, so I was a bit puzzled why they’d come so far to only attend two days. Probing beneath their embarrassment, I discovered they didn’t have financial means for transportation (a buck fifty per person per day), so I gave them cash for that as well... and for food. I felt strongly that if I was to invite them to the conference then I should also provide means of living so they could use the opportunity. All in all, I think I only spent seventy USDs on the two for ten days’ time, which seemed insignificant compared to the thought that women were being empowered – especially for the nurse who lives and works in an area where female genital mutilation is the norm.

A great bit of my time was also spent trying to get two from the bush admitted to medical school in Cuba (Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine is supposedly a tuition-less medical school with an emphasis on training people from underserved areas to go back to their underserved areas and provide health care). For some political reason, students are not allowed to apply on their own, but rather must rely on direct government-to-government communication, so I got to know the Kenyan-Cuban embassy well. Unfortunately I don’t think we made much progress, but I remain optimistic. All of this – the conference and the embassy - is really a microcosm of what I hope to do in life, use my privilege to stick a foot in the door and give others opportunities in the larger geopolitical realm. At any rate – Matt, thanks for your faith and trusting me with to put that money to good use – and for the rest, as always, prayers appreciated.

Mail Me

2007-01-09T10:59:00.000+02:00

If anyone wishes to send letters but distrusts international mail, a reliable alternative presents itself. At the end of the month I'll be attending a conference on international social justice in Nairobi, and will be meeting up with a friend from the US whose organization is also attending. My friend, Emily, has kindly agreed to bring me any letters you wish to send with her to Kenya. So if you'd like to write, please have your letter delivered (arriving before January 19th) to

Emily Carlson
Attn: Huntley
4126 Chester Ave. Apt. #2
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Please also feel free to send chocolate, pictures, and/or music.

Thank you and sincerely,
BJFH

Medical School

2007-01-08T12:43:00.000+02:00

Monday 8 Jan, 2007 – 08:56 Kigali

It was a beautiful day at 6 this morning when my alarm clock got me out of bed. The sun had just started to share its rays, the birds sing their songs, and the preacher man next-door scream about heaven and hell like there was no tomorrow. We get that a lot in Kimihurura, my neighborhood, living next to the Pentecostal church. It was a big day for me, a 22 year old near-adult, getting ready for his first day of medical school... as a lecturer. In two hours’ time I was to stand in front of 47 second-year students and introduce them to their course in Medical Laboratory Technology. But before we get there, let’s back up a bit and talk about the formation of this nebulous internship.

Two years ago I met a Rwandese physician named Maria Kabanyana at an HIV/AIDS conference in Iowa City. Over the course of a few days we became friends, talking about AIDS, genocide and a few of the world’s other plagues over coffee at a downtown shop. We kept in distant communication via email, often with long gaps in between messages. I’m not sure if it was first my proposition or her invitation, but somewhere along the line we began discussing the possibility that I’d visit Rwanda, getting a first hand experience of its health care system.

She put me in touch with an administrator at the Kigali Health Institute (KHI), to whom I sent my resume and request for an internship. A couple of emails later everything was confirmed, sort of. I had received notice that I’d be interning in the department of “Med. Lab. Tech.”, which I took to mean medical laboratory technician. Given my experiences as an EMT on an ambulance, working in the ER, and spending the past summer as a health care provider in a northern Kenyan bush hospital, I assumed the internship would entail something in clinical medicine.

However, two weeks before departing from the US, it occurred to me that I did not really know the details of my internship. Upon enquiring as to what precisely it would entail, I received the following message:

"Benjamin, courses here will commence 8th January. At the moment we are about to start the year plan but will be coming to you shortly, probably on monday. At the moment however, Is there any subject in medical sciences you would like to teach?"

What? Teach? I am merely a student on furlough, hoping to be admitted into medical school myself, not teaching it. But then this realization: with genocide came the collapse of a health care system. Doctors and students alike either sought refuge or were murdered. And of those who fled, few will likely return to this nightmarish land. Rwanda is now proactively trying to rebuild its health sector, with focus put on training nurses, paramedics, and medical students. And so yes, teaching. After all, I do have a degree from a reputable institution and thus license enough to share what I’ve learned with students who have not had the same opportunity. After a flurry of exchanges and conflicting details from multiple sources, I decided to just show up, figuring it would all make sense once I arrived.

As it turns out, “tech.” actually stood for technologies as in “medical laboratory technologies” and not technician, as I had incorrectly presumed. Furthermore, KHI, I learned, was actually a university and not a teaching hospital. Hence, what they keyed in on was not work experience but the Biomedical Engineering degree under my belt.

Last Thursday the Med Lab Tech professor and I got together to discuss my stay at KHI; he had not yet planned out the semester, but thought it appropriate that I begin on day one, teaching a lecture on Lab Safety. Then in a few weeks I’ll travel around the country facilitating the curriculum’s phlebotomy education at branch campuses, which involves lecturing, demonstrating, teaching, and supervising during their in-hospital rotations.

I also have a joint-appointment in the department of Medical Imaging, where I’ll be teaching the physics of Ultra Sound, X-ray, and CT (I made sure to wiggle my way out of MRI because of its dauntingly complex physics). This will likely take the majority of my time, studying by night and lecturing by day – seven hours, five days a week. Fortunately they use the same textbook as I studied from during my master’s level course. Unfortunately they only have one book to share between myself, the other instructor, and about 45 students.

So back to today – the educational system in Rwanda. After a small breakfast (peanut butter and jelly on a bread roll – peanut butter costing $4 a jar but, for me, absolutely worth it), I took tea, sent emails, and headed out the door. The first matatu (translation: twenty people crammed into a microbus, calling itself a taxi) took me downtown. The next one far away from where I needed to be (the chauffer, taking advantage of my ignorance, told me he was going one way, took my money, and went the other). Frustrated, I hopped off, said my prayers, and took a motorcycle-taxi to campus (my first time on a motorcycle since working in the hospital three years ago, where I saw my fair share of paralyzed cyclists).

