Why hello there family and friends… it has been a while since I’ve updated and this isn’t much of an update anyway, just some thoughts really…
I am back in Uganda, only for 3 weeks this time, but back nonetheless… The last 2 months have been a whirlwind adventure. From Australia to Colorado to New Hampshire to Egypt, and now Uganda for the rest of January!
Well, today is a big day for many reasons, first, my little brother Ian turns 6 today, and I wish more than anything I could be there to celebrate. He’s come such a long way in just a year… All MRI’s still coming back clear, all his hair has grown back and covers his scar, he’s the tallest one in his kindergarten class and is more active than ever!
Today is also a landmark in my personal life because 4 years ago from today I left for Uganda the first time. 4 years is a significant amount of time to be connected to people and places, the standard length of high school and college in fact.
Yesterday I spent the day in my friend Deo’s village, celebrating his graduation from Cornerstone Christian College in South Africa, it was amazing to see his village gather to congratulate him, and inspiring beyond comprehension to know Deo, and know the way he’s going to change his country.
I think about how the last 4 years have shaped and molded me, how they’ve changed me… how East Africa, Come Let’s Dance, and various domestic and international travels replaced the typical university years in my life.
So as this season of graduations is upon me, Deo isn’t the only one, my sister graduates high school in May, and Susan graduates university in May as well (I apologize Maloneys and Deublers for distracting her for so long) and so many others. I’ve thought of the course work and classes I’ve completed these last few years and I’ve compiled a brief sampling of my pass/fail classes right here for your viewing pleasure:
Making/Saving Money: Fail
Press Release, Grant, Website writing: Pass
Dancing: Double Pass
How to not constantly Facebook: Fail
Cement Mixing: Pass
Flossing kid’s teeth: Pass
Flossing my own teeth: Fail
US Cross Country Navigation: Pass
Greater Kampala Area Navigation: Fail (student gets lost an average of 3 times when out on own)
World Geography of places I’ve been: Pass (which is an ever climbing number of 38 states, 23 countries, and 6 continents, not that I’m bragging… ok, maybe I am)
World Geography of places I haven’t been: Fail (I still don’t know where China is)
Ugandan Community Development: Incomplete
How to Laugh at Oneself: Pass
How to Admit When One is Wrong: Fail
Functioning while hungover: Fail
Macaroni and Cheese, Spaghetti, Ramen, Toast, Gorp making: Pass
All other cooking: Fail
Killing huge effing cockroaches: Pass
Hosting Parasites: Pass
Reading more than 1 book a year: Fail
Keeping in touch: Fail
Speed and accuracy in longdrop and various other outdoor bathroom situations: Needs Improvement
Appearing Successful: Fail
Changing the World: Incomplete
Luckily, I’m the dean as well at this awesome university, so despite inadequate marks, I still say I can graduate quite happily to the older side of 23 even if it’s only for the sole purpose of this facebook note.
Also as I listened to Deo give a speech to everyone at his graduation party, I wondered about what I would say if given a similar opportunity, so here are my “graduation” words, as a sort of commencement speech but without a ceremony, no diplomas, and no list of 300-10,000 names…
MC: And now, for our commencement speaker, Miss Nicole Galovski
Marching Band plays “Life is a Highway” as I walk up on stage…
(Test mic, take deep breath) Wow! Can you believe it? We all made it, another 4 years of our lives completely gone with absolutely no chance of reliving them, and still no scientific bounds great enough to facilitate the production of a time machine. I think we’ve all come a long way in these last 4 years, some of us further than others… if you know what I mean. (Pause for laughter) But on a serious note, I think it’s important to remember the beginning when something is coming to an end. (Look pensive about own words)
When I first started this journey I, like most of you, had just seen Invisible Children and Blood Diamond. I had just listened to Bono explain why we needed to help Africa, and developed a million and one romantic ideas of the adventures to be had saving lives on the dark continent. Needless to say, upon arrival in Uganda, I was completely blindsided by reality. What could I do? Where were all the kids I could save? And there it was, my first important lesson: I don’t know very much, and I can do very little.
Despite being nothing I expected, making me feel of little worth, challenging my world view and forcing me to rethink everything I thought I could do with my life… I still loved it. It was the equivalent of a crazy playground with no rules, the first time you’re at summer camp and can jump in the lake with your clothes on, dorm life with no parents or an RA… Africa is adrenaline junkie, tragedy tramp Vegas.
And everything back then although dark, and brutal still somehow felt safe, that even though there were people dying all around me, death seemed like something very far from me and the people I knew. It’s overpowering the potency of naivety, the durability of the imaginary bulletproof vest youth possesses, and how quickly one sobers and immediately feels defenseless while walking in front of the firing squad of death and catastrophe.
Yes, our first years out on our own are difficult, for many of us it’s the first time we feel thick, cold loneliness, the first time we feel totally and completely meaningless, and leave home not knowing that we can’t ever return to the same place. BUT! This is also beautiful, for there is nothing more important than facing the repugnant truths about life, than diving down into the foul vexatious reality of our experiences and still seeing the grandeur.
And I have seen much grandeur.
(Clear throat) So here I stand, in front of you (consciously look around audience of 7 people), my family, my friends, my fellow learners and live-ers of the last 4 years, and I think it’s safe to say that we know more than we did, which still isn’t very much, and we’ve done more than we thought we could, which again, still isn’t very much… but it’s something. (Bow head and wait for applause)
That’s probably the worst commencement speech that’s never been given, it sure is a good thing I never went to college.
April 30, 2010: Feliz Viajes
So here I sit, at the end of April, again. I wrote a note almost exactly a year ago… thinking I was going to Africa… and instead ended up delaying my trip indefinitely on account of Ian. I recently re-read my updates from the last year and bawled my eyes out, I think I had blocked out much of the pain and scarring that’s happened. But it made me re-recognize how quick life can change, (.00001 seconds, if you were wondering) and not to become attached to plans, and to constantly use the word “tentative” when referring to them.
Anyway, so much has happened in the last few months it’s unreal. Ian’s last chemo session was in January, and every MRI and scan since December has come back completely and 100% clear. Also, all the side effects that the doctors warned us about: loss of hearing, loss of energy, not being able to walk up and down stairs… none of them happened, he’s stronger than ever before, and after the hearing test they said his hearing got even better. His hair and eyebrows are coming in nicely, and I continue to find it unbelievably amazing that the best thing that could have happened… did. We’re all so thankful for the hopes, prayers, and love sent to us throughout this year. We’ve been humbled and strengthened by all of you, and our gratitude is never ceasing.
At the end of February and beginning of March, four of my best friends and I went to Peru for a few weeks. We did the Santa Cruz trek through the Andes Mountains, and then went sight-seeing, and partying in Arequipa and Lima for the remaining time. It was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken, and the fact that I got to share it with my best friends made it all the better. A week after my return from Peru, we took a family trip to Vegas which was extremely relaxing, and fun. About three days after that I had all my things packed up in my last-leg Buick and I made the move out to New Hampshire to live with my Dad. I’ve talked about pursuing writing for a long time, and it’s about time that I actually start to do it… My Dad’s book (Here Be Dragons, you should read it… you’re welcome for the plug Dad!) came out at the end of 2009, and he has some ideas for projects that we both get to work on, as well as being able to use his guidance for getting published in magazines and journals. It was terribly sad to leave Colorado, my family, and the best friends that only come around once in a lifetime, but I am thoroughly excited for this chapter of life with my Dad, getting to be a big sister to Kennedy and Griffin, the beach, and actually trying to do this writing thing…
So that’s what’s up with me, but we all know it wouldn’t be a true Nicole note if I didn’t include some story, and the lofty life lesson I got from it… This one comes all the way from Peru…
The 3rd day of our trek in the Andes Mountains was a short day… we made it to our nearly 14,000 foot campsite by 11:30, and just got to play in the boulder field resting within the torsos of 6 giant glacial peaks. The peaks generated their own weather, and were constantly covered by dark, menacing clouds. One mountain in particular I announced as mine, and as it rained off and on all day I kept a careful eye on it, wishing away the clouds so that its peak could be revealed. We woke up the next morning at just after 4, before the sun rose, and my mountain still wasn’t clear. We started packing our bags, and putting away our tents, which proved more difficult a task than anticipated because our hands were so cold they were barely functioning. All the sudden the twilight clouds loosened their tight grasp, dispersed, and the jagged peak rising high above the glaciers, could be seen in all its Andean majesty. I’ve never seen a mountain so perfect. The girls got their cameras, while I stood and snapped from behind my mental lens for the 2 ½ minutes the clouds allowed us before swallowing her back up. I’m glad I was allowed that glimpse, because life is taking me in so many different directions; to new places and people and experiences, that I have no current intention to make it to my mountain again. But it’s interesting the glimpses life allows.
A few times during the trek I caught myself just speedily walking along, tunnel-visioned on the trail, not grasping the beauty of my surroundings, not consciously inhaling the freedom of life without cell phones and facebook, I was just focusing on getting to the campsite. But the trek wasn’t about the campsite at all… it was about the hike, the continual placing of one, tired, heavy foot in front of the other… it was nice to take off my pack and rest at the campsites, and the summit made me feel like a badass, but that wasn’t what made the trek… it was stopping to take every corny picture imaginable (if you’ve looked through the albums, you know exactly what I mean), it was falling in cow crap, and making Susan clean me off, it was not being able to contain my amazement at the beauty surrounding me, it was screaming the f word at the top of our lungs because we lost the trail in pouring rain, and the sun was about to go down… clichés become clichés because they’re true, and destinations really aren’t what life’s about.
My lofty life-lesson is to be appreciative for the glimpses along the way (even if they’re not good ones), to play in boulder fields, to scream when necessary, to take as many corny pictures as possible, and to laugh so you don’t cry…
And even as I pursue writing… Actually arriving (whatever that means, and hopefully I do it) I know will not be nearly as awesome as getting there.
Hope this note finds all of you well, thanks again for your love and support this last year!
Feliz Viajes, (“Happy Travels” the standard goodbye of Peruvian trek guides)
Nicole
Anyway, so much has happened in the last few months it’s unreal. Ian’s last chemo session was in January, and every MRI and scan since December has come back completely and 100% clear. Also, all the side effects that the doctors warned us about: loss of hearing, loss of energy, not being able to walk up and down stairs… none of them happened, he’s stronger than ever before, and after the hearing test they said his hearing got even better. His hair and eyebrows are coming in nicely, and I continue to find it unbelievably amazing that the best thing that could have happened… did. We’re all so thankful for the hopes, prayers, and love sent to us throughout this year. We’ve been humbled and strengthened by all of you, and our gratitude is never ceasing.
At the end of February and beginning of March, four of my best friends and I went to Peru for a few weeks. We did the Santa Cruz trek through the Andes Mountains, and then went sight-seeing, and partying in Arequipa and Lima for the remaining time. It was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken, and the fact that I got to share it with my best friends made it all the better. A week after my return from Peru, we took a family trip to Vegas which was extremely relaxing, and fun. About three days after that I had all my things packed up in my last-leg Buick and I made the move out to New Hampshire to live with my Dad. I’ve talked about pursuing writing for a long time, and it’s about time that I actually start to do it… My Dad’s book (Here Be Dragons, you should read it… you’re welcome for the plug Dad!) came out at the end of 2009, and he has some ideas for projects that we both get to work on, as well as being able to use his guidance for getting published in magazines and journals. It was terribly sad to leave Colorado, my family, and the best friends that only come around once in a lifetime, but I am thoroughly excited for this chapter of life with my Dad, getting to be a big sister to Kennedy and Griffin, the beach, and actually trying to do this writing thing…
So that’s what’s up with me, but we all know it wouldn’t be a true Nicole note if I didn’t include some story, and the lofty life lesson I got from it… This one comes all the way from Peru…
The 3rd day of our trek in the Andes Mountains was a short day… we made it to our nearly 14,000 foot campsite by 11:30, and just got to play in the boulder field resting within the torsos of 6 giant glacial peaks. The peaks generated their own weather, and were constantly covered by dark, menacing clouds. One mountain in particular I announced as mine, and as it rained off and on all day I kept a careful eye on it, wishing away the clouds so that its peak could be revealed. We woke up the next morning at just after 4, before the sun rose, and my mountain still wasn’t clear. We started packing our bags, and putting away our tents, which proved more difficult a task than anticipated because our hands were so cold they were barely functioning. All the sudden the twilight clouds loosened their tight grasp, dispersed, and the jagged peak rising high above the glaciers, could be seen in all its Andean majesty. I’ve never seen a mountain so perfect. The girls got their cameras, while I stood and snapped from behind my mental lens for the 2 ½ minutes the clouds allowed us before swallowing her back up. I’m glad I was allowed that glimpse, because life is taking me in so many different directions; to new places and people and experiences, that I have no current intention to make it to my mountain again. But it’s interesting the glimpses life allows.
A few times during the trek I caught myself just speedily walking along, tunnel-visioned on the trail, not grasping the beauty of my surroundings, not consciously inhaling the freedom of life without cell phones and facebook, I was just focusing on getting to the campsite. But the trek wasn’t about the campsite at all… it was about the hike, the continual placing of one, tired, heavy foot in front of the other… it was nice to take off my pack and rest at the campsites, and the summit made me feel like a badass, but that wasn’t what made the trek… it was stopping to take every corny picture imaginable (if you’ve looked through the albums, you know exactly what I mean), it was falling in cow crap, and making Susan clean me off, it was not being able to contain my amazement at the beauty surrounding me, it was screaming the f word at the top of our lungs because we lost the trail in pouring rain, and the sun was about to go down… clichés become clichés because they’re true, and destinations really aren’t what life’s about.
My lofty life-lesson is to be appreciative for the glimpses along the way (even if they’re not good ones), to play in boulder fields, to scream when necessary, to take as many corny pictures as possible, and to laugh so you don’t cry…
And even as I pursue writing… Actually arriving (whatever that means, and hopefully I do it) I know will not be nearly as awesome as getting there.
Hope this note finds all of you well, thanks again for your love and support this last year!
Feliz Viajes, (“Happy Travels” the standard goodbye of Peruvian trek guides)
Nicole
May 23, 2009: News
Hey everyone,
Well, it’s been over three weeks since the surgery, and Ian is pretty much back to normal, his recovery after such a thing has amazed everyone. We also finally got some results from Johns Hopkins… I don’t like that I’m the one that does this, I can’t imagine being a doctor or someone that bears bad news consistently…
Basically, our oncologist, has never seen anything like this in all his years… and the doctors at Johns Hopkins (the ones that examine every tumor ever) said they’ve only seen it a few times, but only in adults… they’ve diagnosed it as “primary adenocarcinoma of the brain” and that it’s one in millions of millions. So there is no protocol, there is no standard, there are no stages, there are no predicted outcomes.
They originally wanted to stay away from intense treatments as long as possible because the short term and long term side effects are drastic at his age, but we are now aware that the tumor is very aggressive, and we need both radiation and chemo.
Here’s our schedule as of right now: On Wednesday, he’ll have a PET scan to search for tumors elsewhere in the body. On Friday, the doctors will insert a port to make any type of IV issues easier, they’ll also do a bone marrow biopsy. Radiation will start on Monday June 1, and will be everyday Monday-Friday for 6 weeks. He’ll have a break for a few weeks, and begin chemo the third week of August, and be done in March. And then no one knows…
We’re in a daze to the say the least; there are many tears at unexpected times. These last few weeks have felt extremely eerie… because everything was feeling back to normal, and there were small moments that I could pretend like it was all going to be ok… but it’s like we’re in the eye of a very massive storm, and we just found out that the worst is yet to come. It’s unbelievable to think that the surgery was the easy part.
Well we have this week of playing, and parks, and bike rides, and then treatment starts. We’re in for a battle, and ready or not, we’re going to fight… Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers, and standing by us. Keep it coming…
Still in shock,
Nicole and Family
Well, it’s been over three weeks since the surgery, and Ian is pretty much back to normal, his recovery after such a thing has amazed everyone. We also finally got some results from Johns Hopkins… I don’t like that I’m the one that does this, I can’t imagine being a doctor or someone that bears bad news consistently…
Basically, our oncologist, has never seen anything like this in all his years… and the doctors at Johns Hopkins (the ones that examine every tumor ever) said they’ve only seen it a few times, but only in adults… they’ve diagnosed it as “primary adenocarcinoma of the brain” and that it’s one in millions of millions. So there is no protocol, there is no standard, there are no stages, there are no predicted outcomes.
They originally wanted to stay away from intense treatments as long as possible because the short term and long term side effects are drastic at his age, but we are now aware that the tumor is very aggressive, and we need both radiation and chemo.
Here’s our schedule as of right now: On Wednesday, he’ll have a PET scan to search for tumors elsewhere in the body. On Friday, the doctors will insert a port to make any type of IV issues easier, they’ll also do a bone marrow biopsy. Radiation will start on Monday June 1, and will be everyday Monday-Friday for 6 weeks. He’ll have a break for a few weeks, and begin chemo the third week of August, and be done in March. And then no one knows…
We’re in a daze to the say the least; there are many tears at unexpected times. These last few weeks have felt extremely eerie… because everything was feeling back to normal, and there were small moments that I could pretend like it was all going to be ok… but it’s like we’re in the eye of a very massive storm, and we just found out that the worst is yet to come. It’s unbelievable to think that the surgery was the easy part.
Well we have this week of playing, and parks, and bike rides, and then treatment starts. We’re in for a battle, and ready or not, we’re going to fight… Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers, and standing by us. Keep it coming…
Still in shock,
Nicole and Family
April 28, 2009: Ian, One Day at a Time
So a lot of you know by now, but for those of you that don’t, I decided to write a little something so everyone who wants to be can remain in the loop…
Our world was rocked today… on Thursday my 4 year old little brother Ian, was sick and vomiting… and we didn’t really think anything of it because of how many things are going around… but there was a certain pattern of how things happened. He got a headache then would lie down, and vomit, and get really dizzy… then he’d sleep for a few hours and wake up fine. This happened again yesterday, so we took him to the doctor, and after checking him out the doctor scheduled him for a CAT Scan this morning.
It’s interesting how things can be fine, and a second later life will never be the same. The MRI revealed a brain tumor on the left side of his brain. It’s about 4cm and has calcium deposits… I have no idea what any of that means, except that they have to operate no matter what. My Mom and sister left school as soon as they found out and came home and woke me up, quickly jolting me from a pleasant dream into a terrible reality. We all gathered upstairs and played hot wheels, trying not to cry every time he asked us why we were sad. After the consultation with the surgeon they made an appointment for surgery on Thursday morning. We have to be at Memorial Hospital at 7:45am for an MRI, and the actual surgery is at 11:15am.
He’s not in any pain unless he gets a headache, and doesn’t really understand the severity of the situation. And neither do we, I guess. They won’t have results back until a few days after the surgery about whether the tumor was cancerous or not, so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now it’s just really frightening facing this surgery where a million things can go wrong, and to stay hopeful when we just want to prepare ourselves for the worst. It’s scary thinking about all the what if’s and the possibilities. It’s hard watching him play and smile and laugh and not respond with crying, because all of a sudden tomorrow isn’t as sure as we thought it was. All of a sudden he’s not just a normal little boy anymore…
We were sitting at McDonald’s eating chicken nuggets after the consultation and we were asking him about the CAT Scan. He got to hold his two favorite stuffed animals during the process, and Susan asked him, “Were you scared?” and he thought for a second and said “Yea, but I was brave.” And we know he’ll be brave through this whole process… like Spiderman, and Batman, his favorites. We all just need some more of that bravery too.
