Peace

"Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us."

- Sargent Shriver

CRISIS

Across East Africa, RIGHT NOW, there are over ten million people in crisis.

That crisis is a severe drought, which is being called the "worst humanitarian crisis in decades."  According to Al Jazeera reports, "Seasoned relief professionals would tell you we haven't seen a crisis this bad in a generation" and "it will get worse before it gets better."

Source: Al Jazeera.

The next rains are not expected until October.
The next harvest... months after that.

There is no water, there is no food... and there is very little hope.


If you're one to pray... the time is now.

"My people drum on water, drink on water, live on water, die for water."

The Pursuit of Happiness

You know those silly brain teasers everyone's little cousin is always asking, trying to stump the adults with basic logic?  You know the ones...
If a man has 9 sheep and all but 3 die, how many are left?
Can a man marry his widow's sister?
Is there a 4th of July in other countries?

That last one's pertinent today.  "No!" you respond, while the little one laughs at your blunder and says "There IS!  And a 5th, and a 6th..."

Well, you can tell him that he's correct, and that in fact there is another country who has July 4th marked on the calendar.  We share this day with our brothers and sisters in Rwanda, that great and beautiful "Land of a Thousand Hills."  It is their day of liberation not from colonialism, but from a regime that orchestrated a slaughter of its people; July 4th marks the end of the genocide.  We should be humbled to recognize that while ours is a day of great pride and joy, in Rwanda it is a bittersweet commemoration.

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I think there's an important lesson to be learned as we're watching fireworks and grilling hot dogs with our families today.  It would serve us well to take a moment to remember where this country was 250 years ago.  Under an oppressive colonial regime, Americans of days long past struggled for their freedom from a system whose only objective was the economic prosperity of the Royal Crown.  After fighting a war for our independence, we struggled for years to thrive economically and maintain political stability.

It didn't come easy and it wasn't without failures.

Sound like any other region of the world we know and love?

We are centuries ahead of the third world, quite literally speaking.  In particular, African countries did not begin to achieve independence until the 1950s, with South Africa being the last to achieve freedom as recently as 1994.  That's not much time to catch up to a nation who has been independent since 1776.

Americans and Africans (and South Americans... and Indians... and the list goes on) went through the same struggle, the fight for freedom.  We often forget, however, how fundamentally similar we all really are.  The differences between us are many, but they are details that don't always reflect the bigger picture.  We may have smooth asphalt and free WiFi while others have dirt roads and 6-day power outages, but at the end of the day, we all want the same things: freedom, love, laughter, security, success, and happiness.

I know its a lot to ask, to ponder these things on a day that's meant for kicking back, relaxing, and enjoying your family and friends.  But what better time than when you're surrounded by life's simple pleasures to reflect on the universal similarities between each of us and our fellow man, whether they be the kids down the street or the woman on the other side of the world under the hot African sun selling mangoes in her market stall to send her kids to school.

On this day, take a moment to remember those still fighting for their freedom, because it has never come easy for any of us.  Think of those still struggling on the road to redemption.  May we all one day enjoy the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I've said it once, I'll say it an infinite number of times... We're all in this together.


Happy 4th of July, everyone.

SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR FALLING IN LOVE

In less than 24 hours, Uganda votes on a bill that will make homosexuality a crime punishable by life in prison and even DEATH.

I don't care what your views on gay marriage are, because that is not the issue.
The issue is that being gay is not a crime, and certainly not one punishable by death.

This is persecution, an attempt to rid the country of homosexuals.
It is hate, and it is unacceptable.



Falling in love, no matter who its with, is a beautiful thing, not a crime deserving of the death penalty.

Please take action by clicking HERE.  It takes less than 30 seconds.


TELL UGANDA THAT THE WORLD IS WATCHING
AND WE WILL NOT BE SILENT.

Its Better to Light a Candle than to Curse the Dark...

They say its better to like a candle than to curse the dark.
In the eyes of the youth there are question marks.

Like freedom, freedom for the mind and soul,
we don't see them, see them for their worth at all.

That's why we lead 'em, lead 'em to these wars
and what it is we feed 'em, feed 'em our impurities.

And who it is we treat 'em, treat 'em like the enemy.
Humanity will need 'em, need 'em like the blood we spill.

We're freedom, freedom for the hearts we fill, we mislead 'em.
They hunger for the love we give but we cheat 'em.

The guys beat him and all he wants is his freedom.
So they defeat him, whatever spirit he's got beat him.

And they teach him the rest of the world don't need him
and he believes in the disease that he's heathen.


Put up your fists if all you want is freedom.

-"In the Beginning" - K'naan

Joy and Circumstance

Possessions in my hands will never be as valuable as peace in my heart.

I need Africa more than Africa needs me.

Although I do feel that I have much to give and much to contribute to Africa, the statement that "I need Africa more than Africa needs me" rings true.  I need in my life all the things the people of Gulu have to offer.  I need their warmth, their openness, their ability to smile and laugh despite their dark pasts.

I can learn more from them they they could ever learn from me.
And I know that no matter what I will eventually contribute, it will never match the ways in which every single person I have met there has changed me, made me stronger, made me better.

I want my joy to not be dependent on my circumstance.
Africa has taught me it is possible.