I made it to the empty classroom just in time for my 8 o’clock lecture. “But where are the students,” I asked Roman, the paid professor. He assured me they’d trickle in. And then the most peculiar thing happened. Seeing that I was in the right place at the right time and ready to teach, he wished me luck and shuffled back to his office – and never came back.

I had 2 students by quarter after, 5 by 8:25, then back down to 3 at half past eight. Janitors came ten minutes later to pour buckets of soapy water on the floor, a perfunctory cleansing of an already clean floor. Apparently the first day class is a casual one and, for laboratory students, optional at best. Most of the class, said the ones who were present, were looking for housing and attending to other needs, and probably would not show. This is cultural difference I find difficult to understand, as I would have arrived last Friday to take care of these things ahead over the weekend. But so it goes – just because it is not the way I’d choose to arrange life does not mean it is wrong. So after an impromptu lesson in Ultra Sound physics (the only other subject I had been reading up on) I dismissed the small but diligent crowd for the day.

And so I roll with it – but hopefully tomorrow I’m rolling with a full class. At least now I’m on the verge of teaching, and can face the street people knowing I am doing something – helping to rebuild a health care system that can address their needs.

In the mean time, back to the books…

History of Genocide

2007-01-06T20:42:00.000+02:00

Friday 5 Jan, 2007 – 07:29 Kigali

Nearly every aspect of life in Rwanda is somehow marked by the events of and leading up to the 1994 massacre. Hence, it occurred to me that before learning from or contributing to anything, I had to first examine the genocide and understand its origins from a Rwandese perspective. Before my internship began, I asked lots of questions and sorted through their various responses. I found that there were no answers, only explanations to answers.

Peter continues to be a strong source of information, and the other day he introduced me to the Genocide Memorial. The museum’s main goal is to unravel the history of Rwanda’s ethnic cleansing in hopes that it might never happen again – here or elsewhere. We walked through the exhibit, watching videos, looking at pictures, and reading captions, while Peter filled in the gaps. What follows is my best attempt to consolidate chaos and repackage it in a detailed yet simplified and hopefully understandable version. This is the history of genocide.

To understand 1994, we must begin in 1895. Originally Rwandans were united as one people, speaking one language, and living in one country. They distinguished themselves into three categories – Tutsis farmed animals, Hutus farmed land, and the primitive Twa made their living in pottery and traditional arts. Because of intermarriage between the ambiguous groups and crossing of potentially different gene pools, claiming these are ancestrally different people is a liberal assertion.

Germans first occupied Rwanda in 1895, describing natives as peaceful cohabitants. But when Belgium assumed control after the First World War in 1923, they divided Rwandans based on head size, presumed mental capability, and a number of other factors. They reasoned that Tutsis were tall, long-fingered, pointy-nosed, and had beautiful girls, Hutus were medium height, flat-nosed (had comparatively ugly girls?), and the Twa were short and stout in stature. Although many of these differences were probably be diet-associated, loosely applied Beligian distinctions counted Hutus, Tutsis, and Twa at 84, 15, and 1 percent of the population, respectively. Additionally, Tutsis were thought to be intellectually superior, perhaps because they were wealthier and better represented in tribal leadership, and were thus granted privileged positions in exchange for Belgian loyalty.

The power differential continued until King Rudahigwa, a Tutsi, passed away in 1959. Subsequent to his death, in a bid to usurp power, came the first Hutu-imposed massacre. Tutsis who were not killed sought refuge outside the country. Then in 1961, a year before Rwandan independence, came the first elections. Kayibanda, of the Parmehutu party, ran on a Hutu-emancipation platform, preached division between the Hutu and Tutsi (who had fled the country), and easily won the election. Shortly thereafter, remaining Tutsis were relocated, leaving animals, supplies, and houses behind, to an area called Bugesera in order to keep separation between the two groups. Ironically enough, at the same time a Hutu named Habyirimana (who would become an important genocidal figure) started the MRND party, claiming it was the only political party and that all Rwandans were supporting members.

MRND influence grew, and all the more as Habyirimana became friends with then French President Mitterrand who supported MRND by all possible means, including money and weapons (the connection between Habyirimana and France is extremely important. Don’t forget this, because it will come up later. Subliminal message: France = Hutu). From the MRND party was derived Interhamwe, the infamous Hutu youth militia. They were a dangerous and flamboyant group, advocating for Hutu power at Tutsi expense. Aided by extremist media, genocidal ideology was in place and perfected by the early 1990’s.

This next paragraph discusses other emerging parties at the time. Skip it if you wish, as it is breeding grounds for confusion and excessive information. I should note that commonly understood abbreviations are given for French phrases, which I don’t understand.

At the same time came the formation of MDR, an opposition party yet loyal to the Hutu cause. In the post-genocide years MDR joined the government, but was disbanded in 2002 for its genocidal ideology. Another group emerged named PSD, which comprised of both Hutus and Tutsis. It continues to exist today, and is most highly represented by the current Senatorial President, who is an active member. I’ll also mention here the name Hassan Ngeze, a Hutu extremist and editor of the radical newspaper Kangura who promoted the word Inyenzi, meaning cockroach, as a reference to the Tutsi, and who stated “If the cockroach lifts its head again, they will all be exterminated”. Conspiracy theorists: Ngeze published two articles in Kangura predicting a Habyirimana death in March of 1994 (death occured April 6 of that year). Lastly, CDR – Coalition of the Defense of the Repulic – a sick and twisted group of Hutu radical death squads. As I stood, reading their story, Peter stretched out his long, narrow finger to a picture on the wall. “That man, he was the leader. When he died in February ‘94, they killed my father. I told you, the man was killed at 1, and my father returned from Uganda at 2. He was home for two hours when they come my house and kill him at 4.”

All in all, over 700,000 Tutsis were exiled from Rwanda between 1959 and 1973 as a result of the Belgian colonialist-backed ethnic cleansing. Prevented from returning, these expatriates joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and, wanting to reestablish equal rights and allow exiled return, invaded the country on October 1st, 1990. As an aside, this was the same day Peter’s father was first arrested for being Tutsi (6 month sentence). Civil War broke out, leading to the internal displacement of Rwandans in government refugee camps.