All your encouraging words have meant so much, even though there’s not much to say… We’re keeping it together, my grandma flies in tonight, we’re getting ready for camping out at the hospital, and bracing ourselves for whatever comes next… I’ve cancelled my flight to Africa until we figure out what’s going on…
If you pray, we’d appreciate your prayers the next few days, and especially Thursday… if you don’t, we appreciate your thoughts as well. Thanks for being in our lives…
Nicole and family
Our world was rocked today… on Thursday my 4 year old little brother Ian, was sick and vomiting… and we didn’t really think anything of it because of how many things are going around… but there was a certain pattern of how things happened. He got a headache then would lie down, and vomit, and get really dizzy… then he’d sleep for a few hours and wake up fine. This happened again yesterday, so we took him to the doctor, and after checking him out the doctor scheduled him for a CAT Scan this morning.
It’s interesting how things can be fine, and a second later life will never be the same. The MRI revealed a brain tumor on the left side of his brain. It’s about 4cm and has calcium deposits… I have no idea what any of that means, except that they have to operate no matter what. My Mom and sister left school as soon as they found out and came home and woke me up, quickly jolting me from a pleasant dream into a terrible reality. We all gathered upstairs and played hot wheels, trying not to cry every time he asked us why we were sad. After the consultation with the surgeon they made an appointment for surgery on Thursday morning. We have to be at Memorial Hospital at 7:45am for an MRI, and the actual surgery is at 11:15am.
He’s not in any pain unless he gets a headache, and doesn’t really understand the severity of the situation. And neither do we, I guess. They won’t have results back until a few days after the surgery about whether the tumor was cancerous or not, so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now it’s just really frightening facing this surgery where a million things can go wrong, and to stay hopeful when we just want to prepare ourselves for the worst. It’s scary thinking about all the what if’s and the possibilities. It’s hard watching him play and smile and laugh and not respond with crying, because all of a sudden tomorrow isn’t as sure as we thought it was. All of a sudden he’s not just a normal little boy anymore…
We were sitting at McDonald’s eating chicken nuggets after the consultation and we were asking him about the CAT Scan. He got to hold his two favorite stuffed animals during the process, and Susan asked him, “Were you scared?” and he thought for a second and said “Yea, but I was brave.” And we know he’ll be brave through this whole process… like Spiderman, and Batman, his favorites. We all just need some more of that bravery too.
All your encouraging words have meant so much, even though there’s not much to say… We’re keeping it together, my grandma flies in tonight, we’re getting ready for camping out at the hospital, and bracing ourselves for whatever comes next… I’ve cancelled my flight to Africa until we figure out what’s going on…
If you pray, we’d appreciate your prayers the next few days, and especially Thursday… if you don’t, we appreciate your thoughts as well. Thanks for being in our lives…
Nicole and family
April 19, 2009: Lost!
Hey all,
just a heads up, and a bit of an update since I haven’t been good at keeping you posted… I leave May 2 for 5 months for my third time in Uganda, and there’s too much to do in these next two weeks to even be excited about it yet… but I know that when I get on that plane it’ll hit… with no one left to say goodbye to, and no more American to do list, I’ll be able to look forward and smile at what’s in front of me. It’s interesting how different this time feels. It reminds me of one of my favorite songs right now…
But here’s the deal… I love Coldplay… I do… I’ve come out of the musical closet and I admit it, it’s not that I mean them any disrespect, it’s just hard to say out loud sometimes because I don’t like admitting that I am so moved by a band that so many other people like too… is that immature? I don’t know… Well, the song is off their “viva la vida” album called “lost!” I love the heavy beat in the beginning, and the clever opening phrase, but the lyrical line that repeats itself throughout the song, and that I enjoy most is “I’m just waiting til the shine wears off.”
I was with my friend Mark the other night listening to it and I, all too honestly, exclaimed how that line in particular is how I feel about life right now… and shocked he looked at me and said “what!? That’s depressing.” I didn’t have a good response, or explanation so I just said, “Yep!” But now I think I’ve got it. I’m not sure if it’s cynicism, or realism or if there’s a difference… but what I’ve had a hard time dealing with these last few months, and I’m clearly not saying anything new, is the constant realization that the grass is greener on the other side… and that the shine will always wear off… always.
I’ve been involved with Come, Let’s Dance since January 2007, and I never knew that doing what you love had downsides too… That even when you’re doing everything and more than you ever thought you could things still start to feel normal and tedious, instead of exciting and meaningful. Burn out issues still apply, and there are times I want to quit… And it is a depressing realization to come to, that when you chase after stars they become less bright…
It’s like discovering that clouds aren’t made of cotton and you can’t play in them, that plastic grocery bags don’t make good parachutes, that I’m not as invincible as I once thought, that home isn’t a real place anymore…
I think about everything I could have in place of this crazy life and sometimes it seems more appetizing (especially compared to months of rice and beans). I think about the friendships, the food, the jobs, the education, the relationships, the normality that I’ve chosen to give up. I think about how hard it is to say goodbyes over and over again to the people I care about, to not be involved in my scattered family’s lives, to not be a reliable friend to anyone unless they’re with me.
But then wake up calls happen, reminders scream their way into my brain, like when I read things from our web designer, an incredible guy that didn’t want any compensation, but just to go live with our community in Uganda and design things for us… I read what he writes (http://ricardoinafrica.blogspot.com/)… and I can’t wait to go back. I can’t wait to be a part of something that is changing lives even if it brings me stress and inconsistency. I can’t wait to hold ritah in my arms again… take a two minute cold shower twice a week… complain about our hill… hug “james the man” everyday… work until I’m too tired to stand. I can’t wait to cry at every heartache and laugh uncontrollably about things that later I’ll say “I guess you had to be there.”
And no, Africa isn’t as shiny, and won’t ever be as shiny as it once was. It’s not romantic, or ideal, or easy, but it’s a hell of a lot more intimate, and real, than it ever was when I thought it shined.
I guess I just keep figuring out that life isn’t always what I thought it’d be… I think everyone gets to that point, but I, in particular, have an appetite for repetition. Things usually don’t hit me until after the first million times they happen… but the key that works for me… is to love it anyway… it’s hard, and sometimes it just sucks, and this world is so dark, but I find joy in searching as long as it takes for the beautiful things. Our kids are beautiful, doing something you believe in is beautiful, Uganda is beautiful, Hope is beautiful. And it far outweighs anything else I ever dream about.
So here we go again… Many of you have been on this journey with me since 2007, and I am so thankful for your continued support and loving me through all the ups and downs of this crazy ride. The next time you get one of these it’ll be the kick off of the next slew of Africa stories. I hope this email finds you well, and I’m excited to keep in touch with you all while I’m gone!
Nicole
just a heads up, and a bit of an update since I haven’t been good at keeping you posted… I leave May 2 for 5 months for my third time in Uganda, and there’s too much to do in these next two weeks to even be excited about it yet… but I know that when I get on that plane it’ll hit… with no one left to say goodbye to, and no more American to do list, I’ll be able to look forward and smile at what’s in front of me. It’s interesting how different this time feels. It reminds me of one of my favorite songs right now…
But here’s the deal… I love Coldplay… I do… I’ve come out of the musical closet and I admit it, it’s not that I mean them any disrespect, it’s just hard to say out loud sometimes because I don’t like admitting that I am so moved by a band that so many other people like too… is that immature? I don’t know… Well, the song is off their “viva la vida” album called “lost!” I love the heavy beat in the beginning, and the clever opening phrase, but the lyrical line that repeats itself throughout the song, and that I enjoy most is “I’m just waiting til the shine wears off.”
I was with my friend Mark the other night listening to it and I, all too honestly, exclaimed how that line in particular is how I feel about life right now… and shocked he looked at me and said “what!? That’s depressing.” I didn’t have a good response, or explanation so I just said, “Yep!” But now I think I’ve got it. I’m not sure if it’s cynicism, or realism or if there’s a difference… but what I’ve had a hard time dealing with these last few months, and I’m clearly not saying anything new, is the constant realization that the grass is greener on the other side… and that the shine will always wear off… always.
I’ve been involved with Come, Let’s Dance since January 2007, and I never knew that doing what you love had downsides too… That even when you’re doing everything and more than you ever thought you could things still start to feel normal and tedious, instead of exciting and meaningful. Burn out issues still apply, and there are times I want to quit… And it is a depressing realization to come to, that when you chase after stars they become less bright…
It’s like discovering that clouds aren’t made of cotton and you can’t play in them, that plastic grocery bags don’t make good parachutes, that I’m not as invincible as I once thought, that home isn’t a real place anymore…
I think about everything I could have in place of this crazy life and sometimes it seems more appetizing (especially compared to months of rice and beans). I think about the friendships, the food, the jobs, the education, the relationships, the normality that I’ve chosen to give up. I think about how hard it is to say goodbyes over and over again to the people I care about, to not be involved in my scattered family’s lives, to not be a reliable friend to anyone unless they’re with me.
But then wake up calls happen, reminders scream their way into my brain, like when I read things from our web designer, an incredible guy that didn’t want any compensation, but just to go live with our community in Uganda and design things for us… I read what he writes (http://ricardoinafrica.blogspot.com/)… and I can’t wait to go back. I can’t wait to be a part of something that is changing lives even if it brings me stress and inconsistency. I can’t wait to hold ritah in my arms again… take a two minute cold shower twice a week… complain about our hill… hug “james the man” everyday… work until I’m too tired to stand. I can’t wait to cry at every heartache and laugh uncontrollably about things that later I’ll say “I guess you had to be there.”
And no, Africa isn’t as shiny, and won’t ever be as shiny as it once was. It’s not romantic, or ideal, or easy, but it’s a hell of a lot more intimate, and real, than it ever was when I thought it shined.
I guess I just keep figuring out that life isn’t always what I thought it’d be… I think everyone gets to that point, but I, in particular, have an appetite for repetition. Things usually don’t hit me until after the first million times they happen… but the key that works for me… is to love it anyway… it’s hard, and sometimes it just sucks, and this world is so dark, but I find joy in searching as long as it takes for the beautiful things. Our kids are beautiful, doing something you believe in is beautiful, Uganda is beautiful, Hope is beautiful. And it far outweighs anything else I ever dream about.
So here we go again… Many of you have been on this journey with me since 2007, and I am so thankful for your continued support and loving me through all the ups and downs of this crazy ride. The next time you get one of these it’ll be the kick off of the next slew of Africa stories. I hope this email finds you well, and I’m excited to keep in touch with you all while I’m gone!
Nicole
March 3, 2009: Love Hard
Hey all!
I thought I’d send an update via email and facebook, because I haven’t in a while… Hope you’re all doing so well! Well we’re 4 weeks out from the biggest event CLD has ever put on (in America). It’ll be a huge reunion for everyone CLD and a celebration of our 3rd year anniversary. We’re freaking out right now with all the planning, preparations, invites, coordinating. It’s seriously going to be THE party of the year, and the most EPIC dance party ever… (that was a little advertisement, if you were wondering, because if you’re reading this, you should definitely be coming!)
So in the last few weeks Jeremy came up with our new catch phrase, “Love Hard” it’s on our t-shirts, it’s the title of our promo video, it’s our mindset, what we want to hit home, and the challenge we’re trying to live up to everyday…
We’ve all been trying to define what “Love Hard” means to us. It’s difficult, because I often speak in lofty terms, using ambiguous words to describe ambiguous things, rarely diving into the realm of the tangible, and one time I was trying to explain to my friend James how in Uganda at CLD we’re more about relationships and loving people than programs, and projects. And, he sincerely asked me: “what exactly do you mean by loving people?” I was dumbfounded, and quickly very angry at myself for not having a good on-hand answer… I don’t necessarily think it’s important to always define things, but it’s good to be able to describe what you’re talking about. I’ve been swirling James’ question around in my brain for months and especially now that “Love Hard” is what we’re using as our slogan…
The first thing that comes to mind is the standard definition of love from the bible… ya know the passage that’s always read at weddings??
“ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
Hearing the phrase “Love Hard” reading a definition of love, and then trying to apply it to how I’m supposed to be living makes me really ashamed of myself… because of the needs I walk past every day, and how many opportunities I have to care about someone, and don’t.
I was in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago, and I was leaving my job at Red Robin and I got stopped at that stupid light for the Wal-Mart generated traffic. I looked to my left and there was a woman standing at the exit with a cardboard sign that I couldn’t read, but it was quite obviously asking for money, or food, or assistance. It was the kind of day that the sun was out and the sky was the bluest of blues, but the wind made everything freezing. I sat there in my warm car, frustrated at the red light, staring at her curly, tangled hair whipping in the wind and the way she held her head ashamed. Every car passed by and avoided meeting her eyes. At the peak of my harsh judgment toward the drivers’ lack of concern, she looked over her shoulder -- at me. Her brown eyes pierced straight through to my selfishness, my arrogance, and my own lack of concern, because I too looked away… just like everyone else. I rationalized every excuse of why I shouldn’t go talk to her, why I didn’t have time to get her a cup of coffee, why I couldn’t take her to lunch at Red Robin and hear her story. I knew the right thing to do, and I did the opposite. My light turned green, I kept driving, the moment passed, and I turned my music louder to block out my screaming conscience.
I think about her every day. I think about what a terrible example I am of what it means to love, and especially what it means to Love Hard. And the thing about that is: Loving Hard, means loving when it’s hard… and the thing about that is: it’s always hard…
It would have been uncomfortable to pull over, and walk in the freezing wind over to that woman, and ask her if she wanted to grab lunch, to let her know that she didn’t deserve to be ignored. But it was personal. There was a chance for rejection. There was a chance I would get screwed over. There was a chance that other people would think I was crazy. There was a chance that I’d listen to her story and figure out why she was in that situation and I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help her... or worse, that I could do something to help her, and then have to make the decision if I was going to, or not.
Well, one of the things we worked on this last week was getting all of our Recheal pictures and footage together, and interviewing everyone that could make it to Steamboat about her life, our favorite memories, what had happened, and how she changed all of us. We’re hoping to put together a memorial piece. It was really-really difficult, because even though it’s not the best way to deal with her death, we make it through by not thinking about it, by keeping the hope alive that it was all just a bad dream. This week that bad dream was transformed back into reality, and we were forced to bring up the heart wrenching memories again, processing with each other an event that most of us want to forget, and none of us want to talk about. I sat there in front of the camera breaking down in hysterics, realizing how un-ok I still am about the whole thing. I interviewed Julie, Jeremy, and Shane. Going one-on-one with each of them and the camera. Forcing myself to ask questions that I didn’t want to hear the answers to, because it was physically painful to watch them relive each of their memories, listening to the devastation in their voices, and understanding the deep wounds this has caused in all of our lives.
The common thread between all of our interviews was that Recheal loved like we’ve never seen. She fought for her siblings, and her friends to get off the street, refusing to leave them behind. She went to the slums every chance she could to visit her Mom, who had abandoned her, to make sure she was eating, and taking ARV drugs. There was never anything she was given that she didn’t take back to the kid’s house and share with everyone she could. She never let any of us long-termers stay angry, or frustrated and she never ceased to give the best hugs we’ve ever received. And it still makes me so angry and so sad that the best example I’ve ever seen of love, was so brutally taken from this world.
The definition Jeremy chose for our slogan is: Love hard is loving like Recheal loved… Recheal didn’t spend her time worried about schedules, programs, or to-do lists… she spent her life giving everything she could of herself, sharing, hugging, laughing, listening, and empathizing. Recheal wouldn’t have let me drive by that woman at the intersection.
My first few weeks in Uganda back in January 2007, a very sharp reality stabbed me in my gut, and I’m still working on getting over it. Because it was the first time I understood that I couldn’t save everyone, that I couldn’t be everywhere, that there wasn’t much I could tangibly do to help others. Since then, I’ve used it as an excuse to ignore the people, and situations that are blatantly thrown in my path.
I feel guilty for not stopping to acknowledge that woman, for forgetting the example Recheal set. I feel guilty about the countless times I’ve walked by hurting people, and said nothing. But guilt is a worthless feeling unless it inspires change… so I’m changing, slowly but surely… I’m learning to be aware of the needs I walk by every day, starting to take the time to care about someone else more than myself, giving more hugs, and realizing the right thing to do and actually doing it…
We don’t have much time to get it down. Just the other night there was a young guy, Stephen, that died here in Steamboat and it’s been really painful to see the community I have become a part of up here, mourn for a son, a brother, and a friend, and even though I didn’t get a chance to know him… my heart goes out to everyone that loved him so much… There’s just been too many friends and family that have died this year alone that have sobered me up from the invincibility I thought I possessed. Every time I blink, years pass by, and life is too short, and too trivial to do anything, but -- Love Hard. It’s the examples like Recheal that make life beautiful, that make this whole thing worth it…
Trying to live it,
Nicole
I thought I’d send an update via email and facebook, because I haven’t in a while… Hope you’re all doing so well! Well we’re 4 weeks out from the biggest event CLD has ever put on (in America). It’ll be a huge reunion for everyone CLD and a celebration of our 3rd year anniversary. We’re freaking out right now with all the planning, preparations, invites, coordinating. It’s seriously going to be THE party of the year, and the most EPIC dance party ever… (that was a little advertisement, if you were wondering, because if you’re reading this, you should definitely be coming!)
So in the last few weeks Jeremy came up with our new catch phrase, “Love Hard” it’s on our t-shirts, it’s the title of our promo video, it’s our mindset, what we want to hit home, and the challenge we’re trying to live up to everyday…
We’ve all been trying to define what “Love Hard” means to us. It’s difficult, because I often speak in lofty terms, using ambiguous words to describe ambiguous things, rarely diving into the realm of the tangible, and one time I was trying to explain to my friend James how in Uganda at CLD we’re more about relationships and loving people than programs, and projects. And, he sincerely asked me: “what exactly do you mean by loving people?” I was dumbfounded, and quickly very angry at myself for not having a good on-hand answer… I don’t necessarily think it’s important to always define things, but it’s good to be able to describe what you’re talking about. I’ve been swirling James’ question around in my brain for months and especially now that “Love Hard” is what we’re using as our slogan…
The first thing that comes to mind is the standard definition of love from the bible… ya know the passage that’s always read at weddings??
“ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
Hearing the phrase “Love Hard” reading a definition of love, and then trying to apply it to how I’m supposed to be living makes me really ashamed of myself… because of the needs I walk past every day, and how many opportunities I have to care about someone, and don’t.
I was in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago, and I was leaving my job at Red Robin and I got stopped at that stupid light for the Wal-Mart generated traffic. I looked to my left and there was a woman standing at the exit with a cardboard sign that I couldn’t read, but it was quite obviously asking for money, or food, or assistance. It was the kind of day that the sun was out and the sky was the bluest of blues, but the wind made everything freezing. I sat there in my warm car, frustrated at the red light, staring at her curly, tangled hair whipping in the wind and the way she held her head ashamed. Every car passed by and avoided meeting her eyes. At the peak of my harsh judgment toward the drivers’ lack of concern, she looked over her shoulder -- at me. Her brown eyes pierced straight through to my selfishness, my arrogance, and my own lack of concern, because I too looked away… just like everyone else. I rationalized every excuse of why I shouldn’t go talk to her, why I didn’t have time to get her a cup of coffee, why I couldn’t take her to lunch at Red Robin and hear her story. I knew the right thing to do, and I did the opposite. My light turned green, I kept driving, the moment passed, and I turned my music louder to block out my screaming conscience.