Remembrance

We are currently in the heart of the anniversary of the 100 days of slaughter in Rwanda.
It has been seventeen years, and we must not forget.

Today, April 21st, marks the 17th anniversary of the massacre at Murambi.

Please take a moment today, or any day during these 100, to remember the million souls lost in Rwanda and the millions more lost in genocides and civil wars around the world.



You have a voice, and it was given to you for a reason.
You have the power, with every waking moment, to do simple things that send echoes of humanity around the world.
Remember the women of Ubutwali Bwo Kubaho: with love, everything is possible.
 What are you waiting for?



"If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change.

We do not need magic to change the world, for we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."
-J.K. Rowling

Silence Speaks Volumes

I came home from my semester with so many stories to tell.  While that is theoretically awesome, its sometimes more... a burden.  Its fun to tell the stories of chicken slaughter, but human slaughter?  That's a tough one to tackle during polite dinner conversation or when I stop to chat with someone on the quad and they ask, "So how was Africa?!"

As seems to be the norm lately, I can't get Murambi off my mind.  Loading your schedule with classes about Africa will do that to you, apparently.  I think my professors are starting to get sick of me.  Really.

I've already gone through the experience of Murambi itself: the corpses, the smell, the visceral emotional breakdown and the long-lasting effects of genocide.  But there are things I haven't written down, at least until now.


Things like Emmanuel and his heartbreaking story.
Like the circle processing that tore everyone's hearts to pieces.
Like coming together at the end of this, the most difficult day, and raising our glasses to friends, family, and enjoying the life you live.

Death Through Hatred, Life Through Love

About a week ago, I gave a talk about my experiences in East Africa as part of Lafayette Amnesty's Human Rights Week.  The following is said talk, posted here so it could (hopefully) reach a broader audience.  If you've been following my blog, it will probably sound familiar... I used a lot of material I'd already written for large portions of it.  I wanted to use the words and emotions I felt and recorded in real time instead of retroactive reflections.
Thanks for reading!

For years, I’ve been feeling a dull ache in the bottom of my heart, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t quite seem to figure out what it was I had been longing for so fiercely.  Over the course of my months abroad, I finally figured out what it was: homesickness for a place I’ve never been.  A longing for the magical spirit of Africa.

Eager to begin an adventure I hoped would change my life, I impulsively signed up for a trip that would take me to East Africa.  And so I spent four months on the other side of the world, examining Africa’s longest running civil war in Northern Uganda and the most atrocious genocide of recent memory, the Tutsi genocide of 1994, in Rwanda.

The lessons I learned in East Africa are varied and traverse a wide range of subjects, from basic day-to-day living to grander concepts: war, peace, reconciliation.  I’ve learned these from a varied cast of characters; both fleeting friends and those I now consider family, all tangling a web of handed-down knowledge and memory that have changed me.

I’m never quite sure how to tell my stories.  There are some that are always fun to share: learning how to slaughter a chicken as thirty villagers watched and laughed in order to prove to my host mother I was a “strong African woman”; a former abducted child soldier, who at age 11 toted a gun through the bush as part of Africa’s longest civil war, spending his Saturday afternoon teaching me how to drive his motorcycle through the streets of Gulu; taking boat rides on the River Nile and being mere feet from freely roaming giraffes and elephants with their ivory tusks still gloriously intact; practicing a rain dance with Acholi and mzungu alike and mere moments later watching the skies darken and open up before our eyes, pouring down the first rain of the season.  These are the fun parts of my journey, the stories I quickly tell in passing to people who aren’t quite prepared to hear the full truth of what it really means to experience these far-away places.  Now, however, I have tougher tales to tell, and they are necessary if anyone is to understand my experience and my resulting perspective on what it means to be part of the human race, part of humanity.

Gulu Riots

After the arrests of two opposition party leaders, Norbert Mao of the Democratic Party (DP) and Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), riots have broken out in Gulu and Masaka, Uganda.

This is my home.

At 0:20 in this video, you will see the center square in Gulu, a place I walked past every day for four months.
That orange building on the left... that's the corner where my friend Francis parks his boda every day to wait for fares.
Down the street three blocks is my sister Bridget's kindergarten.
This is my town, and its being torn apart.

The essentials of the story is this:
Mao and Besigye have been organizing "Walk to Work" campaigns as a form of protest against rising fuel and commodity prices.  They are simply walking.  That's it.
Museveni's government, in an effort to stop these political demonstrations, arrested both Mao and Besigye, both of whom ran against him in the recent Presidential elections.
Following the arrests, the supporters of Mao in Gulu and Besigye in Kampala began to riot.  In Gulu, people began gathering in the town center, blocking the roads with logs, lighting tires on fire in the street, and throwing stones at police and military vehicles.
The UPDF (the Ugandan military) began shooting tear gas into the crowds and are randomly firing their weapons into the crowds.
Three have been killed and many more injured, and that may be just the beginning.




When you leave people with no way out, no hope for change, and no vision for a life better than this one... you leave them with nothing to lose.

I'm keeping my family and friends in Gulu in my thoughts always.  My family is safe for now and I haven't heard much of my friends there.  All I can do now is hope for the best.


All any of us can ever do is hope for peace.




"When hands are joined, no one can point fingers."