With a brilliant propaganda campaign underway, genocide was rehearsed on eight occasions before April 6th, 1994, the date we know as the genocide’s beginning. Let these organized Tutsi massacres sink in as you read out loud. October, 1990. January and February, 1991. March and August, 1992, January and March, 1993, February, 1994.

There is still some ground to cover, however, before the actual genocide. In July, 1992 Habyirimana and RPF agreed on a ceasefire. And in August, 1993 the RPF and the Rwandan government signed the Arusha Peace Accord. From this was to come a transitional government, which was to then be exchanged for a democratically elected government. Refugees were also to be allowed re-admittance, and French troops were to leave, making way for the newly established United Nations Assistance Mission In Rwanda (UNAMIR). This all seemed like a viable path to a peaceful solution, except that Habyirimana saw the stipulations as a surrender to RPF, and thus a transitional government was never formed, opting instead to accuse the RPF of manipulating the Arusha Peace Conference.

To throw sparks on fuel, Habyirimana’s regime enterest the largest Rwandan arms deal in history with a French company for 12M USD, a loan guaranteed by the French government (remember the friendship between Habyirimana and Mitterrand? Here it is again).

Alright, news junkies, tabloid readers, and the rest of you dirt-digging, secrets-found-out lovers, here’s your meat and potatoes. Now introducing an informant named Jean-Pierre (JP), a member of then Hutu President Ngiÿÿmpatÿÿ’s (of the pro-HutÿÿMRND parÿÿ) seÿÿriÿÿ guard.

On January 10ÿÿ, 1994 (three months before the genocide), JP, fearing the president has lost control of extremists, leaks to the UN that there are 1700 Interhamwe youth milita, and 300 more being trained weekly. Furthermore, that they are registering all Tutsis in Kigali as part of an extermination plan, in which they predict death rates at 50 Tutsis per minute. They were supposedly also planning to kill Belgian peacekeepers to force the UN to withdraw. JP was even willing to go to the press if UNAMIR could secure his protection, which they could not. The following day UNAMIR head, Lt. General Roméo Dallaire (the blue beret-wearing UN man from the Hollywood hit ‘Hotel Rwanda’), wrote the Security General’s military advisor in New York about JP’s leak and suggested an arms seizure, but no action was taken. Instead, Kofi Annan wrote in return, “No reconnaissance or other action, including response to request for protection, should be taken by UNAMIR until clear guidance is receive from HQ”.

April 6th, 1994.

As Rwandan president Habyirimana and Burundi president Ntaryamira were approaching Kigali’s international airport, their plane was shot down by missile at 20:23. By 21:15 roadblocks were in place and houses being searched – an undeniably preplanned genocide. The military was armed and with one purpose: to identify and kill all Tutsis. Prime Minister Agathe Uwiligiyimana was to become head of the country in wake of the president’s death but, although a Hutu herself, held anti-genocide beliefs. She was murdered the following day, along with her husband, before she could address the nation. A man named Jean Kambanda, fully involved in genocide, assumed authority and distributed weapons to killers.

No authorities, no meaningful international presence, hatred, no restraints. Jailed, terrorized, murdered, burned, raped, tortured, hacked. Machetes, clubs, guns. Chains found around brothers and sisters at the base of latrines. Relatives forced to kill each other, then murdered in their agony.

We paused here, Peter and I. There hanged an illuminated picture of the St. Famille church, his 45-day refuge. The caption said something about Father Wenceslas collaborating with Hutu militia. Peter: “That one is called Wenceslas. He used to preach to us with a bulletproof vest and pistol at his side. The militia, yeah, they were the friends of him. Yeah, I remember it, he would just invite them. They were become comfortable. And then they come when even he was not there. They come and just take people away. That Wenceslas, he’s now preaching in France”.

“You remember all that?”

“Of course,” he said, surprised it was even a question.

“So you hid?”

“Ah,” a gasp of disgust, “but where? The church is open. Look, I sat there,” pointing to a pew in the front right corner, “and maybe they walk down this one path and take the one two up from me, or two back from me. Or this one there, next to me.

“You see, I was at my uncle’s on 6 April and went to St. Famille on 10 April. I was there for that whole time. Once I go to the hill to get maybe to Milles Collines Hotel, but no. And maybe this way to go to other church, but no. All this taking of people by Hutu and what what. Then UNAMIR soldier took us finally behind RPF line in mid June, and that’s where I was for the other genocide days”.

Before the numbers stopped at 300,000 orphans, 85,000 child head of homes, and 2,000,000 refugees dispersed throughout camps in Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire, the RPF had to reach Kigali, from where the Genocidaires controlled the country. Once they reached there the genocide would effectively end.

On April 21st the UN Security Council passed a resolution stating they were, “appalled at the ensuing large scale of violence in Rwanda” which resulted in deaths of thousands. At the same meeting they also voted to reduce UNAMIR to 270 volunteer Ghanian personnel.

Although Dallaire predicted it would only take 5,000 troops to squash the genocide, the only soldiers to arrive in Rwanda before the genocide ended were French. The goal of their Opéracion Turquoise was to create a safe haven in southern Rwanda between conflicting sides. Rwandans today claim it really only functioned as a safe zone for Genocidaires, fleeing the southward moving RPF forces, to escape into Zaire.

May 17 was the creation of the Security Council’s UNAMIR II – 5,500 troops and mandate to use force. The US was to contribute 50 troops and armored personnel carriers. But for whatever reason, it took a month for those to arrive in Uganda, then more time to get into Rwanda.

By genocide’s end there was plenty of support in the international refugee camps, but survivors remaining within the country were overlooked. Adding to this microcosm of hell, a problem which lingers today and which might never be eradicated, was that many known HIV+ Hutu militia raped survivors, who were without quick access to antiretroviral treatment. By contrast, the museum points out, Genocidaires in the international court system received immediate drug therapy.