I think about her every day. I think about what a terrible example I am of what it means to love, and especially what it means to Love Hard. And the thing about that is: Loving Hard, means loving when it’s hard… and the thing about that is: it’s always hard…
It would have been uncomfortable to pull over, and walk in the freezing wind over to that woman, and ask her if she wanted to grab lunch, to let her know that she didn’t deserve to be ignored. But it was personal. There was a chance for rejection. There was a chance I would get screwed over. There was a chance that other people would think I was crazy. There was a chance that I’d listen to her story and figure out why she was in that situation and I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help her... or worse, that I could do something to help her, and then have to make the decision if I was going to, or not.
Well, one of the things we worked on this last week was getting all of our Recheal pictures and footage together, and interviewing everyone that could make it to Steamboat about her life, our favorite memories, what had happened, and how she changed all of us. We’re hoping to put together a memorial piece. It was really-really difficult, because even though it’s not the best way to deal with her death, we make it through by not thinking about it, by keeping the hope alive that it was all just a bad dream. This week that bad dream was transformed back into reality, and we were forced to bring up the heart wrenching memories again, processing with each other an event that most of us want to forget, and none of us want to talk about. I sat there in front of the camera breaking down in hysterics, realizing how un-ok I still am about the whole thing. I interviewed Julie, Jeremy, and Shane. Going one-on-one with each of them and the camera. Forcing myself to ask questions that I didn’t want to hear the answers to, because it was physically painful to watch them relive each of their memories, listening to the devastation in their voices, and understanding the deep wounds this has caused in all of our lives.
The common thread between all of our interviews was that Recheal loved like we’ve never seen. She fought for her siblings, and her friends to get off the street, refusing to leave them behind. She went to the slums every chance she could to visit her Mom, who had abandoned her, to make sure she was eating, and taking ARV drugs. There was never anything she was given that she didn’t take back to the kid’s house and share with everyone she could. She never let any of us long-termers stay angry, or frustrated and she never ceased to give the best hugs we’ve ever received. And it still makes me so angry and so sad that the best example I’ve ever seen of love, was so brutally taken from this world.
The definition Jeremy chose for our slogan is: Love hard is loving like Recheal loved… Recheal didn’t spend her time worried about schedules, programs, or to-do lists… she spent her life giving everything she could of herself, sharing, hugging, laughing, listening, and empathizing. Recheal wouldn’t have let me drive by that woman at the intersection.
My first few weeks in Uganda back in January 2007, a very sharp reality stabbed me in my gut, and I’m still working on getting over it. Because it was the first time I understood that I couldn’t save everyone, that I couldn’t be everywhere, that there wasn’t much I could tangibly do to help others. Since then, I’ve used it as an excuse to ignore the people, and situations that are blatantly thrown in my path.
I feel guilty for not stopping to acknowledge that woman, for forgetting the example Recheal set. I feel guilty about the countless times I’ve walked by hurting people, and said nothing. But guilt is a worthless feeling unless it inspires change… so I’m changing, slowly but surely… I’m learning to be aware of the needs I walk by every day, starting to take the time to care about someone else more than myself, giving more hugs, and realizing the right thing to do and actually doing it…
We don’t have much time to get it down. Just the other night there was a young guy, Stephen, that died here in Steamboat and it’s been really painful to see the community I have become a part of up here, mourn for a son, a brother, and a friend, and even though I didn’t get a chance to know him… my heart goes out to everyone that loved him so much… There’s just been too many friends and family that have died this year alone that have sobered me up from the invincibility I thought I possessed. Every time I blink, years pass by, and life is too short, and too trivial to do anything, but -- Love Hard. It’s the examples like Recheal that make life beautiful, that make this whole thing worth it…
Trying to live it,
Nicole
February 16, 2009: Shades of Grey
Hey all,
I’ve decided that I really want to keep writing updates even state-side, mostly to keep myself writing, but to keep those of you updated who have specifically asked… this list is very small, and I’m very ok with that… it’s probably not going to be as exciting as my Africa adventures, but here’s a little glimpse into my life right now! Thanks for wanting to be on this list (let me know if you think I should add someone!)
As I sit here and write, it’s almost foreign… I haven’t had time to actually sit and write for myself since I first came back in November, but it feels therapeutic and it may not be my best, but I’m glad that I’m doing it… so bear with me.
I’ve totally decided, as some of you may know, that when I finally lock myself away to write my personal masterpiece, it’ll be about the road. I’ve done a lot of driving in the years that I’ve been able: 5 cross country road trips, 4 of them by myself… I’ve been driving a ton especially since I’ve been back from Africa… From New Hampshire to Michigan to Missouri to Texas to Colorado and everywhere in between… and now I’ve been commuting back and forth between Colorado Springs and Steamboat Springs every few weeks, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite drives.
The last drive I took on Tuesday was particularly stunning. I felt like I was outrunning the perfect storm… the gray swirling clouds hung low to I70 and quick snow falls flurried across the highway, it was more of the same as I made my way north on route 9… and I thought I was definitely going to get caught in the pending storm on the pass. I hit the hills that lead to my favorite part of 40 west, the curves of the road taking me through the giants and as I looked through the peaks to the valley I was headed toward, the sky exploded into vibrant layers of pinks, oranges, and blues… colors I hadn’t seen all day. The clouds looked like they were born on the mountain tops and wisped off of them like playful horsetails in the sky, but the most interesting part about this explosion was that where I was, I was still encompassed in the gray. The warm light and dancing clouds wouldn’t be my present until I went over the pass… the only thing I knew, was that I was headed towards it, I knew if I kept driving that’s where I would end up…
I can’t help but feel like that’s where I am in life right now, caught somewhere on route 9, alone, between homes, between friends, between childhood and adulthood, encompassed in the grey… hoping that I won’t get caught in a storm, hoping that the sun won’t set before I hit the beauty. I feel like it’s a season, one that I want to hurry up and get out of, but a season to make it through none-the-less… I feel like a lot of life is lived in the gray, in between black and white, and lacking a whole lot of color. I go through these feelings often in times of instability…. When I’m everywhere and nowhere at the same time…
It’s a strange state to be in, because I’m loving everything I’m doing… it’s just that it’s hard and a lot of work, and the fruits of all this labor aren’t seen right away… like when I feed someone in Africa, it’s pretty immediate, but here, grant writing, and sending emails… talking to people hoping that they’ll want to get involved, or will be inspired in some way, I don’t see the change right away… sitting in 12 hour meetings (you think I’m kidding, but I’m not, haha) planning out what 2009 looks like for our organization is exhausting, and it’s crazy to think about what it actually takes to help people: all the effort, and money, and scheduling… our executive director, Shane, her favorite saying is “it’s fricken hard to help people” and I’ve never realized how true that is until now…
I never realized all the work that goes into bank wires, budget and policy meetings, speaking to classes at Liberty High School, picking up mail, addressing and stuffing 2000 envelopes, texting out a website, and keeping in touch with our vast community. There are not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything, let alone keep up a social life… But I’m super thankful for my friends and other CLD staff here in Steamboat, we’re all trying to learn healthy balances and how to stay sane, and how to persevere… because I know that if we keep going, around and over these mountain passes is a valley that I’ve glimpsed, and it’s beautiful.
Thanks for being part of my sanity…
A different shade of grey,
Nicole
I’ve decided that I really want to keep writing updates even state-side, mostly to keep myself writing, but to keep those of you updated who have specifically asked… this list is very small, and I’m very ok with that… it’s probably not going to be as exciting as my Africa adventures, but here’s a little glimpse into my life right now! Thanks for wanting to be on this list (let me know if you think I should add someone!)
As I sit here and write, it’s almost foreign… I haven’t had time to actually sit and write for myself since I first came back in November, but it feels therapeutic and it may not be my best, but I’m glad that I’m doing it… so bear with me.
I’ve totally decided, as some of you may know, that when I finally lock myself away to write my personal masterpiece, it’ll be about the road. I’ve done a lot of driving in the years that I’ve been able: 5 cross country road trips, 4 of them by myself… I’ve been driving a ton especially since I’ve been back from Africa… From New Hampshire to Michigan to Missouri to Texas to Colorado and everywhere in between… and now I’ve been commuting back and forth between Colorado Springs and Steamboat Springs every few weeks, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite drives.
The last drive I took on Tuesday was particularly stunning. I felt like I was outrunning the perfect storm… the gray swirling clouds hung low to I70 and quick snow falls flurried across the highway, it was more of the same as I made my way north on route 9… and I thought I was definitely going to get caught in the pending storm on the pass. I hit the hills that lead to my favorite part of 40 west, the curves of the road taking me through the giants and as I looked through the peaks to the valley I was headed toward, the sky exploded into vibrant layers of pinks, oranges, and blues… colors I hadn’t seen all day. The clouds looked like they were born on the mountain tops and wisped off of them like playful horsetails in the sky, but the most interesting part about this explosion was that where I was, I was still encompassed in the gray. The warm light and dancing clouds wouldn’t be my present until I went over the pass… the only thing I knew, was that I was headed towards it, I knew if I kept driving that’s where I would end up…
I can’t help but feel like that’s where I am in life right now, caught somewhere on route 9, alone, between homes, between friends, between childhood and adulthood, encompassed in the grey… hoping that I won’t get caught in a storm, hoping that the sun won’t set before I hit the beauty. I feel like it’s a season, one that I want to hurry up and get out of, but a season to make it through none-the-less… I feel like a lot of life is lived in the gray, in between black and white, and lacking a whole lot of color. I go through these feelings often in times of instability…. When I’m everywhere and nowhere at the same time…
It’s a strange state to be in, because I’m loving everything I’m doing… it’s just that it’s hard and a lot of work, and the fruits of all this labor aren’t seen right away… like when I feed someone in Africa, it’s pretty immediate, but here, grant writing, and sending emails… talking to people hoping that they’ll want to get involved, or will be inspired in some way, I don’t see the change right away… sitting in 12 hour meetings (you think I’m kidding, but I’m not, haha) planning out what 2009 looks like for our organization is exhausting, and it’s crazy to think about what it actually takes to help people: all the effort, and money, and scheduling… our executive director, Shane, her favorite saying is “it’s fricken hard to help people” and I’ve never realized how true that is until now…
I never realized all the work that goes into bank wires, budget and policy meetings, speaking to classes at Liberty High School, picking up mail, addressing and stuffing 2000 envelopes, texting out a website, and keeping in touch with our vast community. There are not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything, let alone keep up a social life… But I’m super thankful for my friends and other CLD staff here in Steamboat, we’re all trying to learn healthy balances and how to stay sane, and how to persevere… because I know that if we keep going, around and over these mountain passes is a valley that I’ve glimpsed, and it’s beautiful.
Thanks for being part of my sanity…
A different shade of grey,
Nicole
November 7, 2008: Breaking Even
Wow, wow, wow,
So I’m back in America… I got back on Monday to my Dad’s house in New Hampshire. And I guess I wanted to get out one more email about Africa to close this last trip... I really haven't even been able to constructively think about my massive to do list until I wrote this, because I've self-imposed its importance. So many things have happened these last three weeks that I feel like I could write a whole book about it, but bear with me, I need this for closure.
Since I had gotten to Uganda in May, we'd been planning an event called “Worship Night 08” that we, as an organization, were putting on with the church we work with (Light the World) for October 24th... Worship Night 07 had brought 2000 people, various Ugandan artists, and Euzoa (an American praise and worship team from Steamboat) to a church in Nansana, Uganda to pray and worship from 6pm to 6am...
This year, Wilson (the pastor and now ultra famous Ugandan gospel artist... Susan and I were in one of his music videos last year) and the other pastors at Light the World Church wanted to make this year’s event huge... renting out the soccer stadium in the center of Kampala, and having a line-up that entailed all the biggest gospel artists from Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, the African Children’s Choir, the most prominent African pastors, and inviting back the Euzoa band. I can’t even describe the planning that goes into a twelve hour event like this, and I sat in candlelight meetings in the electricity-less church in the swamp since mid-July discussing each and everything that needed to get done… As the night got closer the preparations became more intense, the Euzoa band flew in, advertisements were everywhere, Wilson was promoting on every tv and radio station, and the Monday before the Friday night event we got last minute funding to do concessions… Being the only person with concession experience (I'm sure everyone's heard stories of all my Dippin Dots shenanigans) I was appointed to orchestrating the whole ordeal for an expected 20,000 person event, and less than a week to figure it out.
We decided to hire all our sew shop women, and a few of the ladies from the Katanga slums that we've started micro-businesses with so they could make some extra money for a night of work, and that all the profits would be recycled into their programs. I was frantically running around Kampala buying materials, making orders, having meetings, for 4 long days… And finally the 24th arrived. At 11am I went to the stadium and it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be to keep up my spirits throughout the very long, but amazing night. A record-breaking 53,000 people crowded into the stadium, and were still standing after 12 hours of singing and dancing. The band and the rest of the CLD team had left just after 3am, and Julie, and Dan, (one of my new closest friends… he was a huge part of founding CLD, but is now in school in South Africa, and flew up for 10 days to play bass with the band for worship night) graciously stayed with me to finish up the night. We huddled together as it got quite chilly and watched from one of the top bleachers as the crowds welcomed the sunrise with songs of hope and restoration, it was truly breathtaking.
I made my way down to the concessions tent to close up, clean-up, pay everyone, and do the calculations. I had been doing the math in my head all night long, as I collected each money drop, and figured out that we were going to lose money, and I was sick to my stomach over it… because losing money takes on a different role in Africa, it means empty stomachs, and no school fees. . I received huge hugs from all the women who were all too thankful for the opportunity to work, and grateful that they were able to attend the event, as they got a special-hire taxi back to the slums. Julie and Dan loaded all the materials into CLD's truck, and then we stood there at 7:30am looking onto the absolutely devastated and littered stadium that just hours previous held 53,000 people. Now all that was left were a few ushers, the sound/stage crew, us, a whole lot of garbage, and marabou storks, which are the ugliest birds I've ever seen. Standing they come up to my chest, and are like overgrown, long-legged vultures. They have this red growth that looks like a veiny brain where their long skinny neck meets their body, a brownish sharp beak, gray frayed hairs on their bald heads, consistently malting dirty black and white feathers, and a deformed face. They eat garbage, and are carnivores if they can find meat, I mean we're talking seriously huge and disgusting. (google image it if you have the chance). Anyway, the Coke truck was coming to pick up their left-over crates of soda, and the empty bottles… they said they'd be there just before 9am, so Julie, Dan, and I stood around having the kind of scattered, non-sensical conversation that you're supposed to have when you've been up for over 24 hours.
We all wondered how the stadium was going to get cleaned up, and Dan laughed at Julie and me, as we talked about how during months of meetings, not one time had we ever discussed what was going to happen after worship night, it was miraculous enough that we had even made it to October 25th… At 8am a group of about twenty street kids, between the ages of 10 and 14, all lacking shoes and wearing tattered, dirty clothing, came in with a Fagin-like man who was carrying armfuls of large empty canvas bags. The three of us watched wide-eyed at the scene unfolding before us. Julie dubbed him the slum lord, and he gathered all the boys around him in the center of the stadium yelling and swatting at them when necessary, as the boys were super rowdy. He shouted one last thing in Luganda, and then threw all the bags in the air, chuckling to himself as he walked away. It was chaos, the boys ran after the floating canvas, and began punching and kicking each other for an empty bag because there wasn't enough for all of them. The boys that got a bag began picking up, and fighting the storks for all the trash in the stadium, and for each full bag they would be compensated a very small amount for their efforts. The ones that didn't get a bag, or had one stripped from them made mental notes to kick harder next time, and miserably left the stadium.
Our jaws dropped as our meaningless, tired conversation turned to questions of moral dilemma. Should we help them clean? Should we tell the slum lord not to hit them? Should we stop them from working, because children shouldn't be working? What should we do? We discussed our possibilities and realized that anything we tried to do would make things worse, for us and them, so we just stood there and watched, disappointed, exhausted, and helpless.
9am rolled around, and there was still no truck, I got a phone call from the driver, saying it was going to be at least another 45 minutes. I hung up annoyed, and one of the street kids started walking over to us. He stood staring at us with his empty trash bag draped over his shoulder. He must have been around 12, a few heads shorter than me, he was severely thin, with a long face, and sunken in eyes, but as he half-way smiled his gapped pre-teen teeth and one dimple let what was left of his innocence shine through. He reeked of paraffin and garbage, and put out his hand rambling slurred and incomplete words, of which the only ones we understood were "mzungu" and "500." (500 shillings is a bit more than twenty cents) His inability to communicate and his glazed-over eyes spoke volumes to how high he was, and his pleading ominously chorused with the almost audible shattering of our three hearts.
Julie grabbed a granola bar from her back pack and offered it to him, which he took, and ate gratefully while he tried to further communicate with us even though his brain activity was slowed to dismal speeds. Through a few words, but mostly gestures, grunts, and pointing we figured out his name was Moses, his father was dead, his mom was in a distant village, he had no way of going to school, he was hungry, and heavily addicted to huffing paraffin. The last part we discovered because he couldn't go more than a minute without deeply inhaling a plastic water bottle an eighth full of paraffin with a long bundled and tangled string inside. Dan listened to Moses' every rambling lovingly looking him in the eye while removing the grass, and dirt from his hair. With each inhalation his communication dwindled even more, he became more disoriented, and dizzy, and I felt like crying. Every time he asked us for money we would tell him we'd give him the money if he gave us the bottle, but he was very protective of it, and would hide it back in his shirt every time we motioned for it.
I excused myself for another phone call to the truck that extended its ETA another 45 minutes, and I returned to Julie's astonished and worried face. "What happened?" I asked. "I kept telling Moses that I'd give him the money if he gave me the bottle, and he really started to get angry, like he really needed the money but couldn't physically give up the bottle, and he was about to give it to me, but at last second he drank the paraffin, and started sucking on the string… Do you think he's going to be ok?" Julie asked concerned. Dan grabbed the bottle and chucked it, as Moses braced himself against me, because he was about to fall over. Julie laid out the garbage bag on the concrete next to the field, and the four of us went over and sat down on it. I got him a left-over bottle of coke to get something else in his stomach. Moses was reduced to grunts as he incoherently looked and pointed at each of us. "Why don't you lay down and rest?" Julie suggested, Moses nodded and she helped him lay down softly, and we all followed suit. We intertwined ourselves in a make-shift square on the trash bag, and I watched Moses curl up in a ball, his body all too familiar with sleeping on the hard ground. I examined his boniness, his customary tremble, the scars on his arms and legs, the dirt that had become a part of him, the way his feet were severely ripped and worn, and the spasms of his big closed eyes.
Julie placed her hand on him and rubbed his head, his arms, his back, and almost instantaneously he stopped trembling, and his eyes stopped their spasm, his breathing became heavy, and he fell into a deep sleep. I wondered about the last time he had felt a consoling touch like that, or if he ever had. I wondered how many times he had curled up in the same position scared and alone. I wondered how many times he huffed enough paraffin so he wouldn't feel so cold, so he could fall asleep in dirt, so the hunger didn't hurt so bad. My tearful eyes became too heavy to keep open, as did Julie's and Dan's and the four of us napped the most remarkable nap of my life on a garbage bag in the dirt with Moses. I have no idea how long we all slept there, it could have been minutes or an hour, our chests rising and falling together, sighing different types of exhaustion, breathing the air of very different lives.
Some amount of time later, Dan, Julie, and I woke up with a start, surprised that we all fell asleep so deeply… It was Dan's last day so he was running out of time to go home and pack, and spend time with his parents, and with no sign of this ever late Coke truck, I told them just to go, and that I'd get public transport home. They asked me 5 million "are you sure's" and after assuring them and reassuring them they got in the truck and took off… I reclaimed sitting on my spot on the trash bag, next to sleeping Moses, and let myself absorb the situation and circumstance.
Moses eventually woke up, and yawned embarrassed that I was still sitting next to him. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and we both stood up. He asked me for money three more times, but I refused because I feared he was just going to go buy more paraffin. I grabbed and held his hand, as he put it out for the last time and looked in his eyes, shook my head, and hoped he understood that if I knew how to save him I would have. He broke the stare and pulled his hand away, picked up his trash bag, mumbled "bye mzungu" and stumbled out of the stadium, he looked back a few times, and each time he did we waved at each other. And then he was gone.
I sat alone on a crate of empty soda bottles, feeling completely empty myself. It was almost noon, and I had now been at the stadium for over 24 hours. I had run a concessions stand for 12 of those hours, trying to earn money for a program in the slums, but I failed, and ended up losing money instead. The night had been awesome, but the overflow indirectly exploited street children. Julie, Dan, and I had shared life defining, intimate moments with Moses, and each other, but we didn't change anything about his situation… So what was it worth? What did any of it mean? The redundant phrases "you can't help everyone" and "you can't save the world" sprinted through my brain. Those words become harder to swallow staring into the face of that ambiguous term "everyone" and finding out his name is Moses… when the world that I can't save takes the form of a twelve-year-old little boy with shriveled feet and a hunger I know I'll never have to feel. The Coke truck pulled in three hours late, and I was pissed, I made sure they knew it too… They laughed in my face, because I was so flustered, and began making their inventory counts. I got over it and laughed at myself too, and as I went over the deposit and sell-back calculations with the Coke rep, I realized I had done something wrong, and he gave me way more money than I thought we were getting… I quickly ran some more numbers through my head, and realized that after everything, we were going to break totally and completely even. It was great news since I was heavily anticipating failure and losses I couldn't make up for.
The last few days I spent in Uganda entailed yet another robbery, and the most heart-wrenching goodbyes I've ever had to say, and it wasn't because I'm not going back, because I am, and it's not because I'm not going to see my Ugandan/American family again, because I will… but my Dad has reminded me of Heraclitus "you can't step in the same river twice"… and that's the source of the pain… it's not really the goodbye, it's mourning the loss, and acknowledging the nostalgia of playing, dancing, swimming, splashing, and nearly drowning in this particular spot of the ever changing river.
I am now sitting in one of my many "homes" that I'm fortunate enough to have across the world, amongst the fallen leaves of what used to be autumn, in a beautiful New England town. I replay the last 6 months in my head on fast forward repeat to an acoustic playlist consisting mostly of Ben Harper and Iron and Wine. I think about Moses, and I think about dancing at the kid's house… I think about Recheal, and I think about laughing with my best friends… I think about everything I have to get figured out, and everything I left behind… And I don't know how to reconcile the contrasts of this world, or even just my life… So here I sit, broken even… Not knowing if I did more good than harm, not knowing if I'm better or worse than when I left… To be completely honest, at this moment, I have nothing… no money, no phone, no compassion, no computer, no health insurance, no energy, no formal education, no license, no car, no great success, no official home… and sometimes no emotional stability… But I have everything I could ever want at the same exact time… I'm consistently surrounded by people that love me, the most incredible friends that span across the universe, and innumerable memories that mean more to me than any thing possibly could… It's uncomfortable, but it's addicting, this emptiness… and tomorrow I have the opportunity to start building it back, so I can give it all away again…
Nicole
So I’m back in America… I got back on Monday to my Dad’s house in New Hampshire. And I guess I wanted to get out one more email about Africa to close this last trip... I really haven't even been able to constructively think about my massive to do list until I wrote this, because I've self-imposed its importance. So many things have happened these last three weeks that I feel like I could write a whole book about it, but bear with me, I need this for closure.
Since I had gotten to Uganda in May, we'd been planning an event called “Worship Night 08” that we, as an organization, were putting on with the church we work with (Light the World) for October 24th... Worship Night 07 had brought 2000 people, various Ugandan artists, and Euzoa (an American praise and worship team from Steamboat) to a church in Nansana, Uganda to pray and worship from 6pm to 6am...
This year, Wilson (the pastor and now ultra famous Ugandan gospel artist... Susan and I were in one of his music videos last year) and the other pastors at Light the World Church wanted to make this year’s event huge... renting out the soccer stadium in the center of Kampala, and having a line-up that entailed all the biggest gospel artists from Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, the African Children’s Choir, the most prominent African pastors, and inviting back the Euzoa band. I can’t even describe the planning that goes into a twelve hour event like this, and I sat in candlelight meetings in the electricity-less church in the swamp since mid-July discussing each and everything that needed to get done… As the night got closer the preparations became more intense, the Euzoa band flew in, advertisements were everywhere, Wilson was promoting on every tv and radio station, and the Monday before the Friday night event we got last minute funding to do concessions… Being the only person with concession experience (I'm sure everyone's heard stories of all my Dippin Dots shenanigans) I was appointed to orchestrating the whole ordeal for an expected 20,000 person event, and less than a week to figure it out.
We decided to hire all our sew shop women, and a few of the ladies from the Katanga slums that we've started micro-businesses with so they could make some extra money for a night of work, and that all the profits would be recycled into their programs. I was frantically running around Kampala buying materials, making orders, having meetings, for 4 long days… And finally the 24th arrived. At 11am I went to the stadium and it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be to keep up my spirits throughout the very long, but amazing night. A record-breaking 53,000 people crowded into the stadium, and were still standing after 12 hours of singing and dancing. The band and the rest of the CLD team had left just after 3am, and Julie, and Dan, (one of my new closest friends… he was a huge part of founding CLD, but is now in school in South Africa, and flew up for 10 days to play bass with the band for worship night) graciously stayed with me to finish up the night. We huddled together as it got quite chilly and watched from one of the top bleachers as the crowds welcomed the sunrise with songs of hope and restoration, it was truly breathtaking.
I made my way down to the concessions tent to close up, clean-up, pay everyone, and do the calculations. I had been doing the math in my head all night long, as I collected each money drop, and figured out that we were going to lose money, and I was sick to my stomach over it… because losing money takes on a different role in Africa, it means empty stomachs, and no school fees. . I received huge hugs from all the women who were all too thankful for the opportunity to work, and grateful that they were able to attend the event, as they got a special-hire taxi back to the slums. Julie and Dan loaded all the materials into CLD's truck, and then we stood there at 7:30am looking onto the absolutely devastated and littered stadium that just hours previous held 53,000 people. Now all that was left were a few ushers, the sound/stage crew, us, a whole lot of garbage, and marabou storks, which are the ugliest birds I've ever seen. Standing they come up to my chest, and are like overgrown, long-legged vultures. They have this red growth that looks like a veiny brain where their long skinny neck meets their body, a brownish sharp beak, gray frayed hairs on their bald heads, consistently malting dirty black and white feathers, and a deformed face. They eat garbage, and are carnivores if they can find meat, I mean we're talking seriously huge and disgusting. (google image it if you have the chance). Anyway, the Coke truck was coming to pick up their left-over crates of soda, and the empty bottles… they said they'd be there just before 9am, so Julie, Dan, and I stood around having the kind of scattered, non-sensical conversation that you're supposed to have when you've been up for over 24 hours.
We all wondered how the stadium was going to get cleaned up, and Dan laughed at Julie and me, as we talked about how during months of meetings, not one time had we ever discussed what was going to happen after worship night, it was miraculous enough that we had even made it to October 25th… At 8am a group of about twenty street kids, between the ages of 10 and 14, all lacking shoes and wearing tattered, dirty clothing, came in with a Fagin-like man who was carrying armfuls of large empty canvas bags. The three of us watched wide-eyed at the scene unfolding before us. Julie dubbed him the slum lord, and he gathered all the boys around him in the center of the stadium yelling and swatting at them when necessary, as the boys were super rowdy. He shouted one last thing in Luganda, and then threw all the bags in the air, chuckling to himself as he walked away. It was chaos, the boys ran after the floating canvas, and began punching and kicking each other for an empty bag because there wasn't enough for all of them. The boys that got a bag began picking up, and fighting the storks for all the trash in the stadium, and for each full bag they would be compensated a very small amount for their efforts. The ones that didn't get a bag, or had one stripped from them made mental notes to kick harder next time, and miserably left the stadium.
Our jaws dropped as our meaningless, tired conversation turned to questions of moral dilemma. Should we help them clean? Should we tell the slum lord not to hit them? Should we stop them from working, because children shouldn't be working? What should we do? We discussed our possibilities and realized that anything we tried to do would make things worse, for us and them, so we just stood there and watched, disappointed, exhausted, and helpless.
9am rolled around, and there was still no truck, I got a phone call from the driver, saying it was going to be at least another 45 minutes. I hung up annoyed, and one of the street kids started walking over to us. He stood staring at us with his empty trash bag draped over his shoulder. He must have been around 12, a few heads shorter than me, he was severely thin, with a long face, and sunken in eyes, but as he half-way smiled his gapped pre-teen teeth and one dimple let what was left of his innocence shine through. He reeked of paraffin and garbage, and put out his hand rambling slurred and incomplete words, of which the only ones we understood were "mzungu" and "500." (500 shillings is a bit more than twenty cents) His inability to communicate and his glazed-over eyes spoke volumes to how high he was, and his pleading ominously chorused with the almost audible shattering of our three hearts.
Julie grabbed a granola bar from her back pack and offered it to him, which he took, and ate gratefully while he tried to further communicate with us even though his brain activity was slowed to dismal speeds. Through a few words, but mostly gestures, grunts, and pointing we figured out his name was Moses, his father was dead, his mom was in a distant village, he had no way of going to school, he was hungry, and heavily addicted to huffing paraffin. The last part we discovered because he couldn't go more than a minute without deeply inhaling a plastic water bottle an eighth full of paraffin with a long bundled and tangled string inside. Dan listened to Moses' every rambling lovingly looking him in the eye while removing the grass, and dirt from his hair. With each inhalation his communication dwindled even more, he became more disoriented, and dizzy, and I felt like crying. Every time he asked us for money we would tell him we'd give him the money if he gave us the bottle, but he was very protective of it, and would hide it back in his shirt every time we motioned for it.
I excused myself for another phone call to the truck that extended its ETA another 45 minutes, and I returned to Julie's astonished and worried face. "What happened?" I asked. "I kept telling Moses that I'd give him the money if he gave me the bottle, and he really started to get angry, like he really needed the money but couldn't physically give up the bottle, and he was about to give it to me, but at last second he drank the paraffin, and started sucking on the string… Do you think he's going to be ok?" Julie asked concerned. Dan grabbed the bottle and chucked it, as Moses braced himself against me, because he was about to fall over. Julie laid out the garbage bag on the concrete next to the field, and the four of us went over and sat down on it. I got him a left-over bottle of coke to get something else in his stomach. Moses was reduced to grunts as he incoherently looked and pointed at each of us. "Why don't you lay down and rest?" Julie suggested, Moses nodded and she helped him lay down softly, and we all followed suit. We intertwined ourselves in a make-shift square on the trash bag, and I watched Moses curl up in a ball, his body all too familiar with sleeping on the hard ground. I examined his boniness, his customary tremble, the scars on his arms and legs, the dirt that had become a part of him, the way his feet were severely ripped and worn, and the spasms of his big closed eyes.
Julie placed her hand on him and rubbed his head, his arms, his back, and almost instantaneously he stopped trembling, and his eyes stopped their spasm, his breathing became heavy, and he fell into a deep sleep. I wondered about the last time he had felt a consoling touch like that, or if he ever had. I wondered how many times he had curled up in the same position scared and alone. I wondered how many times he huffed enough paraffin so he wouldn't feel so cold, so he could fall asleep in dirt, so the hunger didn't hurt so bad. My tearful eyes became too heavy to keep open, as did Julie's and Dan's and the four of us napped the most remarkable nap of my life on a garbage bag in the dirt with Moses. I have no idea how long we all slept there, it could have been minutes or an hour, our chests rising and falling together, sighing different types of exhaustion, breathing the air of very different lives.
Some amount of time later, Dan, Julie, and I woke up with a start, surprised that we all fell asleep so deeply… It was Dan's last day so he was running out of time to go home and pack, and spend time with his parents, and with no sign of this ever late Coke truck, I told them just to go, and that I'd get public transport home. They asked me 5 million "are you sure's" and after assuring them and reassuring them they got in the truck and took off… I reclaimed sitting on my spot on the trash bag, next to sleeping Moses, and let myself absorb the situation and circumstance.
Moses eventually woke up, and yawned embarrassed that I was still sitting next to him. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and we both stood up. He asked me for money three more times, but I refused because I feared he was just going to go buy more paraffin. I grabbed and held his hand, as he put it out for the last time and looked in his eyes, shook my head, and hoped he understood that if I knew how to save him I would have. He broke the stare and pulled his hand away, picked up his trash bag, mumbled "bye mzungu" and stumbled out of the stadium, he looked back a few times, and each time he did we waved at each other. And then he was gone.
I sat alone on a crate of empty soda bottles, feeling completely empty myself. It was almost noon, and I had now been at the stadium for over 24 hours. I had run a concessions stand for 12 of those hours, trying to earn money for a program in the slums, but I failed, and ended up losing money instead. The night had been awesome, but the overflow indirectly exploited street children. Julie, Dan, and I had shared life defining, intimate moments with Moses, and each other, but we didn't change anything about his situation… So what was it worth? What did any of it mean? The redundant phrases "you can't help everyone" and "you can't save the world" sprinted through my brain. Those words become harder to swallow staring into the face of that ambiguous term "everyone" and finding out his name is Moses… when the world that I can't save takes the form of a twelve-year-old little boy with shriveled feet and a hunger I know I'll never have to feel. The Coke truck pulled in three hours late, and I was pissed, I made sure they knew it too… They laughed in my face, because I was so flustered, and began making their inventory counts. I got over it and laughed at myself too, and as I went over the deposit and sell-back calculations with the Coke rep, I realized I had done something wrong, and he gave me way more money than I thought we were getting… I quickly ran some more numbers through my head, and realized that after everything, we were going to break totally and completely even. It was great news since I was heavily anticipating failure and losses I couldn't make up for.
The last few days I spent in Uganda entailed yet another robbery, and the most heart-wrenching goodbyes I've ever had to say, and it wasn't because I'm not going back, because I am, and it's not because I'm not going to see my Ugandan/American family again, because I will… but my Dad has reminded me of Heraclitus "you can't step in the same river twice"… and that's the source of the pain… it's not really the goodbye, it's mourning the loss, and acknowledging the nostalgia of playing, dancing, swimming, splashing, and nearly drowning in this particular spot of the ever changing river.
I am now sitting in one of my many "homes" that I'm fortunate enough to have across the world, amongst the fallen leaves of what used to be autumn, in a beautiful New England town. I replay the last 6 months in my head on fast forward repeat to an acoustic playlist consisting mostly of Ben Harper and Iron and Wine. I think about Moses, and I think about dancing at the kid's house… I think about Recheal, and I think about laughing with my best friends… I think about everything I have to get figured out, and everything I left behind… And I don't know how to reconcile the contrasts of this world, or even just my life… So here I sit, broken even… Not knowing if I did more good than harm, not knowing if I'm better or worse than when I left… To be completely honest, at this moment, I have nothing… no money, no phone, no compassion, no computer, no health insurance, no energy, no formal education, no license, no car, no great success, no official home… and sometimes no emotional stability… But I have everything I could ever want at the same exact time… I'm consistently surrounded by people that love me, the most incredible friends that span across the universe, and innumerable memories that mean more to me than any thing possibly could… It's uncomfortable, but it's addicting, this emptiness… and tomorrow I have the opportunity to start building it back, so I can give it all away again…
Nicole
November 5, 2008: Appropriate American Response to Uganda
Dear Ryan,
It’s interesting that you’ve asked me to do this, because “what is the appropriate American response to all that happens in Uganda” is a question that is constantly on my mind, and after my cumulative nine months in Uganda (I say it like it’s a long time, but it’s really not) I still have no clue. And I just got back to the States on Monday, so my answer today will probably be different in a few weeks, but there is one thing that’s certain… I go to sleep every night worrying if we: collectively as Americans, the organization that I work with, me… are doing more harm than good. That this new boom of volunteer action and missionary development is just another form of colonization, another form of exploitation that mistakenly clears the Western World’s conscience. But I’m still young, and fighting off cynicism as best I can, so I find peace knowing that I believe in what I’m doing, and hope with the greatest of hopes that it’s actually making a positive difference.
When I got this question from you I was sitting with my Ugandan friend James in an internet café, and I asked him what he thought appropriate American response to Uganda should be. And he said “I don’t know, they should send in troops, get rid of the rebels, and leave.” But the thing is, James openly admits that he doesn’t know either, and when you really talk to him about it, he doesn’t have an opinion, because unlike Americans they haven’t been allowed to formulate opinions, to think critically or analytically… so the majority of Ugandans just go with the flow… they sadly don’t stand up to westerners (whether they are NGO volunteers, business owners, or foreign government delegates) because they think we know better at all times… they don’t disagree, or speak their mind, or influence the aid-work, because they fear if they don’t say a certain prayer, act a certain way, follow what “we” think is best, they won’t get food, or medical care, or insert any type of aid here… And aid efforts fail because of it… the simple fact is: we can’t change a home that’s not our own, the problems are deeply rooted in a culture and a way of life that we can’t even begin to understand. So when the change isn’t coming from the Ugandan people themselves, assistance becomes a selfish western attempt to implement good intentions that will never work.
Anyway, what do I think American response should be??
*Get educated on the issues… this will only benefit Ugandans if it’s from multiple sources, and as unbiased as possible… not stopping at what one particular organization says.
Once aware of these issues, it’s important to evaluate and analyze what the roots of the problems are, not just identifying the results of the problems. And as aid efforts are discussed or chosen, it’s important to ask questions about the methods being used…
For example: we need to stop going over there and building orphanages, because it’s increasing child abandonment and dependency on foreign aid. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a child without any family in Uganda… everyone belongs to a clan, or tribe, and all the children have extended family around even if one or both their parents have died… so when the western world provides orphanage after orphanage parents are itching to give up their kids, because at an orphanage they get a bed, three meals a day, and schooling. Orphanages continue to break down the family unit, and perpetuate a problem instead of getting to the root of it.
*Spread Awareness… but only if it’s valid information, and a cause that is producing a beneficial response.