The museum ends by routing visitors through a series of chilling rooms. The first a collection of snapshots strung side by side, floor to ceiling, covering every wall – pictures of victims, donated by survivors. I followed Peter as he motioned for me to join him. He wanted to show me a picture of his uncle, who owned the house that was engulfed in flames when his mother, and two sisters (4 months and 2 years) were murdered. The man in the picture also died in the fire. And then down a little ways, on an adjacent wall - a picture of family friends. He didn’t know how they died.

The next room was dark, the only light coming from illuminated cases – nicked femurs and cracked skulls. There’s a mass grave in Nyimirambo, a neighborhood not too far from here. When the memorial opened, any interested persons were invited to transfer a few bones to new mass memorial grave outside the museum. Peter wondered whose bones he held, and whether or not someone held his mother or sisters, who died in Nyimirambo.

The next room contained shirts and pants behind glass panes, hung from the ceiling as if they were standing - obviously clothing taken from bodies on the streets. The last one was wearing a maroon sweatshirt, white writing. Cornell University. It amazes me how much of the West is exported and how little assistance extended.

There is another floor to the memorial, but they kicked us out after two and a half hours, well passed closing time.

That night I walked into our unlit bedroom. I thought my friend was asleep until he shot up – standing on his bed like my sister and I did as children. He asked to share photos of his parents, and reached to the back of our tall dresser to get them out. Earlier in the evening we talked to my mom on Skype, a free online videoconferencing service. She waved at him. His parents remained still, but I don’t doubt that they speak to him just as sweetly as mine do to me. His mother was beautiful. The photos, he said, will hang next to his uncle at the memorial when he’s ready for others to see them. Then we went to bed.

It’s said that because of colonialism and genocide, Rwanda is a country with a future but without a past. No doubt other sides are being hidden, diplomatic ties with France having been cut. But understanding how Rwandans tell their own tragedy allows me to move on and pursue the work for which I originally came.

Rwanda - Genocide

2007-01-01T18:39:00.000+02:00

Saturday 30 Dec, 2006 – 23:05 Kigali

Rwanda. I’ll start by addressing the first thing that comes to your mind, because it is the first thing that comes to my mind.

Every day I try to see this country as its own entity, outside the iconic genocide of twelve years past. But by each night I fail. It is impossible to be in Kigali and not see genocide written in mangled fingers of beggars, or in the obvious limp of a passerby. It wakes me up at night so that I cannot fall back asleep, and I lay restless, confused, and lightheaded – psychologically disturbed. It is impossible to understand in the first place how mothers can be made to kill their children, and husbands their wives. What foundation lies beneath this depravity? And in forfeiting this answer, it is then also impossible to figure out how to take in and react to today’s lingering scars.

These marks obviously manifest themselves visibly in the physical mutilation of bodies, but they also show economically and elsewhere. Orphans swarm to sell anything you could ever want (and then all that you would never want), hoping to make a buck – but at least they’re working. Another group just flat out begs. Not just kids, but adults as well. Even elderly. I find this most disturbing – individuals who, after living long lives, don’t have anyone to care for them. And then come stories of homes where kids raise kids – real stories, not just ones we talk about. But to be fair to Rwanda, not everyone is destitute. In fact, there is quite a bit of wealth – nice buildings and business suits to walk in them. The problem is not poverty, but that it exists in wealth’s reach. The ones who have made it worked hard and harnessed some inner strength to get them beyond genocide, the common denominator. But what determines whether or not this strength is accessed?

Two stories.

A girl was raped during the genocide and in the process contracted AIDS. Her aggressor was recently released from prison, so she went to his house to say: “You raped me and it hurt. But I forgive you because if I don’t, I’ll never move on”. Afterwards, a friend questioned whether she had only gone preemptively to dissuade the man from attacking her again. “No,” she said, “Although a Hutu, I imagined he was just as traumatized by the genocide and I wanted to release him from self-hatred. In this way Rwanda will move forward”.

***

At 20, Peter is a thin, quiet man whose clothing delicately drapes his narrow frame. He is tall and lanky, with searching eyes and a hollow face, darker than most, which pokes through like a turtle coming out of its shell. He was 8 years old in 1994 and at home, hiding behind a cabinet, when he watched his father beat for being Tutsi. He lied when the militia found him, saying he didn’t know where his mother was. They never found her under the bed in the room next door. He saved her life. But they beat his father more, then killed him.

Six weeks later, now in April, the president’s plane was shot down and mass killings began. Peter was in a relative’s home seeking shelter when his mother was kidnapped. He never saw her again; three months later heard she was burned with dozens of others in a mass grave.

Eventually he snuck into a church, which was a little less dangerous. But even there, Tutsis were being taken and tortured at random. He heard rumors of safety in a hotel called The Milles Collines – Hotel Rwanda – just 400 meters up the hill and tried to make the journey but, fearing death, turned back. Soon enough the Red Cross brought food. The UN posted guards, blocking the church’s entrance - and helped move refugees behind RPF lines (Rwandan Patriotic Front – Tutsi expatriates who banned together under the leadership of Paul Kagame, current President, to sweep through Rwanda and end the genocide).

Peter is my roommate, and today we went to the church that hid him. There was a wedding and everyone was happy. He says he’s no longer psychologically disturbed, but every night he listens to a radio talk show about the genocide. This morning he turned it on at 5. People still call in with information about displaced individuals, trying to reconnect family. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but I like him. We go on walks together and I see genocide from Tutsi eyes.

Like the girl in the first story, and like almost every other Rwandan, he forgives those who wronged him. I cry when I think about this because I’m not capable of doing the same even at a lower level.

Rwanda is a land of bloodshed, true, but it’s also home to the greatest reconciliation story in recent history, and perhaps ever. After genocide, retaliation was on the table, but the people were tired of killing and longed for healing. Rwandese have moved on, and even discarded ethnic distinctions. As an interesting note, because of intermarriage and mixing of the gene pools, there’s little difference between Hutu and Tutsi other than a stamp on a government issued identity card (which is no longer stamped). They are one people working together for one country.