For example:“Invisible Children” here's the deal: there is no more war in the north… and if you go to their website they’re still advertising like there is… it’s actually safer and more developed in Gulu than in the southern parts of Uganda… and the problem is being exaggerated, and continued by an out-of-date film, and people that think the only way to keep our generation invested is by representing a war-torn situation. I think the projects they have running in the north are doing great things, but sadly those aren’t the things people know about, and the awareness they are spreading stateside is false, and damaging to a global perspective.
So before believing the awareness being spread, or spreading something false, check your facts.
*Become a part of something:
donate… your time, your money, your skills
NGO's/NPO's always need funding, grant writers, researchers, people to be involved, understanding the cause, and advocating for it. Again, do research, make decisions based on organization effectiveness, and where your heart is, and get invested in it… I don't think every American is "called" to Uganda, and I think we do the country a disservice if we just ignorantly write a check to organizations whose directors own three houses, and have a warehouse that you could play football in, or that in a round-about way supports a corrupt government, and then continue on with our American lives. If you're going to respond, respond with true investment.
American involvement in Uganda:
I think that if done the right way, on ground aid workers can make a difference, but I also think that this new boom of volun-tourism is, although helping make American youth better-rounded, it's doing more harm to Uganda. Kid's Homes become like petting zoos for short-term American volunteers to hold a baby, and then abandon it again… to feed people for a day, and not care about their tomorrow… If short-term relief effectively plugs into long-term programs, I think it's a different story, but on-ground efforts must be persevering, dedicated and long-term to really accomplish anything. The focus of this aid also needs to be sustainability and empowerment, teaching people to fish, establishing solid education, and developing Ugandan leaders, so that Ugandans are able to take their own country where it needs to go, while the American role is just helping them get the tools to get there.
On this level, I think our teenage and twenty-something romantic view of Africa needs to be heavily counteracted… Uganda and all of Africa is an extremely raw place… children are raped by their family members and/or friends, they die from preventable diseases and accidents, all on a daily basis… if you feed a whole community they will all be hungry again tomorrow, the people you try to help will steal from you, it is unsafe, and you will spend the majority of your time breaking down cultural barriers, and convincing everyone that you are not an ATM… and there is a never ending list of problems, diseases, people, that you can't do anything about. I think Americans who choose to respond by doing on-ground work should weigh their decision very carefully.
The bottom line:
The un-exciting, un-colleged, not-what-i-think-ryan-wanted-for-his-project answer is: our American response should start by changing our American mind-set… starting by not wanting more than we have… giving away our "second tunic"… discovering what it means to love. When we begin taking care of our literal neighbors, we can begin to understand what it means to take care of our global neighbors… We need to make our government a good example, so we can help corrupt ones change… I am a firm believer that individuals not organizations, relationships not projects, love not money is what will change our world.
Nicole
It’s interesting that you’ve asked me to do this, because “what is the appropriate American response to all that happens in Uganda” is a question that is constantly on my mind, and after my cumulative nine months in Uganda (I say it like it’s a long time, but it’s really not) I still have no clue. And I just got back to the States on Monday, so my answer today will probably be different in a few weeks, but there is one thing that’s certain… I go to sleep every night worrying if we: collectively as Americans, the organization that I work with, me… are doing more harm than good. That this new boom of volunteer action and missionary development is just another form of colonization, another form of exploitation that mistakenly clears the Western World’s conscience. But I’m still young, and fighting off cynicism as best I can, so I find peace knowing that I believe in what I’m doing, and hope with the greatest of hopes that it’s actually making a positive difference.
When I got this question from you I was sitting with my Ugandan friend James in an internet café, and I asked him what he thought appropriate American response to Uganda should be. And he said “I don’t know, they should send in troops, get rid of the rebels, and leave.” But the thing is, James openly admits that he doesn’t know either, and when you really talk to him about it, he doesn’t have an opinion, because unlike Americans they haven’t been allowed to formulate opinions, to think critically or analytically… so the majority of Ugandans just go with the flow… they sadly don’t stand up to westerners (whether they are NGO volunteers, business owners, or foreign government delegates) because they think we know better at all times… they don’t disagree, or speak their mind, or influence the aid-work, because they fear if they don’t say a certain prayer, act a certain way, follow what “we” think is best, they won’t get food, or medical care, or insert any type of aid here… And aid efforts fail because of it… the simple fact is: we can’t change a home that’s not our own, the problems are deeply rooted in a culture and a way of life that we can’t even begin to understand. So when the change isn’t coming from the Ugandan people themselves, assistance becomes a selfish western attempt to implement good intentions that will never work.
Anyway, what do I think American response should be??
*Get educated on the issues… this will only benefit Ugandans if it’s from multiple sources, and as unbiased as possible… not stopping at what one particular organization says.
Once aware of these issues, it’s important to evaluate and analyze what the roots of the problems are, not just identifying the results of the problems. And as aid efforts are discussed or chosen, it’s important to ask questions about the methods being used…
For example: we need to stop going over there and building orphanages, because it’s increasing child abandonment and dependency on foreign aid. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a child without any family in Uganda… everyone belongs to a clan, or tribe, and all the children have extended family around even if one or both their parents have died… so when the western world provides orphanage after orphanage parents are itching to give up their kids, because at an orphanage they get a bed, three meals a day, and schooling. Orphanages continue to break down the family unit, and perpetuate a problem instead of getting to the root of it.
*Spread Awareness… but only if it’s valid information, and a cause that is producing a beneficial response.
For example:“Invisible Children” here's the deal: there is no more war in the north… and if you go to their website they’re still advertising like there is… it’s actually safer and more developed in Gulu than in the southern parts of Uganda… and the problem is being exaggerated, and continued by an out-of-date film, and people that think the only way to keep our generation invested is by representing a war-torn situation. I think the projects they have running in the north are doing great things, but sadly those aren’t the things people know about, and the awareness they are spreading stateside is false, and damaging to a global perspective.
So before believing the awareness being spread, or spreading something false, check your facts.
*Become a part of something:
donate… your time, your money, your skills
NGO's/NPO's always need funding, grant writers, researchers, people to be involved, understanding the cause, and advocating for it. Again, do research, make decisions based on organization effectiveness, and where your heart is, and get invested in it… I don't think every American is "called" to Uganda, and I think we do the country a disservice if we just ignorantly write a check to organizations whose directors own three houses, and have a warehouse that you could play football in, or that in a round-about way supports a corrupt government, and then continue on with our American lives. If you're going to respond, respond with true investment.
American involvement in Uganda:
I think that if done the right way, on ground aid workers can make a difference, but I also think that this new boom of volun-tourism is, although helping make American youth better-rounded, it's doing more harm to Uganda. Kid's Homes become like petting zoos for short-term American volunteers to hold a baby, and then abandon it again… to feed people for a day, and not care about their tomorrow… If short-term relief effectively plugs into long-term programs, I think it's a different story, but on-ground efforts must be persevering, dedicated and long-term to really accomplish anything. The focus of this aid also needs to be sustainability and empowerment, teaching people to fish, establishing solid education, and developing Ugandan leaders, so that Ugandans are able to take their own country where it needs to go, while the American role is just helping them get the tools to get there.
On this level, I think our teenage and twenty-something romantic view of Africa needs to be heavily counteracted… Uganda and all of Africa is an extremely raw place… children are raped by their family members and/or friends, they die from preventable diseases and accidents, all on a daily basis… if you feed a whole community they will all be hungry again tomorrow, the people you try to help will steal from you, it is unsafe, and you will spend the majority of your time breaking down cultural barriers, and convincing everyone that you are not an ATM… and there is a never ending list of problems, diseases, people, that you can't do anything about. I think Americans who choose to respond by doing on-ground work should weigh their decision very carefully.
The bottom line:
The un-exciting, un-colleged, not-what-i-think-ryan-wanted-for-his-project answer is: our American response should start by changing our American mind-set… starting by not wanting more than we have… giving away our "second tunic"… discovering what it means to love. When we begin taking care of our literal neighbors, we can begin to understand what it means to take care of our global neighbors… We need to make our government a good example, so we can help corrupt ones change… I am a firm believer that individuals not organizations, relationships not projects, love not money is what will change our world.
Nicole
October 14, 2008: This Is It
Well, hi there...
I was talking with Susan earlier this morning, and I said, “I think I’m going to send out a really heavy update email today...” and she looked at me and said “when are your updates not heavy?” But I guess that’s just it: Africa doesn’t entail a whole lot of lightness. Recently, and kind of always, I’ve had this huge sense of urgency... I always have to suck the most I can out of every possible moment. My friend Ryan once told me it’s the only thing I’m a perfectionist in. Well, in two and a half weeks I’ll be getting on a plane to Boston. I can’t even believe it, and I don’t understand how the last 5 months can feel like a lifetime and no time at all, at the very same time.
I’ve discovered that I really don’t like the fluidity of relationships or time, I hold on to things tightly and I don’t like it when dynamics change, but the truth of the matter is: things are and always will be changing… And if you’ve ever had to say goodbye to me, you know I always make a big spectacle of it, because I never want to leave things unsaid, because I know things will never go back to the way they were, because I hate leaving room for regret.
The whole situation reminds me of one of my favorite movies “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” If you’ve never seen it, the basic premise is about a procedure that is able to erase people from your memory. After the main characters’ (Joel and Clementine) break-up, the couple decides to erase each other. The movie mostly takes place in the sleeping mind of Joel, living through his last memories of Clementine as they are being systematically deleted. The movie does a phenomenal job depicting their relationship through Joel’s short and scattered rememberings, and is visually astounding as each scene literally crumbles and vanishes out of his mental grasp. It dives deep into the development of both of their characters, revealing the beautiful, the horrible, the uncomfortable, and the moving parts of their relationship. After a particularly fond memory is removed the unconscious Joel begins to regret his decision, and tries everything he can, trapped in his mind, to stop the procedure... trying to wake himself up, taking Clementine out of their original memory and hiding her deep inside other things from his past… but nothing works. Eventually they get to Montauk beach, standing together in the sand of the last memory he has, gazing upon the scene where they first met… “Well, this is it” Clementine says… Joel nods and helplessly asks her “What are we going to do?” she smiles, takes his hand and says “Enjoy it.” They morph into their roles, laughing, and running through their last minutes together, as the scene rapidly decays… the houses fall apart, the beach erodes, all the people disappear, the music crescendos until Joel is left alone.
Ok so that’s really dramatic, but I feel like life is going by at sonic speeds, and it only goes faster, (so I’ve been told a hundred times by my Dad)… and I feel like I’m standing, somehow omnisciently looking ahead at these next two and a half weeks, knowing that “this is it.”
Instead of memories being stripped from my mental grasp, I feel like time is ripping the actual moments from my physical grasp. And I’m so scared for these last 5 months of my life to become just a story, just an experience, just a memory… It’s not that I’m not looking forward to seeing my family and friends, taking a legit shower, Chipotle, or water accessibility, because I am… it’s just that I know in a few weeks I won’t be able to hold Ritah when I want to, I won’t have a huge hill to complain about, I won’t be able to laugh, cry, or be with the only people in the world that feel every ounce of what we’ve all been through, because after this, we all spiral to other places in the universe.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of our friends that did work in a really sketchy part of Uganda, bringing water to places with violent, feuding tribes, and as she described the danger, my mind eagerly raced to romanticize the adventure of it…. And almost as a response to the flicker in my eyes, she humbly and honestly admitted the disorders and the dysfunction that it has caused in her life. I distinctly remember wondering when my selfish, immature desire for cool stories would turn into disorder and dysfunction. And now, a few weeks later, I think I’ve arrived… the Africa I know now isn’t romantic, holding Charlie knowing that I can’t bring his parents back, or make sure people pay attention to him when he gets sick, saying that I love him when I’m leaving soon doesn’t appeal to me… the nobility of perseverance when people steal from us, and quit on us, when programs fail and we have to start over is no longer glamorous, it’s exhausting… loving people that don’t always love you back isn’t gratifying, it hurts…
It’s all made me really dwell upon the meaninglessness of life. We are but a breath in the grand scheme of things, and I will make no noticeable dent in the vastness of the ages… the efforts of CLD and every other non-profit in Africa, the dance parties, the full stomachs, the paid medical bills, the smiles, the heart-to-hearts, none of it really matters if you zoom out… and I’ve been sulking in that for a while, I’m still not completely over it, but I think it comes down to simple physics… because if everything is worthless, there must be an equal and opposite reaction screaming that everything is significant… if nothing matters, then everything matters, if it’s all ugly, then it’s all beautiful too… and because of free will we are able to choose how we look at an absolute… and even though it’s not everyday, today I choose the significant route…
Today, I walked through mud puddles, wearing flip-flops, so when I walked in the mud it flicked up on my legs and capris, dotting and staining my back side... I jumped around, danced, and held kids that have various worms, fungi, and were really really dirty. I sat in a church in the slums talking with our friend that we’ve empowered, Shakira, about our daily struggles, and I eavesdropped on Jeremy’s anti-dependency conversation with Pastor Godfrey... and I breathed it all in... my back hurts more than I can say, flies swarmed around the various small wounds on my legs, it was really hot, I probably look a mess (I’m avoiding mirrors though)... and I’m so sad that today is gone already...
The scene replays itself in my head... “This is it...” I want to bask in the crazy Kampala traffic, and walk more, because it seems to slow things down. I want to fully appreciate the places that make me relive my memories with Recheal. I want to capture the feeling of satisfaction at the end of the days that I don’t want to get out of bed, but I do anyway. And just fully absorb the conversations, the presence, the essence of the people I am privileged to live with. It’s just hard when I feel like the red African dirt is eroding beneath me, the walls of our house are crumbling, the kids are vanishing from my sight one-by-one, the drum beats are coming to an ultimate crescendo, and then I’ll step on that plane alone. Knowing that it’s going to happen doesn’t make it any easier, but it does make me more aware. Being the crazy person that I am, I deeply want to suffocate this situation I want to scream “what are we going to do?” I want to stop the flow of time, but I can’t do anything... so all that’s left is to enjoy it.
Here begins the sprint at the end of the race… no more side hugs, no more complaints, and no more “maybe tomorrow’s,” I’m going to live out this last leg stretched, and exhausted, not ignoring the pain, or the ridiculous annoyances, but embracing it, because I’ll miss it when it’s gone…
This is it,
Nicole
I was talking with Susan earlier this morning, and I said, “I think I’m going to send out a really heavy update email today...” and she looked at me and said “when are your updates not heavy?” But I guess that’s just it: Africa doesn’t entail a whole lot of lightness. Recently, and kind of always, I’ve had this huge sense of urgency... I always have to suck the most I can out of every possible moment. My friend Ryan once told me it’s the only thing I’m a perfectionist in. Well, in two and a half weeks I’ll be getting on a plane to Boston. I can’t even believe it, and I don’t understand how the last 5 months can feel like a lifetime and no time at all, at the very same time.
I’ve discovered that I really don’t like the fluidity of relationships or time, I hold on to things tightly and I don’t like it when dynamics change, but the truth of the matter is: things are and always will be changing… And if you’ve ever had to say goodbye to me, you know I always make a big spectacle of it, because I never want to leave things unsaid, because I know things will never go back to the way they were, because I hate leaving room for regret.
The whole situation reminds me of one of my favorite movies “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” If you’ve never seen it, the basic premise is about a procedure that is able to erase people from your memory. After the main characters’ (Joel and Clementine) break-up, the couple decides to erase each other. The movie mostly takes place in the sleeping mind of Joel, living through his last memories of Clementine as they are being systematically deleted. The movie does a phenomenal job depicting their relationship through Joel’s short and scattered rememberings, and is visually astounding as each scene literally crumbles and vanishes out of his mental grasp. It dives deep into the development of both of their characters, revealing the beautiful, the horrible, the uncomfortable, and the moving parts of their relationship. After a particularly fond memory is removed the unconscious Joel begins to regret his decision, and tries everything he can, trapped in his mind, to stop the procedure... trying to wake himself up, taking Clementine out of their original memory and hiding her deep inside other things from his past… but nothing works. Eventually they get to Montauk beach, standing together in the sand of the last memory he has, gazing upon the scene where they first met… “Well, this is it” Clementine says… Joel nods and helplessly asks her “What are we going to do?” she smiles, takes his hand and says “Enjoy it.” They morph into their roles, laughing, and running through their last minutes together, as the scene rapidly decays… the houses fall apart, the beach erodes, all the people disappear, the music crescendos until Joel is left alone.
Ok so that’s really dramatic, but I feel like life is going by at sonic speeds, and it only goes faster, (so I’ve been told a hundred times by my Dad)… and I feel like I’m standing, somehow omnisciently looking ahead at these next two and a half weeks, knowing that “this is it.”
Instead of memories being stripped from my mental grasp, I feel like time is ripping the actual moments from my physical grasp. And I’m so scared for these last 5 months of my life to become just a story, just an experience, just a memory… It’s not that I’m not looking forward to seeing my family and friends, taking a legit shower, Chipotle, or water accessibility, because I am… it’s just that I know in a few weeks I won’t be able to hold Ritah when I want to, I won’t have a huge hill to complain about, I won’t be able to laugh, cry, or be with the only people in the world that feel every ounce of what we’ve all been through, because after this, we all spiral to other places in the universe.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of our friends that did work in a really sketchy part of Uganda, bringing water to places with violent, feuding tribes, and as she described the danger, my mind eagerly raced to romanticize the adventure of it…. And almost as a response to the flicker in my eyes, she humbly and honestly admitted the disorders and the dysfunction that it has caused in her life. I distinctly remember wondering when my selfish, immature desire for cool stories would turn into disorder and dysfunction. And now, a few weeks later, I think I’ve arrived… the Africa I know now isn’t romantic, holding Charlie knowing that I can’t bring his parents back, or make sure people pay attention to him when he gets sick, saying that I love him when I’m leaving soon doesn’t appeal to me… the nobility of perseverance when people steal from us, and quit on us, when programs fail and we have to start over is no longer glamorous, it’s exhausting… loving people that don’t always love you back isn’t gratifying, it hurts…
It’s all made me really dwell upon the meaninglessness of life. We are but a breath in the grand scheme of things, and I will make no noticeable dent in the vastness of the ages… the efforts of CLD and every other non-profit in Africa, the dance parties, the full stomachs, the paid medical bills, the smiles, the heart-to-hearts, none of it really matters if you zoom out… and I’ve been sulking in that for a while, I’m still not completely over it, but I think it comes down to simple physics… because if everything is worthless, there must be an equal and opposite reaction screaming that everything is significant… if nothing matters, then everything matters, if it’s all ugly, then it’s all beautiful too… and because of free will we are able to choose how we look at an absolute… and even though it’s not everyday, today I choose the significant route…
Today, I walked through mud puddles, wearing flip-flops, so when I walked in the mud it flicked up on my legs and capris, dotting and staining my back side... I jumped around, danced, and held kids that have various worms, fungi, and were really really dirty. I sat in a church in the slums talking with our friend that we’ve empowered, Shakira, about our daily struggles, and I eavesdropped on Jeremy’s anti-dependency conversation with Pastor Godfrey... and I breathed it all in... my back hurts more than I can say, flies swarmed around the various small wounds on my legs, it was really hot, I probably look a mess (I’m avoiding mirrors though)... and I’m so sad that today is gone already...
The scene replays itself in my head... “This is it...” I want to bask in the crazy Kampala traffic, and walk more, because it seems to slow things down. I want to fully appreciate the places that make me relive my memories with Recheal. I want to capture the feeling of satisfaction at the end of the days that I don’t want to get out of bed, but I do anyway. And just fully absorb the conversations, the presence, the essence of the people I am privileged to live with. It’s just hard when I feel like the red African dirt is eroding beneath me, the walls of our house are crumbling, the kids are vanishing from my sight one-by-one, the drum beats are coming to an ultimate crescendo, and then I’ll step on that plane alone. Knowing that it’s going to happen doesn’t make it any easier, but it does make me more aware. Being the crazy person that I am, I deeply want to suffocate this situation I want to scream “what are we going to do?” I want to stop the flow of time, but I can’t do anything... so all that’s left is to enjoy it.
Here begins the sprint at the end of the race… no more side hugs, no more complaints, and no more “maybe tomorrow’s,” I’m going to live out this last leg stretched, and exhausted, not ignoring the pain, or the ridiculous annoyances, but embracing it, because I’ll miss it when it’s gone…
This is it,
Nicole
September 28, 2008: The Cost of Being Family
Hey Everyone,
I never thought I’d have to write an email like this... an update that rocks everything in me, everything that Come Let’s Dance is, everything I thought I was, everything I thought I wanted to do. It is terrible, and horrifying and long, and I wouldn’t recommend reading it, but I’d rather have you read it, than have to explain it over and over again... and if you’ve already read Shane’s email/note I apologize for repeating this story... and I apologize that I’m still not as put together as she is, and that I am not as full of hope... To warn you, I let loose on details, and the sheer drama, and am brutally honest to the point of worrying about the vulnerability of my feelings... ok, you’ve been warned, read at your own discretion...
To understand this story, you have to know Recheal Tendo... Recheal was one of the first kids at our kid’s house. Her father abandoned her, her mother, and her siblings (Matthew and Ritah) when she was around seven. Her mother (Cissy) wasn’t able to take care of them so Recheal began begging and living on the street to feed her family, taking responsibility for her brother and sister… She approached Wilson Bugembe everyday for food, and eventually became one of the reasons Wilson and his best friend Wilfred started taking in all the kids. Recheal was one of the first kids they took in, and the connection to other kids who were in a similar situation, and now we get to call them ours... Some of our kids literally owe her their lives, because of the way she fought for them, getting them food, a home, and an education.
Last year when Susan and I were here, she got really sick in March, and started staying with us a few times a week... we had fashion shows, did each other’s hair, and she always intently watched as we put on our make-up in the mornings, so we ended up always putting make-up on her too... Her little sister Ritah is my undisclosed favorite, and I always made sure to tell Recheal to take good care of her... but I never really needed to tell her, she always took good care of everyone, because that’s just how Recheal was... At the end of our stay last year, Cissy started coming around again after years of absence, now, HIV positive, and with another baby, Cathy. Recheal acceptingly let them into her life, and began advocating for them too... helping Cissy get rent money, and ARV drugs, making sure Cathy was being properly taken care of...
Last April, Recheal was also diagnosed with HIV and ever since then she’s been living at our house on the weekends. She gets really sick pretty consistently so she wasn’t able to go to boarding school like our other kids her age. So she stays at the kid’s house during the week, and then stays with us on the weekends to make sure she gets her medicine and rest… Being the only older kid left behind made her take on a lot of responsibility, but she thrived, and didn’t want it any other way. She was the house-mom’s special assistant, understanding and knowing the kids better than anyone. No one can rally all the kids for bath time, dinner, singing, games, or crafts like Recheal could... no one can lead songs that the kids actually sing, and no one copies my ridiculous dance moves the way that Recheal did... She has more friends than anyone I know, she stole every heart of every person that has ever worked with CLD, she effortlessly worked her way into deep friendships with all our twenty-something girls in our Girlz Ministry, she’s Jesca’s bunkmate, and closest friend, and has become like a sister to every long-term volunteer...
Last Wednesday morning, we were rushing around at 6am, trying to get our backpacks together for the CLD retreat. Recheal was a part of the chaos, helping get everything packed, and as she was going over my checklist with me, she commented on some hair ties I had, and how much she liked them. “Ooohh these are so pretty, can I borrow them while you are gone?” I looked at her anxious thirteen year old pleading, and replied “No, you won’t ever give them back.” she grinned one of her Recheal grins, because she knew she was never planning on giving them back anyway, and simply said “It’s ok.”
We hurriedly said our goodbyes, because we were already running late, everyone exclaiming apologies for not being able to come to Cathy’s birthday party on Saturday, telling her to do well in school her first week back, that her new hair-do looks beautiful, that we’ll miss her, and we’ll see her next weekend... our running lateness gave me an excuse for a quick side hug instead of fully embracing her like I should have and I grabbed my seat in the far too crowded van... We all waved and screamed thank-you as she closed our gate... and that was it...
Nine hours later we were at beautiful Lake Bunyoni, the deepest lake in Uganda. It was our American core, the people I live with, the people I share every joy and frustration with, the people who have seen me at my worst, the people who have become my family… Shane and her seven-year-old daughter Jesca, Julie, Jeremy, Susan, Mike, Laura, Deirdre and Torrie... We had an amazing time relaxing, taking our first break since the summer rush... It was incredible to experience life outside the Kampala chaos with the people who have become so close in such a short period of time. We swam, played volleyball, prayed, and sang. Coming together and honestly sharing our thoughts, opinions, dreams, and fears, as individuals, and as part of Come Let’s Dance.
On Sunday morning, Shane had scoped out an amazing spot for us on top of a mountain with a great view of the lake to have devotions, and we ended up sitting in a circle sharing our biggest worries, the things that hinder us from becoming the leaders we all know we could be, and tearfully praying for each other... all of those worries, and even the lake seem so shallow now... We finished just after noon, and got in the van. I didn’t really notice as Jeremy lingered outside reading a text message, starting to make phone calls. In the backseat, we continued talking about how great our time had been, when Julie quietly turns around, and explains that we just got a text message from Julius saying “Recheal died in an accident, hard to believe.”
You could visibly see everyone’s mind start racing with thoughts and questions... which Rachel? Wait what’s going on? This can’t really be happening... Jeremy couldn’t get a hold of anyone, and Shane was exploding, telling me if he didn’t hurry up, she was going to rip the phone out of his hands, while I sit there cruelly ranking the importance of every Rachel we know. The suspended questioning left us all shocked and emotionless for the few minutes before we got our answers.
Julie starts driving, because no matter who it was, we were going home. Jeremy finally gets a hold of Wilfred, “which Recheal?” he asks... and we all hold our breath, but I think we all already knew... “Tendo” Jeremy repeats, apologizes profusely, and hangs up... We scream, and I swallow the vomit that rises up, Jesca looks so scared and confused, and Julie brakes, her tears too much for her to see, so Jeremy switches her spots to drive... we pull into our camp, everyone completely shattered and sobbing, rushing to our tents to pack our stuff... We walk past tourists with questioning stares, and I am so pissed that the world hasn’t stopped yet, that everything kept going, and that no one understands that a major tragedy is happening. I don’t get why the universe doesn’t make exceptions for situations like this and just slow down for a while... but it didn’t, so we finished packing, and loaded into the van. Julie and Shane look at each other through open windows on opposite sides, and Julie whispers a hopeless, helpless, questioning “Shane” and Shane’s response is “I know” before we all burst into tears again... Jesca chaotically looks from face to face, Jeremy’s head remains in his hands, Deirdre is aimlessly staring, Torrie’s eyes shift avoiding prolonged focus on anyone or anything, Susan can’t stop the flood of tears, Laura’s head hangs low, and I just bite my lip to keep me in the present, and whimper...
Julie pulls away, I don’t know how she managed to drive us all... but she did, and strongly endured hours of inconsistent crying, dodging pothole after pothole, truck after truck, person after person... In the backseat, we began talking through the situation in the simplest way for Jesca to understand, voicing our favorite memories... thoughts of her overflowed and overwhelmed my mind... The time she helped Susan and me wash all the little girls, because they all wet the bed during the sleepover from hell... When she would tell a story in an excited gust of mispronounced words that I didn’t understand except the punch-line... “and then she said “oh crack...”” and it would be hilarious even if I had no clue what was going on... Getting so mad when she’d try to brush or braid my hair, because I have curly hair, and when fingers run through it, it gets really frizzy... And as fleeting, and overwhelming as my emotions are I watch Jesca physically go through every single one of them in those nine hours... acting out her sadness, fear, anger, restlessness, and confusion...
We get home at almost 2am, and still don’t even know the whole story. I couldn’t sleep, and was extremely thankful that the morning finally came so we could go be with everyone. The morning started out slow, but as plans were made, everything started moving in fast forward... we come to find out that because of the nature of the accident, the family is insisting on doing the burial that day. After various stops and errands we arrive at the church, where everyone will gather and then proceed to the burial site. James the Man opens my door and I fall into his arms, he rubs my back and calmly shushes my wails... and I ask him to tell me exactly what happened, but he won’t until I calm myself down and convince him that I am strong enough to hear it...
She was coming home from church with Ritah on a boda (like a motorcycle) she fell off the back of it, and then got hit by a taxi so hard that it became a gruesome horrifying scene. She was immediately knocked unconscious, the boda driver unsympathetically bailed on Ritah, who witnessed the whole thing, and drove off, as did the taxi. Someone pulled her from the middle of the road, and another recognized her from our kid’s house and called Wilfred. Then, like I’ve seen done before, a multitude of people surrounded and gathered to watch her die. Except for the phone call, no one even tried to help. Everyone said that she was gone within minutes, no screaming, no noticeable suffering, it was just quick...Wilfred, Ben, Phillip, and James the Man arrive shortly after, and have to take her body to the mortuary and begin notifying everyone. Apparently it took four men to hold Cissy down so she wouldn’t throw herself into oncoming traffic when she found out... (her Luganda screams consist of “and me God, take me too” and “I have no more reason to live”)
I thank James for being so honest with me, but by now I’ve lost all control over the start and stop of my tears as our entire community starts showing up on the church hill, and I hug, exchanging sobs, and knowing glances with each one of them... Wilfred finally arrives... him and Shane just look at each other; they can’t even speak, because there are no words to say when they both have lost a daughter... Wilfred is just a few years older than me... we’re all still kids, when did we all of a sudden become the grown-ups that are supposed to make the plans, and make sure everyone else is ok? His lip quivers, I’ve never seen pain personified like that before. I had to look away.
We decide to try and meet the procession of taxis filled with our kids from the house, the kids from her school, and the truck carrying the coffin at the top of the hill... but we’re too late, the truck has already made it half way down, and we all pull over as Cissy gets out of the truck Julie is driving and demands that the coffin be removed and opened. There are terrifying, shrill screams, like I have never heard, from the hundred people that have gathered. The wooden box is opened, and everyone shouts, repeating, wailing, “Recheal, Recheal...” the taxi with our kids shows up, and they all rush to see her body. Her closest friends begin hyperventilating, and Shane starts yelling “why are they doing this? Is this cultural? Oh my God, where is Jesca?” Jeremy and I begin frantically looking for Jesca, and Jeremy finds her in the inner circle that has formed around Recheal, staring, traumatized and whimpering, we get her to Shane and Jesca latches on to her neck, “I mean, this is a nightmare right? This is too horrifying to actually be happening right? We’re going to wake up right?” Shane rhetorically asks me.
I become part of the chaos, as my legs almost give out while the reality of the body I just saw invades every inch of me, and I brace myself against a tree, hands on my knees, and focus on breathing because it’s not an involuntary action anymore... The coffin gets put away, and we think it’s time to head out when Ritah and Matthew arrive. I grab Ritah from out of the taxi and immediately take her away from the crowd, stroking the back of her crying head. I guess it’s part of the culture thing, but they pull the coffin back out, and I watch from a distance as Jeremy strongly, and lovingly holds a convulsing and screaming eleven-year-old Matthew as the extended family forces him to look at his sister’s body...
Things eventually settle down again, and everyone loads into the vehicles for the three hour drive to the burial spot in the village where Recheal was born... A completely checked out Matthew sits on mine and Susan’s lap, he won’t respond to anything, blankly staring out the window... I lose a contact in the flood of tears...We are cramped beyond belief, transporting the hundreds of people who loved Recheal so much that they dropped everything in a moments notice to travel like sardines, three hours away for a funeral service.
The bumpy dirt village road led us past hut after hut amidst banana plantations, and other crops that I didn’t recognize. We finally arrive at the hut Recheal grew up in, and there are tarps and benches set up in the dirt “front-yard” of the house. As soon as we all arrive the dark clouds gather and the sky lets out a tantrum that continued on and off for the rest of the day, and I’m glad. I would have been even more mad at God if the sky hadn’t been empathetic... The downpours turned the entire village into a thick mud pit, and the afternoon was filled with soaking wet embraces, slipping from place to place in the muck trying to be of assistance anywhere I could be, but not really being able to do anything except wait.
At one point Torrie, Susan, Julie, Jeremy and I, were sitting under one of the ripped tarps, still getting wet. Ritah was playing hand clapping games with me on my lap, and a bunch of our kids scattered around underneath it seeking at least some shelter from the storm, and we begin to speak of our favorite memories. I can’t voice mine, but they race through my brain... Trying to entertain our volunteer teams together at the kid’s house this summer, brainstorming songs to sing, and dances to show off, looking at each other for new ideas, and laughing because we didn’t know what to do... Jumping and dancing and shouting with her, because we got covered in mud when the drill team hit water at the kid’s house... Screaming “You are the Music in Me” from high school musical 2 from room to room because she knew every word... I loved sitting there absorbing the other stories, mostly from Jeremy... I love how his face lights up when he talks about her, and how perfectly he imitates her lingo, and accent... I loved how in the midst of trauma and despair Jeremy insisted on telling funny stories, acting them out to make the kids laugh... I can’t help but to hope that one day I’ll be able to love people like Jeremy does, and that one day my strength will be seen even in glistening tears, like I see his... I couldn’t even express my thankfulness to him for doing what everyone needed, but couldn’t do themselves. He’s really become the most incredible guy I’ve ever known.
The rain stops and I continue playing with Ritah under the tarp, Jer comes back to tell me that the grave is almost ready, so we should say our final goodbyes. I ask Ritah if she wants to come with me, but she explains how if she goes to see Recheal she’ll cry, and that she doesn’t like crying, and her Mom and Auntie are in there, and she doesn’t know why, but she’s really angry at them, so she just wants to sit. I don’t know how to explain to a seven-year-old that it’s ok if she cries, and it’s ok that she’s angry. Susan had made her peace already, so she took Ritah from me, and I walked inside the mud house that now held at least a dozen mourning jaja’s (older women in the community). Julie was crying in the opposite doorway, and I knelt down next to Cissy at Recheal’s head and painfully made myself look, and suck deep breaths of reality, being choked by the thick foul air I inhaled... Some of our older kids crowded into the doorway behind me. I stood up to embrace them...
Fourteen year old beautiful Bravery clung to me, sobbing, gripping my arms and back, while I kept her standing, because she just wanted to crumble... she was the perfect height to bury her head in my chest, and for me to rest my head on hers... And as we wept looking at Recheal, letting the reality set in, the horde of mourning jaja’s began to sing Lugandan hymns. I gathered Peggy and Maddie, who were standing behind me, wishing I had more arms to hold them too, and intently looked each of them in the eye. I fought to keep composure long enough to speak louder than the wails, and the songs... “Promise me, promise Recheal that when you remember her, you don’t remember her like this, you don’t ever think back to her in this coffin, this is only to say goodbye... when you remember her, remember how she danced, remember the songs she would sing, remember her smile, and how hard she used to laugh.” They all brokenly nodded, and acknowledged that they heard me, but I hope they understood. I hope I eventually follow my own words... because right now, all I can see every time I close my eyes is her swollen and bandaged lifeless face... I fight it, I fight it so hard, and it must be working, because it’s getting easier to remember the dancing Recheal that I knew, everyday.
The pastors begin speaking, and the people who knew her best share stories, comforting words, and goodbyes... the rain has let up a bit again, so everyone stands in a huge circle outside. James the Man holds my shaking hand through the entire service... We make our way around the back of the house, through the bush, and the mud following the now closed coffin. Another circle forms around the freshly dug grave, and I hummed the tunes of songs that I didn’t know, arms intertwined with Moses, and Mugabi who belted them out... Jeremy and Julie watched arms around each other, Shane held Ann’s hand as they threw dirt in the grave together, and Susan held a confused Jesca, tears streaming. We are a family, and it doesn’t matter anymore where we come from, or what color skin we have, because we’ve been bonded unbreakably by the love we all shared for our Recheal, and the magnified love we discovered we have for each other...
The crowd dwindled leaving just our core, and our closest Ugandan family, singing, and praying as the men from our community finished filling in, and cementing the grave... Shane grabbed a stick and wrote “We love you too” on one of the edges of the wet cement, and wrote Recheal’s name, dates, and dash on the top of it... we heaved our final goodbyes... closing in a hopeful prayer, and we each walked our own way back to the vehicles, for the three hour return journey...
Later that night we all talked about how we never really appreciated those few days before a funeral until now, because the whole thing happened in just over 24 hours and there was absolutely no closure. Instead of the partial closing that funeral’s usually offer it’s become the beginning of the grieving process.
I wake up in the mornings thinking I’m ready to face the day, and realize that I’m wrong, so I go back and curl up in a ball in my bed, thinking that if I could hide just a bit longer, it’ll prepare me, and I’ll be ok... but I’m not ok, and whether we’re ready or not, here it comes... life, new mornings and long evenings... more tears, more people to be strong for, and a group of kids that need us now more than ever.
It just hasn’t sunk in yet that we don’t get to go back to Recheal, we don’t get to go back to how things were... We don’t get to go back to giving her granola bars, and getting her sodas when she would get sick, helping her set-up a movie, because she was too weak to do anything but lie on our couch all day... I don’t get to learn Luganda from her anymore... we don’t get anymore pictures, or anymore smiles...
We’ve been at the kid’s house a few days this week, when we can muster up the strength to go, but it really hurts being there, because every room, the balcony, the porch, the yard, the kitchen and every other part of the compound screams her name, and is stained with her memory... Phantom itches haunt my thoughts, like when we pull away from the kid’s house I want to shout, wait where’s Recheal... when I try to rally the kids to do something, I think, where is Recheal... even though I know she is gone... and I know we can’t go back, because the only thing life cruelly makes us do is move forward at a constant rate, living with the painful memories of our friend and sister whose life was stolen from her all too quickly... and nothing will ever be the same.
I don’t ever want to answer the “how was Africa?” question again, because people don’t want to hear a response that says “part of my family died, and part of me died with her.” Africa has lost all of its innocence, everything is dark, everything is ugly, everything is corrupt... the circle of life from the Lion King does not make any of this ok, what I thought were good intentions, have all turned sour, and has left the most bitter of tastes in my mouth... I wanted to work with dying kids, but I never wanted one of them to actually die.
I wish I would have let her play with my hair more, that I would have just let her take the hair ties she wanted to borrow, that I knew where I put each and every picture she drew me, and every note she wrote me... And I don’t want to get used to the fact that she’s gone, I don’t want to miss her less and less... I don’t want to just continue on with life here, because it’s not right to do it without Recheal...