Damascus 4

2006-12-29T11:53:00.003+02:00

Monday 25 Dec, 2006 – 15:28 Damascus, Syria

Wallah! Where to begin? I’m in the airport awaiting my flight to Yemen, en route to Rwanda, with a layover in Ethiopia sandwiched in the middle. At last some still time, opportunity to jot down my closing thoughts on life in Syria. There’s much to share about what I’ve done, what I’ve learned, what I’ll miss, and what I’m looking forward to discovering on my next leg.

Thus far my entries have come from Damascus, because without the ability to communicate – or for that matter, recognize anything as familiar – I was confined to alleys and neighborhoods close to home. I worked hard to learn a bit of the language, though, and slowly my confidence grew. Wherever my travels lead, I always try to learn a variety of phrases – simple ones to survive (asking for directions, counting, et cetera), and longer, more complex ones to surprise native-speakers, not so much to bring attention to my intellect, but rather to make them smile. It can be difficult to make jokes in a language I don’t speak, but when I do it right, well, it’s the most wonderful experience and opens the doors to incredible friendships.

I did not recognize how confident and comfortable I was until a couple of days into the trip when a friend commented so. And it struck me – damn, if a native-speaker thinks this, it must be true. That night I whipped out the Lonely Planet guide book and within a few hours decided to spend the next day in a town called Maalula, an hour’s drive Northeast of Damascus.

Getting there wasn’t easy. It took an hour and a half to walk the streets before finally finding the correct bus station – and a little more time to figure out how to use the public transportation. However, by 12 I was standing on the roadside watching the microbus pull away, leaving me and tiny Maalula in its dust. Blamo – middle of nowhere: beating sun bearing down on this dust bowl, and rocky niches, former homes, carved into cliffs. Also, back up 2000 years because Maalula is an Arameic-speaking village… Jesus language. In front of me was the church of and memorial to St. Takla – story as follows.

There’s a narrow canyon, more like a crack in the mountain, which cuts from one side of the village to the other. According to legend, St. Takla (student of the Apostle Paul) long ago traveled to Maalula as a missionary, bringing the teachings and good news of Jesus Christ. When the King, not himself a Christian, got wind of Takla’s story, he sent the army to end what he perceived to be nonsensical, provocative teachings. Trapped between the steady mountain and encroaching army, Takla fell to her knees and prayed for the rocks to part so she could escape safely. Jesus taught that we can move mountains if we have faith even as small as a mustard seed, and appropriately enough the mountain is said to have split before her. The canyon, which I walked through, is similar to Jordan’s Petra – an impressively narrow passageway.

This story all comes from a very kind, English-speaking nun who lives at the base of the mountain just outside the canyon’s entrance. Inside the church hang words of a prayer I enjoyed which read: “O Christ, our God, we all are pledged to serve thee with our whole being. Help us to continue to work for thee through our church without seeking praise… without seeking personal gain… without judging others… without a feeling that we have worked hard enough and now must allow ourselves rest. Give us strength to do what is right and help us to go on striving and to remember that activities are not the main thing in life. The most important thing is to have our hearts directed and attuned to Thee. Amen”. It seemed appropriate as my touristy-trip in Syria was ending and my internship in Rwanda soon on the verge of beginning.

The following day I traveled to Quneitro, a UN-monitored town in the Golan Heights – formerly a population of 73,000. In 1973 the Israeli army bombed and bulldozed the city, and today only 4 families remain. The Syrian government keeps the rubble untouched to serve as a propaganda tool, reminding people to despise its enemy. The destruction was difficult and exhausting to witness because it doesn’t seem to have an end. The first couple of buildings were gut-wrenching and stirred awe – not pleasant, but something that could at least be felt. But after that, everything was numbing. Every house crumpled, every building riddled with bullets. Churches, mosques, hospitals desecrated. (At left is a picture of the road to Israel, impassable due to remnant landmines)

There was also a Japanese tourist with me, a girl about my age. We walked through the ghost-town together, sharing our shock and horror. And although in this instance we were both on the same side of the window, looking through a shattered pane at humanity’s capability of destroying itself, I couldn’t help but think back to my dad’s generation, and Hiroshima. Historically our countries have looked not in the same direction but at each other through this busted window – and historically I was the Israeli army. This made seeing Quneitro all the more difficult.

The day after Lizz completed her final exam, we traveled four hours by bus north to Aleppo. Although it’s a densely populated area, rich in religious and political history, I was surprised how harmonious people of the three monotheistic religions lived.

In addition to walking around the Citadel and crawling through underground caves that lead to the safe haven, we visited 5th c. AD and 9th c. BC archeological excavation sites. If you’re interested, google St. Simeon citadel, The temple of Ishtar, and the Dead Cities. As for Aleppo itself, it’s a densely populated area, rich in religious and political history.

On Christmas eve, Lizz asked me to read her a story that means a lot, the gospel of Luke. Although by virtue of being raised American she knew parts of the Christmas story, it had been years since she’d actually read a bible. Like a good poem or a bit of dark chocolate, it was fun to share together.

Later that night a friend and I went to a midnight service inside the walls of the Old City. We were in the middle of a ritualistic and somewhat boring catholic mass when a rolling thunder of drums picked up next door – and it kept escalating to the point that the priest’s words were completely droned out. Neither of us being catholic, and thus immune from pew-binding guilt, we abruptly left and went to join the lively celebration. Trumpets chipped in their part as well, and although even my tone-deaf ears could tell they were out of tune, hearing familiar carols in a foreign land caused me to realize that Christmas is not just an American holiday, but a celebration of the birth of the savior to all people.

The next morning was bittersweet. We made chocolate chip pancakes and opened presents, but then soon left for the airport. I cried, as I always do when I have to say goodbye to my sister. I’ll miss her and the two weeks we spent together in Damascus – the street food and the people, but I’m excited to discover Rwanda, its people and its health care system.