And a lot of people want to know how all of us are doing, and at least for me, the honest answer is “not good” we watch movies to distract ourselves at night, and I haven’t been able to sleep, but I never want to get out of bed... my mood changes every hour, if not every minute, and it’s a mix between numbness, hysteria, anger, shut down, and sorrow... And I know we’ll move on, and I know “things will be ok” whatever the hell that means, but right now, I’ve decided that I’m ok with giving the situation the misery it deserves... because a thirteen year old little girl, who meant so much to so many people, is gone now, and if anything deserves misery, it’s this...
I’m really sorry to all the people who loved Recheal so much, and I feel ashamed falling apart in front of people whose grief must be so much greater than my own... I’m really sorry to all of you who knew her so well, that don’t get to be here to mourn with us, because you’re part of our family too, and we miss you all like crazy...
Tomorrow will be hard because we have to face it without Recheal, but I know that we’re all in this together (High School Musical pun intended) and even though I have no clue what restoration looks like, or when the days will get easier, this last week has shown us that there’s still so much worth fighting for... So we’ll take a few minutes to sweat and bleed in our corner, absorb the encouragement coaching us through, and muster up enough strength to go another round... for our kids, for our friends, for our family, for Recheal...
With all the love that I have,
Nicole
I never thought I’d have to write an email like this... an update that rocks everything in me, everything that Come Let’s Dance is, everything I thought I was, everything I thought I wanted to do. It is terrible, and horrifying and long, and I wouldn’t recommend reading it, but I’d rather have you read it, than have to explain it over and over again... and if you’ve already read Shane’s email/note I apologize for repeating this story... and I apologize that I’m still not as put together as she is, and that I am not as full of hope... To warn you, I let loose on details, and the sheer drama, and am brutally honest to the point of worrying about the vulnerability of my feelings... ok, you’ve been warned, read at your own discretion...
To understand this story, you have to know Recheal Tendo... Recheal was one of the first kids at our kid’s house. Her father abandoned her, her mother, and her siblings (Matthew and Ritah) when she was around seven. Her mother (Cissy) wasn’t able to take care of them so Recheal began begging and living on the street to feed her family, taking responsibility for her brother and sister… She approached Wilson Bugembe everyday for food, and eventually became one of the reasons Wilson and his best friend Wilfred started taking in all the kids. Recheal was one of the first kids they took in, and the connection to other kids who were in a similar situation, and now we get to call them ours... Some of our kids literally owe her their lives, because of the way she fought for them, getting them food, a home, and an education.
Last year when Susan and I were here, she got really sick in March, and started staying with us a few times a week... we had fashion shows, did each other’s hair, and she always intently watched as we put on our make-up in the mornings, so we ended up always putting make-up on her too... Her little sister Ritah is my undisclosed favorite, and I always made sure to tell Recheal to take good care of her... but I never really needed to tell her, she always took good care of everyone, because that’s just how Recheal was... At the end of our stay last year, Cissy started coming around again after years of absence, now, HIV positive, and with another baby, Cathy. Recheal acceptingly let them into her life, and began advocating for them too... helping Cissy get rent money, and ARV drugs, making sure Cathy was being properly taken care of...
Last April, Recheal was also diagnosed with HIV and ever since then she’s been living at our house on the weekends. She gets really sick pretty consistently so she wasn’t able to go to boarding school like our other kids her age. So she stays at the kid’s house during the week, and then stays with us on the weekends to make sure she gets her medicine and rest… Being the only older kid left behind made her take on a lot of responsibility, but she thrived, and didn’t want it any other way. She was the house-mom’s special assistant, understanding and knowing the kids better than anyone. No one can rally all the kids for bath time, dinner, singing, games, or crafts like Recheal could... no one can lead songs that the kids actually sing, and no one copies my ridiculous dance moves the way that Recheal did... She has more friends than anyone I know, she stole every heart of every person that has ever worked with CLD, she effortlessly worked her way into deep friendships with all our twenty-something girls in our Girlz Ministry, she’s Jesca’s bunkmate, and closest friend, and has become like a sister to every long-term volunteer...
Last Wednesday morning, we were rushing around at 6am, trying to get our backpacks together for the CLD retreat. Recheal was a part of the chaos, helping get everything packed, and as she was going over my checklist with me, she commented on some hair ties I had, and how much she liked them. “Ooohh these are so pretty, can I borrow them while you are gone?” I looked at her anxious thirteen year old pleading, and replied “No, you won’t ever give them back.” she grinned one of her Recheal grins, because she knew she was never planning on giving them back anyway, and simply said “It’s ok.”
We hurriedly said our goodbyes, because we were already running late, everyone exclaiming apologies for not being able to come to Cathy’s birthday party on Saturday, telling her to do well in school her first week back, that her new hair-do looks beautiful, that we’ll miss her, and we’ll see her next weekend... our running lateness gave me an excuse for a quick side hug instead of fully embracing her like I should have and I grabbed my seat in the far too crowded van... We all waved and screamed thank-you as she closed our gate... and that was it...
Nine hours later we were at beautiful Lake Bunyoni, the deepest lake in Uganda. It was our American core, the people I live with, the people I share every joy and frustration with, the people who have seen me at my worst, the people who have become my family… Shane and her seven-year-old daughter Jesca, Julie, Jeremy, Susan, Mike, Laura, Deirdre and Torrie... We had an amazing time relaxing, taking our first break since the summer rush... It was incredible to experience life outside the Kampala chaos with the people who have become so close in such a short period of time. We swam, played volleyball, prayed, and sang. Coming together and honestly sharing our thoughts, opinions, dreams, and fears, as individuals, and as part of Come Let’s Dance.
On Sunday morning, Shane had scoped out an amazing spot for us on top of a mountain with a great view of the lake to have devotions, and we ended up sitting in a circle sharing our biggest worries, the things that hinder us from becoming the leaders we all know we could be, and tearfully praying for each other... all of those worries, and even the lake seem so shallow now... We finished just after noon, and got in the van. I didn’t really notice as Jeremy lingered outside reading a text message, starting to make phone calls. In the backseat, we continued talking about how great our time had been, when Julie quietly turns around, and explains that we just got a text message from Julius saying “Recheal died in an accident, hard to believe.”
You could visibly see everyone’s mind start racing with thoughts and questions... which Rachel? Wait what’s going on? This can’t really be happening... Jeremy couldn’t get a hold of anyone, and Shane was exploding, telling me if he didn’t hurry up, she was going to rip the phone out of his hands, while I sit there cruelly ranking the importance of every Rachel we know. The suspended questioning left us all shocked and emotionless for the few minutes before we got our answers.
Julie starts driving, because no matter who it was, we were going home. Jeremy finally gets a hold of Wilfred, “which Recheal?” he asks... and we all hold our breath, but I think we all already knew... “Tendo” Jeremy repeats, apologizes profusely, and hangs up... We scream, and I swallow the vomit that rises up, Jesca looks so scared and confused, and Julie brakes, her tears too much for her to see, so Jeremy switches her spots to drive... we pull into our camp, everyone completely shattered and sobbing, rushing to our tents to pack our stuff... We walk past tourists with questioning stares, and I am so pissed that the world hasn’t stopped yet, that everything kept going, and that no one understands that a major tragedy is happening. I don’t get why the universe doesn’t make exceptions for situations like this and just slow down for a while... but it didn’t, so we finished packing, and loaded into the van. Julie and Shane look at each other through open windows on opposite sides, and Julie whispers a hopeless, helpless, questioning “Shane” and Shane’s response is “I know” before we all burst into tears again... Jesca chaotically looks from face to face, Jeremy’s head remains in his hands, Deirdre is aimlessly staring, Torrie’s eyes shift avoiding prolonged focus on anyone or anything, Susan can’t stop the flood of tears, Laura’s head hangs low, and I just bite my lip to keep me in the present, and whimper...
Julie pulls away, I don’t know how she managed to drive us all... but she did, and strongly endured hours of inconsistent crying, dodging pothole after pothole, truck after truck, person after person... In the backseat, we began talking through the situation in the simplest way for Jesca to understand, voicing our favorite memories... thoughts of her overflowed and overwhelmed my mind... The time she helped Susan and me wash all the little girls, because they all wet the bed during the sleepover from hell... When she would tell a story in an excited gust of mispronounced words that I didn’t understand except the punch-line... “and then she said “oh crack...”” and it would be hilarious even if I had no clue what was going on... Getting so mad when she’d try to brush or braid my hair, because I have curly hair, and when fingers run through it, it gets really frizzy... And as fleeting, and overwhelming as my emotions are I watch Jesca physically go through every single one of them in those nine hours... acting out her sadness, fear, anger, restlessness, and confusion...
We get home at almost 2am, and still don’t even know the whole story. I couldn’t sleep, and was extremely thankful that the morning finally came so we could go be with everyone. The morning started out slow, but as plans were made, everything started moving in fast forward... we come to find out that because of the nature of the accident, the family is insisting on doing the burial that day. After various stops and errands we arrive at the church, where everyone will gather and then proceed to the burial site. James the Man opens my door and I fall into his arms, he rubs my back and calmly shushes my wails... and I ask him to tell me exactly what happened, but he won’t until I calm myself down and convince him that I am strong enough to hear it...
She was coming home from church with Ritah on a boda (like a motorcycle) she fell off the back of it, and then got hit by a taxi so hard that it became a gruesome horrifying scene. She was immediately knocked unconscious, the boda driver unsympathetically bailed on Ritah, who witnessed the whole thing, and drove off, as did the taxi. Someone pulled her from the middle of the road, and another recognized her from our kid’s house and called Wilfred. Then, like I’ve seen done before, a multitude of people surrounded and gathered to watch her die. Except for the phone call, no one even tried to help. Everyone said that she was gone within minutes, no screaming, no noticeable suffering, it was just quick...Wilfred, Ben, Phillip, and James the Man arrive shortly after, and have to take her body to the mortuary and begin notifying everyone. Apparently it took four men to hold Cissy down so she wouldn’t throw herself into oncoming traffic when she found out... (her Luganda screams consist of “and me God, take me too” and “I have no more reason to live”)
I thank James for being so honest with me, but by now I’ve lost all control over the start and stop of my tears as our entire community starts showing up on the church hill, and I hug, exchanging sobs, and knowing glances with each one of them... Wilfred finally arrives... him and Shane just look at each other; they can’t even speak, because there are no words to say when they both have lost a daughter... Wilfred is just a few years older than me... we’re all still kids, when did we all of a sudden become the grown-ups that are supposed to make the plans, and make sure everyone else is ok? His lip quivers, I’ve never seen pain personified like that before. I had to look away.
We decide to try and meet the procession of taxis filled with our kids from the house, the kids from her school, and the truck carrying the coffin at the top of the hill... but we’re too late, the truck has already made it half way down, and we all pull over as Cissy gets out of the truck Julie is driving and demands that the coffin be removed and opened. There are terrifying, shrill screams, like I have never heard, from the hundred people that have gathered. The wooden box is opened, and everyone shouts, repeating, wailing, “Recheal, Recheal...” the taxi with our kids shows up, and they all rush to see her body. Her closest friends begin hyperventilating, and Shane starts yelling “why are they doing this? Is this cultural? Oh my God, where is Jesca?” Jeremy and I begin frantically looking for Jesca, and Jeremy finds her in the inner circle that has formed around Recheal, staring, traumatized and whimpering, we get her to Shane and Jesca latches on to her neck, “I mean, this is a nightmare right? This is too horrifying to actually be happening right? We’re going to wake up right?” Shane rhetorically asks me.
I become part of the chaos, as my legs almost give out while the reality of the body I just saw invades every inch of me, and I brace myself against a tree, hands on my knees, and focus on breathing because it’s not an involuntary action anymore... The coffin gets put away, and we think it’s time to head out when Ritah and Matthew arrive. I grab Ritah from out of the taxi and immediately take her away from the crowd, stroking the back of her crying head. I guess it’s part of the culture thing, but they pull the coffin back out, and I watch from a distance as Jeremy strongly, and lovingly holds a convulsing and screaming eleven-year-old Matthew as the extended family forces him to look at his sister’s body...
Things eventually settle down again, and everyone loads into the vehicles for the three hour drive to the burial spot in the village where Recheal was born... A completely checked out Matthew sits on mine and Susan’s lap, he won’t respond to anything, blankly staring out the window... I lose a contact in the flood of tears...We are cramped beyond belief, transporting the hundreds of people who loved Recheal so much that they dropped everything in a moments notice to travel like sardines, three hours away for a funeral service.
The bumpy dirt village road led us past hut after hut amidst banana plantations, and other crops that I didn’t recognize. We finally arrive at the hut Recheal grew up in, and there are tarps and benches set up in the dirt “front-yard” of the house. As soon as we all arrive the dark clouds gather and the sky lets out a tantrum that continued on and off for the rest of the day, and I’m glad. I would have been even more mad at God if the sky hadn’t been empathetic... The downpours turned the entire village into a thick mud pit, and the afternoon was filled with soaking wet embraces, slipping from place to place in the muck trying to be of assistance anywhere I could be, but not really being able to do anything except wait.
At one point Torrie, Susan, Julie, Jeremy and I, were sitting under one of the ripped tarps, still getting wet. Ritah was playing hand clapping games with me on my lap, and a bunch of our kids scattered around underneath it seeking at least some shelter from the storm, and we begin to speak of our favorite memories. I can’t voice mine, but they race through my brain... Trying to entertain our volunteer teams together at the kid’s house this summer, brainstorming songs to sing, and dances to show off, looking at each other for new ideas, and laughing because we didn’t know what to do... Jumping and dancing and shouting with her, because we got covered in mud when the drill team hit water at the kid’s house... Screaming “You are the Music in Me” from high school musical 2 from room to room because she knew every word... I loved sitting there absorbing the other stories, mostly from Jeremy... I love how his face lights up when he talks about her, and how perfectly he imitates her lingo, and accent... I loved how in the midst of trauma and despair Jeremy insisted on telling funny stories, acting them out to make the kids laugh... I can’t help but to hope that one day I’ll be able to love people like Jeremy does, and that one day my strength will be seen even in glistening tears, like I see his... I couldn’t even express my thankfulness to him for doing what everyone needed, but couldn’t do themselves. He’s really become the most incredible guy I’ve ever known.
The rain stops and I continue playing with Ritah under the tarp, Jer comes back to tell me that the grave is almost ready, so we should say our final goodbyes. I ask Ritah if she wants to come with me, but she explains how if she goes to see Recheal she’ll cry, and that she doesn’t like crying, and her Mom and Auntie are in there, and she doesn’t know why, but she’s really angry at them, so she just wants to sit. I don’t know how to explain to a seven-year-old that it’s ok if she cries, and it’s ok that she’s angry. Susan had made her peace already, so she took Ritah from me, and I walked inside the mud house that now held at least a dozen mourning jaja’s (older women in the community). Julie was crying in the opposite doorway, and I knelt down next to Cissy at Recheal’s head and painfully made myself look, and suck deep breaths of reality, being choked by the thick foul air I inhaled... Some of our older kids crowded into the doorway behind me. I stood up to embrace them...
Fourteen year old beautiful Bravery clung to me, sobbing, gripping my arms and back, while I kept her standing, because she just wanted to crumble... she was the perfect height to bury her head in my chest, and for me to rest my head on hers... And as we wept looking at Recheal, letting the reality set in, the horde of mourning jaja’s began to sing Lugandan hymns. I gathered Peggy and Maddie, who were standing behind me, wishing I had more arms to hold them too, and intently looked each of them in the eye. I fought to keep composure long enough to speak louder than the wails, and the songs... “Promise me, promise Recheal that when you remember her, you don’t remember her like this, you don’t ever think back to her in this coffin, this is only to say goodbye... when you remember her, remember how she danced, remember the songs she would sing, remember her smile, and how hard she used to laugh.” They all brokenly nodded, and acknowledged that they heard me, but I hope they understood. I hope I eventually follow my own words... because right now, all I can see every time I close my eyes is her swollen and bandaged lifeless face... I fight it, I fight it so hard, and it must be working, because it’s getting easier to remember the dancing Recheal that I knew, everyday.
The pastors begin speaking, and the people who knew her best share stories, comforting words, and goodbyes... the rain has let up a bit again, so everyone stands in a huge circle outside. James the Man holds my shaking hand through the entire service... We make our way around the back of the house, through the bush, and the mud following the now closed coffin. Another circle forms around the freshly dug grave, and I hummed the tunes of songs that I didn’t know, arms intertwined with Moses, and Mugabi who belted them out... Jeremy and Julie watched arms around each other, Shane held Ann’s hand as they threw dirt in the grave together, and Susan held a confused Jesca, tears streaming. We are a family, and it doesn’t matter anymore where we come from, or what color skin we have, because we’ve been bonded unbreakably by the love we all shared for our Recheal, and the magnified love we discovered we have for each other...
The crowd dwindled leaving just our core, and our closest Ugandan family, singing, and praying as the men from our community finished filling in, and cementing the grave... Shane grabbed a stick and wrote “We love you too” on one of the edges of the wet cement, and wrote Recheal’s name, dates, and dash on the top of it... we heaved our final goodbyes... closing in a hopeful prayer, and we each walked our own way back to the vehicles, for the three hour return journey...
Later that night we all talked about how we never really appreciated those few days before a funeral until now, because the whole thing happened in just over 24 hours and there was absolutely no closure. Instead of the partial closing that funeral’s usually offer it’s become the beginning of the grieving process.
I wake up in the mornings thinking I’m ready to face the day, and realize that I’m wrong, so I go back and curl up in a ball in my bed, thinking that if I could hide just a bit longer, it’ll prepare me, and I’ll be ok... but I’m not ok, and whether we’re ready or not, here it comes... life, new mornings and long evenings... more tears, more people to be strong for, and a group of kids that need us now more than ever.
It just hasn’t sunk in yet that we don’t get to go back to Recheal, we don’t get to go back to how things were... We don’t get to go back to giving her granola bars, and getting her sodas when she would get sick, helping her set-up a movie, because she was too weak to do anything but lie on our couch all day... I don’t get to learn Luganda from her anymore... we don’t get anymore pictures, or anymore smiles...
We’ve been at the kid’s house a few days this week, when we can muster up the strength to go, but it really hurts being there, because every room, the balcony, the porch, the yard, the kitchen and every other part of the compound screams her name, and is stained with her memory... Phantom itches haunt my thoughts, like when we pull away from the kid’s house I want to shout, wait where’s Recheal... when I try to rally the kids to do something, I think, where is Recheal... even though I know she is gone... and I know we can’t go back, because the only thing life cruelly makes us do is move forward at a constant rate, living with the painful memories of our friend and sister whose life was stolen from her all too quickly... and nothing will ever be the same.
I don’t ever want to answer the “how was Africa?” question again, because people don’t want to hear a response that says “part of my family died, and part of me died with her.” Africa has lost all of its innocence, everything is dark, everything is ugly, everything is corrupt... the circle of life from the Lion King does not make any of this ok, what I thought were good intentions, have all turned sour, and has left the most bitter of tastes in my mouth... I wanted to work with dying kids, but I never wanted one of them to actually die.
I wish I would have let her play with my hair more, that I would have just let her take the hair ties she wanted to borrow, that I knew where I put each and every picture she drew me, and every note she wrote me... And I don’t want to get used to the fact that she’s gone, I don’t want to miss her less and less... I don’t want to just continue on with life here, because it’s not right to do it without Recheal...
And a lot of people want to know how all of us are doing, and at least for me, the honest answer is “not good” we watch movies to distract ourselves at night, and I haven’t been able to sleep, but I never want to get out of bed... my mood changes every hour, if not every minute, and it’s a mix between numbness, hysteria, anger, shut down, and sorrow... And I know we’ll move on, and I know “things will be ok” whatever the hell that means, but right now, I’ve decided that I’m ok with giving the situation the misery it deserves... because a thirteen year old little girl, who meant so much to so many people, is gone now, and if anything deserves misery, it’s this...
I’m really sorry to all the people who loved Recheal so much, and I feel ashamed falling apart in front of people whose grief must be so much greater than my own... I’m really sorry to all of you who knew her so well, that don’t get to be here to mourn with us, because you’re part of our family too, and we miss you all like crazy...
Tomorrow will be hard because we have to face it without Recheal, but I know that we’re all in this together (High School Musical pun intended) and even though I have no clue what restoration looks like, or when the days will get easier, this last week has shown us that there’s still so much worth fighting for... So we’ll take a few minutes to sweat and bleed in our corner, absorb the encouragement coaching us through, and muster up enough strength to go another round... for our kids, for our friends, for our family, for Recheal...
With all the love that I have,
Nicole
September 14, 2008: World on Fire
Hey all!
Sorry for the length of time from my last update, I’ve just been out of country for a bit. To catch you up, my leg is fine, it looks like there will be a pretty decent scar, but I’m totally great. My mind is going a little haywire without my laptop and every once in a while a twinge of pain rises up when I remember everything that I’ve lost, but I’m beginning to get back on the horse, starting to recollect all my ideas. Some friends of CLD sent a laptop out here so that those of us who lost our computers can use it, and we are so thankful.
Shane returned this week, with her daughter Jesca and our friend Deirdre arrived this week as well, so we have quite the full house. Last Thursday Susan, Laura and I set off on a trip around East Africa. We went with our friends Eric, Kyle and John traveling and adventuring through Rwanda, and Burundi. We rode on life-threatening buses, watched traditional tribal Burundi dancing on the beach of Lake Tanganyika, played a lot of rummy, and deepened friendships that will last a lifetime. We parted ways with the boys in Kigali as they went back to Kampala, and we girls followed our intrigued and deep curiosity into the DRC.
I had been coincidentally reading “Heart of Darkness” for the last few weeks. For those of you who haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Although it probably took on a different meaning reading the novel where I could watch Conrad’s descriptions eerily come alive. Much has changed since the book was published in 1902 but the truths he captured about exploration, colonization, and humanity continue to resonate throughout all of Africa. It was fascinating to me how he understood society’s brutality, felt such cynicism, and yet expressed all of it with such beauty.
We traveled a three hour shuttle bus ride through the astounding terraced mountain farms of Rwanda. Susan and my jaws were in a constant state of dropped awe at how much the ride reminded us of summer drives around our Colorado ski towns. I love how I’ve found elements of home in such faraway places. We arrived at the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi, grabbed our backpacks, and walked into the pain-filled mystery that is the Congo. We waited an outrageously long time to be issued visas, and answered questions from confused border officials about why three young girls just wanted to see Goma, and then were sent on our way.
Here’s a brief history of the DRC, if you don’t know anything about it...
1482: Portugal’s Diogo Cao was the first white man to set eyes on Congo River
Late 1860’s: English explorer Livingston goes missing on his expedition to map out Africa
1871: Henry Morten Stanley a newspaper reporter goes to find Livingston
November 1871: Stanley finds Livingston at Lake Tanganyika... “Dr. Livingston I presume?”
November 17, 1874: Stanley decides to continue Livingston’s expedition mapping out the Congo River
1877: Stanley returns trying to involve Britain in utilizing the Congo’s resources, but they aren’t interested, instead Leopold II of Belgium seeks out Stanley and begins reaping the benefits of the country.
1878: The scramble for Africa begins... within two decades of Stanley’s expedition all of Africa was colonized
The Congo has the bloodiest colonial past of any African country.
June 30, 1960: Belgium grants the DRC independence
1965: Mobutu becomes emperor
1980's-90’s: Mobutu allies himself with Rwandan Hutus
April 6, 1994: Plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundi president is shot down by Interahamwe initiating the Rwandan genocide
July 1994: Rwandan genocide ends, and Mobutu, supported by France, provides refuge for the Interahamwe in the Congo, they come by the thousands, fleeing persecution and trial for their crimes against humanity, this coincides with a large Cholera outbreak in Goma.
1997: Rebel Laurent Kabila overthrows Mobutu with the help of troops from Rwanda, and Uganda
1998: War breaks out... Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi vs. Congo, Zimbabwe, Chad, Angola, and Namibia fighting on DRC soil
2000: More than a thousand people dying each day
The death toll from the continuing of this war has reached about 4.5 million, that's like wiping out the entire state of Colorado.
2001: Kabila is assassinated by his bodyguard
January 26, 2001: The current president, Joseph Kabila, is elected with no election
January 2002: An estimated 45 die when the Mount Nyiragongo volcano unexpectedly explodes in Goma
2002-2008: Peace treaties are continually made and broken as rebel groups fight each other: for wealth and resources, because of tribal hate, in retaliation to violent histories.
I guess it must have been cloudy before we went into Goma but I didn’t notice God’s foreshadowing until the gray skies collided with the ash ridden streets, and the weight of the air heavied my soul. Remnants of black volcanic rock were scattered about the streets and had become the foundation of every building and wall built on top of the ruin the 2002 eruption had caused. Every other vehicle was UN, or some sort of humanitarian aid organization, and every hour UN planes and relief helicopters flew closely overhead. We had entered a war zone that we didn’t even know existed, and I was captivated. The extent of my knowledge was that the Congo had suffered a tumultuous past, but I had no recent information, no idea that war was still being waged. We started asking as many questions as we could to the UN people that would talk to us, to the Lebanese business owners, to civilians at the hospital we visited.
I’ve never really known what the UN does, and I’m more confused now than I was before I started asking questions. We got a ride in a UN South Africa Land Cruiser and the driver casually talked about how we were going to die if we stayed. We ran into a Canadian UN official that works with a self-proclaimed “small, obscure, unknown branch of the UN”, and he explained that the role of MONUC is to “keep the window of peace open long enough to restore social development, and establish stable government.” We politely pressed for answers as to how they were going about stabilizing a rebel government, and he replied by telling us to get out as quickly and safely as possible, and excused himself for lunch.
We’ve come to find out that the UN in the east Congo is currently the largest peacekeeping operation in the world, and their presence there for the last eleven years has not seemed to stop a single rebellion. As we continued to receive vague answers about peace missions from bored UN soldiers, reasons for their ineffectiveness became apparent. Foreign political leaders sitting in board room chairs can’t possibly make a well informed decision on what the Congolese people need, and then send in various foreign troops to make their ideas happen. Success will only be sustained when it comes from the Congolese public. The UN is allegedly striving for community development without relationships, fighting for peace without love, following orders from distant delegation without inspiration, and it’s not working. They are building a house of bricks with no foundation, and no mortar, and although the big bad wolf won’t be able to blow it down, with a few friends he’ll be able to crumble it. Which I’ve now realized, is the whole point... it was never supposed to work in the first place, because peace in the Congo isn’t profitable.
I’ve begun to do some research, and have found dizzying facts about the resources the Congo has to offer, diamonds, oil, cobalt, copper, gold, uranium, and the list goes on. It is by far the richest country in the world in natural resources, but the poorest and most devastated country per capita. The uranium for the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the copper used to rebuild cities after 20th century wars, the cobalt satisfying the boom in 2004, all comes from the Congo, and as long as pretended allies discretely keep Africans fighting each other, the Middle East, and the Western world can continue raping the country.
The peace treaties established this past January went to hell this week, and fighting once again broke out in Kirotshe, about 35 kilometers south of where we were. We watched a convoy of the Congolese army head out on the only road west. I’ve never been anywhere close to a war zone, and I didn’t know my heart could beat the way it did. Chills sprinted from my head to my toes as the dark eyes of a camouflaged soldier with a Kalashnikov between his legs stared right through me. My wide eyes prompted our new friend Alex to tussle my hair, disparagingly saying “Welcome to the Congo.”
That night after dinner, we came across some MERLIN workers that had been evacuated from where the fighting broke out. I sat and talked with a Scottish guy for a while, and he answered my rapid fire questions, apparently coming to the conclusion that I was journalist of some sort... he thanked me for what I was doing, “there is nothing more important than communicating the truth of this horrifying situation to the world” he said. I laughed thinking of the ten people who probably read my emails all the way through, and clarified how my audience isn’t exactly “the world”... he smiled, and exclaimed “Well, it’s a start” and explained how in all his time around the Congo he hadn’t seen a single reporter, how no one is covering this story, so the little I could get out would have to do... I’ve found some UN coverage, and updates on Relief Web, but it’s not exactly making headlines. The Congolese news is heavy propaganda, and Fox News doesn’t even have a link to the DRC.
I still don’t know the whole story, and I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the conspiracies enveloping this entire continent. I have no ideas on what can get the world invested in this situation, what will move us to positive action, what will make us refuse to slide further into ignorance and apathy... because before I embarked on this whole Africa extravaganza, I was the perfect representation for humanity’s lack of concern for their global neighbors... I hated history in school, and I could care less about how my gas got to the pump... but now I’ve seen faces that have moved me from indifference to the desire of illumination... listening to the broken English of repeatedly raped women, uncomfortably avoiding the cold-eyed stares of severely peeling child burn victims, and holding the stubs of arms where hands should have been. There are invisible people that go nameless, and it’s time that someone rises up to tell their story until they are able to speak for themselves...
I don’t think there is a formula for peace, but I do know that ending ignorance is the first step for change. Things change when we stop buying conflict diamonds, things change when we start worrying about how our oil gets to the pump, instead of how much it costs, things change when we understand where we get our magnets from, things change when we transform our thoughts about what has worth... when we decide that human lives are more important than our comfort... And then we can raise our voices loud enough to shatter the glass that is encasing this vile cycle of exploitation.
I spent just about 48 hours in the DRC and it has wrecked me beyond recognition... I don’t know what that means for the future, but right now it means continuing to pursue awareness of the invisible... straining to hear the cries of the inaudible. I encourage you to do your own research, to find something that wrecks you, because unlike the majority of the world, you have a voice.
Bringing what I am able,
Nicole
Sorry for the length of time from my last update, I’ve just been out of country for a bit. To catch you up, my leg is fine, it looks like there will be a pretty decent scar, but I’m totally great. My mind is going a little haywire without my laptop and every once in a while a twinge of pain rises up when I remember everything that I’ve lost, but I’m beginning to get back on the horse, starting to recollect all my ideas. Some friends of CLD sent a laptop out here so that those of us who lost our computers can use it, and we are so thankful.
Shane returned this week, with her daughter Jesca and our friend Deirdre arrived this week as well, so we have quite the full house. Last Thursday Susan, Laura and I set off on a trip around East Africa. We went with our friends Eric, Kyle and John traveling and adventuring through Rwanda, and Burundi. We rode on life-threatening buses, watched traditional tribal Burundi dancing on the beach of Lake Tanganyika, played a lot of rummy, and deepened friendships that will last a lifetime. We parted ways with the boys in Kigali as they went back to Kampala, and we girls followed our intrigued and deep curiosity into the DRC.
I had been coincidentally reading “Heart of Darkness” for the last few weeks. For those of you who haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Although it probably took on a different meaning reading the novel where I could watch Conrad’s descriptions eerily come alive. Much has changed since the book was published in 1902 but the truths he captured about exploration, colonization, and humanity continue to resonate throughout all of Africa. It was fascinating to me how he understood society’s brutality, felt such cynicism, and yet expressed all of it with such beauty.
We traveled a three hour shuttle bus ride through the astounding terraced mountain farms of Rwanda. Susan and my jaws were in a constant state of dropped awe at how much the ride reminded us of summer drives around our Colorado ski towns. I love how I’ve found elements of home in such faraway places. We arrived at the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi, grabbed our backpacks, and walked into the pain-filled mystery that is the Congo. We waited an outrageously long time to be issued visas, and answered questions from confused border officials about why three young girls just wanted to see Goma, and then were sent on our way.
Here’s a brief history of the DRC, if you don’t know anything about it...
1482: Portugal’s Diogo Cao was the first white man to set eyes on Congo River
Late 1860’s: English explorer Livingston goes missing on his expedition to map out Africa
1871: Henry Morten Stanley a newspaper reporter goes to find Livingston
November 1871: Stanley finds Livingston at Lake Tanganyika... “Dr. Livingston I presume?”
November 17, 1874: Stanley decides to continue Livingston’s expedition mapping out the Congo River
1877: Stanley returns trying to involve Britain in utilizing the Congo’s resources, but they aren’t interested, instead Leopold II of Belgium seeks out Stanley and begins reaping the benefits of the country.
1878: The scramble for Africa begins... within two decades of Stanley’s expedition all of Africa was colonized
The Congo has the bloodiest colonial past of any African country.
June 30, 1960: Belgium grants the DRC independence
1965: Mobutu becomes emperor
1980's-90’s: Mobutu allies himself with Rwandan Hutus
April 6, 1994: Plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundi president is shot down by Interahamwe initiating the Rwandan genocide
July 1994: Rwandan genocide ends, and Mobutu, supported by France, provides refuge for the Interahamwe in the Congo, they come by the thousands, fleeing persecution and trial for their crimes against humanity, this coincides with a large Cholera outbreak in Goma.
1997: Rebel Laurent Kabila overthrows Mobutu with the help of troops from Rwanda, and Uganda
1998: War breaks out... Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi vs. Congo, Zimbabwe, Chad, Angola, and Namibia fighting on DRC soil
2000: More than a thousand people dying each day
The death toll from the continuing of this war has reached about 4.5 million, that's like wiping out the entire state of Colorado.
2001: Kabila is assassinated by his bodyguard
January 26, 2001: The current president, Joseph Kabila, is elected with no election
January 2002: An estimated 45 die when the Mount Nyiragongo volcano unexpectedly explodes in Goma
2002-2008: Peace treaties are continually made and broken as rebel groups fight each other: for wealth and resources, because of tribal hate, in retaliation to violent histories.
I guess it must have been cloudy before we went into Goma but I didn’t notice God’s foreshadowing until the gray skies collided with the ash ridden streets, and the weight of the air heavied my soul. Remnants of black volcanic rock were scattered about the streets and had become the foundation of every building and wall built on top of the ruin the 2002 eruption had caused. Every other vehicle was UN, or some sort of humanitarian aid organization, and every hour UN planes and relief helicopters flew closely overhead. We had entered a war zone that we didn’t even know existed, and I was captivated. The extent of my knowledge was that the Congo had suffered a tumultuous past, but I had no recent information, no idea that war was still being waged. We started asking as many questions as we could to the UN people that would talk to us, to the Lebanese business owners, to civilians at the hospital we visited.
I’ve never really known what the UN does, and I’m more confused now than I was before I started asking questions. We got a ride in a UN South Africa Land Cruiser and the driver casually talked about how we were going to die if we stayed. We ran into a Canadian UN official that works with a self-proclaimed “small, obscure, unknown branch of the UN”, and he explained that the role of MONUC is to “keep the window of peace open long enough to restore social development, and establish stable government.” We politely pressed for answers as to how they were going about stabilizing a rebel government, and he replied by telling us to get out as quickly and safely as possible, and excused himself for lunch.
We’ve come to find out that the UN in the east Congo is currently the largest peacekeeping operation in the world, and their presence there for the last eleven years has not seemed to stop a single rebellion. As we continued to receive vague answers about peace missions from bored UN soldiers, reasons for their ineffectiveness became apparent. Foreign political leaders sitting in board room chairs can’t possibly make a well informed decision on what the Congolese people need, and then send in various foreign troops to make their ideas happen. Success will only be sustained when it comes from the Congolese public. The UN is allegedly striving for community development without relationships, fighting for peace without love, following orders from distant delegation without inspiration, and it’s not working. They are building a house of bricks with no foundation, and no mortar, and although the big bad wolf won’t be able to blow it down, with a few friends he’ll be able to crumble it. Which I’ve now realized, is the whole point... it was never supposed to work in the first place, because peace in the Congo isn’t profitable.
I’ve begun to do some research, and have found dizzying facts about the resources the Congo has to offer, diamonds, oil, cobalt, copper, gold, uranium, and the list goes on. It is by far the richest country in the world in natural resources, but the poorest and most devastated country per capita. The uranium for the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the copper used to rebuild cities after 20th century wars, the cobalt satisfying the boom in 2004, all comes from the Congo, and as long as pretended allies discretely keep Africans fighting each other, the Middle East, and the Western world can continue raping the country.
The peace treaties established this past January went to hell this week, and fighting once again broke out in Kirotshe, about 35 kilometers south of where we were. We watched a convoy of the Congolese army head out on the only road west. I’ve never been anywhere close to a war zone, and I didn’t know my heart could beat the way it did. Chills sprinted from my head to my toes as the dark eyes of a camouflaged soldier with a Kalashnikov between his legs stared right through me. My wide eyes prompted our new friend Alex to tussle my hair, disparagingly saying “Welcome to the Congo.”
That night after dinner, we came across some MERLIN workers that had been evacuated from where the fighting broke out. I sat and talked with a Scottish guy for a while, and he answered my rapid fire questions, apparently coming to the conclusion that I was journalist of some sort... he thanked me for what I was doing, “there is nothing more important than communicating the truth of this horrifying situation to the world” he said. I laughed thinking of the ten people who probably read my emails all the way through, and clarified how my audience isn’t exactly “the world”... he smiled, and exclaimed “Well, it’s a start” and explained how in all his time around the Congo he hadn’t seen a single reporter, how no one is covering this story, so the little I could get out would have to do... I’ve found some UN coverage, and updates on Relief Web, but it’s not exactly making headlines. The Congolese news is heavy propaganda, and Fox News doesn’t even have a link to the DRC.
I still don’t know the whole story, and I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the conspiracies enveloping this entire continent. I have no ideas on what can get the world invested in this situation, what will move us to positive action, what will make us refuse to slide further into ignorance and apathy... because before I embarked on this whole Africa extravaganza, I was the perfect representation for humanity’s lack of concern for their global neighbors... I hated history in school, and I could care less about how my gas got to the pump... but now I’ve seen faces that have moved me from indifference to the desire of illumination... listening to the broken English of repeatedly raped women, uncomfortably avoiding the cold-eyed stares of severely peeling child burn victims, and holding the stubs of arms where hands should have been. There are invisible people that go nameless, and it’s time that someone rises up to tell their story until they are able to speak for themselves...
I don’t think there is a formula for peace, but I do know that ending ignorance is the first step for change. Things change when we stop buying conflict diamonds, things change when we start worrying about how our oil gets to the pump, instead of how much it costs, things change when we understand where we get our magnets from, things change when we transform our thoughts about what has worth... when we decide that human lives are more important than our comfort... And then we can raise our voices loud enough to shatter the glass that is encasing this vile cycle of exploitation.
I spent just about 48 hours in the DRC and it has wrecked me beyond recognition... I don’t know what that means for the future, but right now it means continuing to pursue awareness of the invisible... straining to hear the cries of the inaudible. I encourage you to do your own research, to find something that wrecks you, because unlike the majority of the world, you have a voice.
Bringing what I am able,
Nicole
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