My overall impression of Syria was resoundingly positive. To be fair, I should note that men are harassed much less than women – and if ill was spoken, I could not understand the language to interpret it as so. But throughout the country, both Muslims and Christians were welcoming and helpful. They opened their homes and offered their services, knowing I had nothing to offer but friendship in return. My wallet is now full of addresses and phone numbers written on scrap pieces of paper and handed to me on public transportation, should I ever need help. I respect Islam more than before, and admire Muslim discipline and reverence toward God. It should go without saying, but they are not all terrorists. When talking with one Muslim man about Osama bin Laden, Islam, and his thoughts about the US, he said “bin Laden is a Muslim and that’s why I like him, not because he’s a terrorist. I do not agree with the things your government does, but that does not mean its people are bad. I appreciate Muslims because I’m Muslim, Arabs because I’m Arab, and Americans because I’m human”. Certainly most allegiances lay in the Muslim Arab world (and in that order), but peace and reconciliation toward Westerners among the common people was much more prevalent than I expected it to be.

Now I’m off from Syria to Yemen to Ethiopia to Kenya and finally (hopefully) to Rwanda, where I’ll make my home for the next ten weeks.

Damascus 3

2006-12-29T11:53:00.001+02:00

Tuesday 19 Dec, 2006 – 14:41 Damascus

This morning I intentionally walked far from my apartment so as to get lost and find my way back. While sidestepping trash heaps and hopping over dilapidated street curbs, it dawned on me that I have not yet adequately described why I find Damascus to be such a lovely place. Truthfully, it’s quite a dumpy city – and yet paradoxically, somehow in its dirt it is beautiful. This town is ancient; some claim it to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world – and with that, obviously there are incredibly run down structures. Additionally, almost every building, landscape, and outfit is a shade of black, brown, or gray, and skuzzy streets only add to the effect. But then I walk past a fruit stand and an orange by contrast has never looked so orange – or a banana so yellow. Color, when it’s here, is really here and I feel warm just looking at it. And then the people, so friendly as I’ve described, when juxtaposed to the all the grime, also stand out as bright and welcoming.

Last night I was up until 2 talking with my friend Owais about Islam. Obviously there were differences between his beliefs and mine, but there were also a remarkable number of similarities. I was surprised to learn that he claimed Jesus as Messiah. I also discovered that John the Baptist is buried down the street in the Omayad mosque, and is well-respected by Muslims as one of the great prophets. In hearing Owais speak, I was just as fascinated to learn his perspectives as I was appalled by my own ignorance. How could it be that I knew so little about Muslim beliefs and yet was so confident that whatever they were, they must have been threatening to personal and national security? I guess I am more prone to the press’s persuasion than I realized.

(Below is a picture of Straight Street)

Damascus 2

2006-12-29T11:52:00.001+02:00

Monday 18 Dec, 2006 – 17:28 Damascus

This afternoon Lizz and I went with her friends for a three-hour long quest for cheap soccer jerseys. The store was filled floor to ceiling with jerseys representing countries around the world – and for knock-off apparel it was pretty good quality. Somehow I got to the counter thinking I was going to buy a German jersey, but realized on two accounts that this isn’t really what I wanted. For one, I only picked up because I always wanted to steal my college roommate’s. Secondly, and probably more heavily weighted, it dawned on me that I was only purchasing it because I could – as an American I could afford to buy anything I wanted. It wasn’t that I needed the jersey – in fact, the shirt probably would just end up sitting in my closet, presenting itself for me to look at and pass over. I was looking forward to leaving America – to leaving behind the consumerism plague - and yet there I was in the streets of Damascus being consumed with the same selfish tendency. That I hated in me.

On the way home we all split ways - Lizz showed me the US embassy and her friends went back to their respective homes (google the US Syria Embassy for events in the month of September to read about the attack – she was inside when all that took place… pretty crazy). We caught a microbus for the remainder of the ride (think van-taxi that makes frequent stops to let people on and off at will) (and by ‘stops’ I mean it slows down wherever there’s potential business so anyone can open the door and hop in – doesn’t matter if you’re driving down a highway). Once you enter the sliding side door of one of these vehicles, you leave behind craziness of the busy streets and ironically move into an instant family of fellow passengers - strangers, but a congealed, close-knit group. You pay as you drive – ten cents for any length of ride, and your first course of action once sitting down is to pass forward money for yourself and your dependents (in Lizz’s case, she pays for both of us since her Arabic is significantly better than mine). Somewhat akin to an “all hands on deck” call, word of how many you’re paying for accompanies your payment as it permeates forward to the driver (who then passes back the correct change). When you need to get out, just say “Al yemin lo sumat” (on the right if you don’t mind) and the driver will pull aside. Again, this can take place on the interstate if you wish (and frighteningly enough, some do wish).

It seems to me that inside the microbus is one of the few environments where I’ve noticed equality is achieved. In the mosque women are separated from men, and certainly they have their own unique roles in society as well. But inside the van all voices are equal; it makes no difference if you’re a soft-spoken woman who keeps to herself – just say something, even a whisper, and if the driver doesn’t hear all the people, men included, will pipe up, “Here, here! She needs to get off here!”. The inside of the microbus is very much like a family in that respect, all looking out for the wellbeing of each member.

Before coming here I kind of feared violence because my expectations of Syria were the pictures I’ve seen of Baghdad. Even though I listen to NPR and try to read the NY Times when I can, I’ve never understood the intricacies behind this region’s tension. To be absolutely naked and vulnerable, I more or less thought of the Middle East as a single place where all countries counted as equivalent entities. It was easier to package the whole area into the same memory allocation than to actually try and understand this mysterious Middle East. Because of my naïve understanding of regional politics, I imagined Syrians might act on their frustration toward American intervention in the region, and thus have been claiming myself a Canadian. But today I divulged my American citizenship to people I met on the streets, and to my surprise most were sincerely interested in learning where I was from. Even without my counter-steering, conversation never shifted to politics. I feel safe in Damascus – never encountering the atmospheric chill that might foreshadow becoming a target for political demonstration (the way the sky turns green before a Tornado rips through town). That’s not to say I gallivant care-free through the streets, boldly displaying my Americanism, but just that potential danger does not seem ominous as I expected a post-embassy attacked city to feel.

As a quick note, yesterday Lizz pointed out a license plate from Baghdad. She says it’s been interesting to hear how differently frustration toward the war is manifested here than it is back home, and used the car as an example. As you may have read in the papers, many Iraqis are fleeing their country – maybe even a thousand cross into neighboring Syria each day, and many more into Jordan and other surrounding countries. The catch is that typically only wealthy Iraqi families can afford this relocation. In brining their money into Syria, prices have now risen dramatically. This makes life much more difficult for the average Syrian family, whose salaries do not adjust to the influx of Iraqi wealth and subsequent increase in cost of living. I have not heard this dynamic presented before and wonder if the US, in all of its head scratching, face-saving planning, has considered how it might address these sorts of secondary disruptions its choices have caused. In my mind’s eye, I picture a kid yanking his hand out of the candy jar, shattering the glass and spilling the sweets. Although he schleps the candies more or less back into a pile, he walks out the door having done nothing about the glass shards that remain on the floor.

Damascus

2006-12-29T11:42:00.000+02:00

Thursday 14 Dec, 2006 – 17:18 Chicago

Well, I suppose this is it, the start of what is sure to be a long and fascinating journey. Here I am in Chicago’s O’hare International airport awaiting my boarding call. At the moment I feel surprisingly at peace, and what a beautiful destination this is. In general, I am prone to great fluctuations in emotional states of being, and the last 24 hours have been no different. The turmoil was far from enjoyable, although I suspect that internal angst is a necessary element of every great passage. It’s hard to believe that two days ago I was in Vedic City, Iowa – the self-proclaimed international capitol of the global country of peace, and two days from now I’ll be in Syria, representing the Middle East – the presidentially-proclaimed international capitol of terror and unease. Speculating on what I must be feeling, my father likened it to crossing the Gulf: the water moving north and the wind pushing south, hence the choppy waves. I feel excitement for what’s ahead but a degree of sadness in leaving what is behind – friends, family, and the comfort of familiarity. No matter how many times I leave and how many trips I take, departing from home never gets any easier. Surely this is a common experience for the thousands of sojourners who have gone before me. I take comfort in that and in words out of Acts: “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and work and have our being.”

Sunday 17 Dec, 2006 – 21:10 Damascus, 13:10 Iowa City

How do I put in words the thousands of perceptions I’ve acquired, or ten thousand ways they’ve developed throughout the day? I’m about to tell you that the people are friendly, but what does that mean? I’ll give some stories that hopefully paint an accurate picture, but even then a representation cannot come close to the real thing. With that preface…

The forty hours I’ve spent in Damascus thus far have surpassed my expectations. I cannot speak to the macro level threats posed by geo-political differences between here and home, but on an individual level the people of Damascus are the friendliest of any I’ve met. Homeland Security’s constant color changing, coupled with my American understanding of the Middle East (a big desert inhabited with angry Muslims), braced me for hostility, but instead I’ve found nothing but hospitality. Before touching down in Syria, for example, I had already made two friends.

When the plane finally landed, we were all excited to get off and greet our families (‘we’ meaning a plane-full of Arabs and myself, the lone Westerner). I gave the old atmosphere a sniff or two on the way to Customs and acknowledged the scent of fresh Syrian air: cigarette smoke and burnt fuel. They’re not so concerned about the health hazards of smoking inside – even my Customs agent had a cig dangling out his mouth like a salty Doonesbury character. Unfortunately he didn’t speak English (neither did the guy next to him… nor any other agent for that matter). Nina, my flight companion, helped translate, and I got the sense that in being there she was not just tolerating my need but genuinely pleased to assist me, a foreigner, in her country.

Twenty minutes after all the other passengers left the airport, the two of us finally emerged from Baggage Claim. I gave Lizz a big hug and swung her around a bit before hearing her reminder that public displays of affection operate differently in Syrian culture. After saying goodbye to Nina for the time being, Lizz and I made our way to the taxi and back to the heart of the city.

Day one, two goals: stay awake, beat jet lag. And that I did. I walked all around Old Damascus with Lizz’s friends while she was in class. The streets were bustling with buyers and sellers of all kinds of goods: fresh fruit, beautiful spices, Arabic bumper stickers, colorful belly-dancing attire, jewelry, toys, propane tanks, and shirts with amazing English-mistranslations naively emblazoned on their chests. After one of the girls bought a scarf from a hole-in-the-wall business, the owner set up chairs and a table, and brought out a pot of tea. He sat down with us for conversation, and most intriguingly enough he seemed to be truly interested in talking.

At some point in the afternoon we stopped for fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice, and walked through the Omayad mosque, where Muslims in the area believe Jesus will return. Perhaps this exposes my ignorance, but I had always thought of the mosque as some sort of cultish-building where only Islamic people were allowed to enter. There were very strict rules – no shoes allowed, and all women must wear robes – but I also encountered things I’d never expect to be permitted in a mosque: children playing, people talking, and flash-photography. In many respects it functions as much as a community center as it does a religious institution. I was told that sometimes people even come to study for their University classes, lounging on the soft, carpeted floor.

I did pull one brilliant move that you might get a kick out of. In the process of getting out my camera, I instinctively dropped my shoes to the floor of the Holy place. Yeah… don’t try that one in the Omayad mosque. Actually, it wasn’t a big deal – my sister’s friends were far more concerned than anyone else. Again overturning my preconceived notions of religious rigidity, when I dropped my dirty shoes people recognized it as a mistake, knowing I meant no disrespect, and didn’t give me grief. I do think there is a lot to be said for the reverence which they hold for holy places, but prefer the Christian view that the church, and hence God, is in the people and not the building.

I shouldn’t say I haven’t found any hostility, though… there is a bit of anger engineered into the concept of transportation in Dimahshk (local pronunciation). If I were to draw a free body diagram of confusion, arrows would be coming into and leaving out of every point at every time period, everywhere you look. It’s not so much that they don’t have a concept of ‘right of way’, but rather that everyone owns it. Adding to the confusion is there are neither lanes nor the concept of lanes, and both people and cars occupy the same space. I have not yet found this to be a good design.

After lots of walking down many streets (including the street called Straight, of Saul-conversion-story fame), and happily giving in to many a street vendor’s food-cart sales pitch (mmm… fresh falafel… probably part of the solution for world peace - think tranquilizing goodness with every bite), Lizz and I finally met up again. She took me to her favorite restaurant, home to the world’s best beef shwarma, and afterwards we videoed home on Skype. Before falling asleep at 9, I arranged via cell phone to meet up with Nina the following day to hang out and see the part of the city her family lives in.

At five after eleven one of my housemates (due to cultural custom, I’m not allowed to stay with Lizz, so I live with her male friends) gently woke me up. Crap! Already I was 5 minutes late and 45 minutes away from the place I was supposed to meet my friend from the airplane, so I caught a taxi. Another interesting experience. Crossing a street is a lot like playing extreme Frogger – dodging cars (sometimes not well enough) while trying to get to the other side; the key is to walk confident and, no matter how scared you are, never flinch. If you can do this, you’ll never get run over – the worst that can happen is a love tap applied to one’s knees (occasionally you might get the love-roll-over your foot). I finally got to where I was supposed to be and walked around with Nina, her sister, and their four-year-old niece. We went back to their house for tea and, after she got out of class, Lizz joined us for a 4 o’clock lunch. My first full day in Syria and already a wonderful family meal – and such good food! It’s kind of nice to be so far away from home and still have a mom cooking for me (gotta’ love the transient property of motherly love). On a more serious note, a family invited me – a stranger – over for lunch, and invited my sister as well. How beautiful. That alone shatters my expectation of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

Alright, some other things, real quick, before I go to bed. Damascus has mountains and is cold – probably 35 degrees at night, 55 during the day. Not all Arabic-speaking individuals wear turbans; in fact, few in Damascus do. My roommates from Chad are sweet, even though we don’t speak the same language. Twice now I’ve been able to communicate with non-English speaking new acquaintances because, oddly enough, they also spoke Spanish. Tomorrow Lizz’s friend group and I are getting Syrian soccer jerseys with our names embroidered on the back in Arabic for the equivalent of 7 USD. “Al hum du lelah” means “praise God” and can safely be used to answer any question or remark on any comment.

And I guess, lastly, I’ll share one struggle. I love to meet people, and have already put together a working Arabic vocabulary that makes them smile, but I have difficulty with how to choose to define myself. On one hand I don’t want to take on the international connotations of being American (self-centered, spoiled, wealthy) (it’s much easier to claim Canadian citizenship) – but on the other hand, what an incredible opportunity I have to show that not all Americans behave similarly to those who are portrayed in Middle Eastern media. It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it, that people here have shown me the same thing from the reverse perspective – not being like the media’s portrayal that is.

From Damascus

2006-12-19T12:29:00.000+02:00

Yo - I'm in Damascus safe and sound. I've got a bunch of stuff to post, but the computer I'm on doesn't read my jump drive. Hopefully soon I'll be able to get you all some more substantial writing to sort through. But yes, I'm okay - no worries. Damascus is a beautiful old city - the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, so I've heard. Anyway, take care.

bh

Karibu!

2006-12-12T03:10:00.000+02:00

Hello and welcome to the first blog I’ve ever created...

In 48 hours I set off on a nearly six-month-long journey, beginning with 9 days in Damascus to visit my sister, and ending with three months of Swahili training in Dar Es Salaam. In between the two stays I’m living with a Rwandanese Christian medical doctor and her family in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. During this time I’ll intern at a large hospital called the Kigali Health Institute and be involved with community development programs with youth my age in the local church. At least this is how the next few months have been explained to me.

Paradoxically, I know both everything and nothing about what I'm doing. On the one hand I know none of the details surrounding my internship, and yet on the other I know everything about what is taking place – I’m intentionally putting myself in an uncomfortable situation and letting that experience change me.

Before I get going too far, I want to make sure we’re all on the same page. First of all, to whom am I writing? You all, my audience, are a very difficult bunch to consolidate. Mixed in to the group are friends and family, folks with degrees and folks without - homeless, doctors, homeless doctors, engineers, villagers, lawyers, and college students of all shapes, sizes, and educational pursuits. Some have money, some do not. Some have traveled, others have not. Right-leaning, left-leaning, libertarian, KANU, NARC, and Sinn Fein. You span several continents and social classes, and yet find common ground in knowing me one way or another. My guess is that we’ve likely encountered one another through one of three avenues: faith, health care or social justice. I’ll do my best to convey my experiences in a manner that is beneficial to all.

I do want to pause and address one point, as many of you come from the faith community. It’s true that I’m a Christian, and in the past I’ve been a missionary. But this is not a missions trip per say. So then what is it? In short, it’s a multifaceted challenge.

I believe in absolute truth and in a divine being, and that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. I also believe that we can encounter God through everyday interactions with one another. And by getting to know others I better understand God’s story of love and compassion, redemption and restoration – for me and for the rest of the world. So part of this journey is to have those sorts of encounters.

Is this trip God’s calling? Well, I don’t know – the same way I don’t know if staying in Iowa City is God’s calling. When I hear his voice, I move in that direction. But His voice isn’t always audible, and sometimes I just take a risk and jump. This is one of those moments. It’s not a total shot in the dark, though. Combining faith and health care moves me in the direction in which I feel I’m supposed to head.

Another motivating factor for this trip is simply to take a year off before medical school and travel. I’m intentionally putting myself in impoverished areas to be marked by experiences that will shape me into the physician I aspire to become. I want to intimately know these stories so that after all the debt of medical school and fatigue of residency, I still remember why I chose this path in the first place – and return to places such as Rwanda to unite my privilege with peoples’ suffering, and somehow heal together.

I look forward to writing from the Middle East, and to sharing these next few months with you all. Thanks for the love and support that make this possible.

And to end it all, a poem that my good friend Nicole Novak recently shared with me:

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.

I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don't end in me,
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

-Roque Dalton
translated by Jack Hirschmann