I headed to the ATM, took out some cash, and proceeded to the counter. I saw some Pepperidge Farm cookies; Milk Chocolate Macadamia. One of my favorites. I didn’t even think twice about grabbing the box and paying for it.

I ran back to my tuk tuk, which was waiting in the rain, and greeted my outreach crew with the cookies. I opened the bag and offered it to them. They gratefully accepted, and then it hit me when my right hand man, my partner in crime, Mr. I, asked me quite simply and innocently, “Three dollars?”

I was suddenly ashamed and embarrassed and tried to disguise it by answering, “I don’t know, I’m not sure.” He questioned again, quite confidently this time, “Three dollars?” as if to assure me that it was the actual price. Knowing that I was lying to myself, I finally said, “Yea, I think it is three dollars.”

All of a sudden, I was back in Cambodia, and I suddenly remembered that I had just returned from outreach. It hurt me to think that the 8 cookies we split into 6 people and ate within less than 5 minutes, cost more money ($3.35 USD) than most families we visit during outreach see throughout the course of an entire week.

It is proof of the disparity. It is evidence that we, as a collective world and western society, have our priorities incredibly out of place. It shows how uncivilized, un-evolved, and undeveloped we are. Yet we claim civility. I wonder which one of us claims to be humane?

The answer is, “You get what you pay for.”

The questions are, “At what price?” and “At who’s costs?”

The true expenditure is human life and dignity.

The surprise is that we are all to blame and that we all contribute to the problem, especially when its as “small” or “irrelevant” as just “buying some cookies.” It all adds up. What a family couldn’t make in an entire week, we wasted in less than five minutes. To think for half a second that nothing is wrong with that situation, proves we have lost sanity.

PeaCe,
-Abe

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

I never knew hustle until I came to Senegal
You can buy anything in the street
Food
Clothes
Cell phone credits
Even prayers
Everyday the Talibé awake with a yearn
To learn
To eat to live
They come to you in red or yellow buckets
Sometimes, open palms
Singing songs from the Qu’ran
Sometimes the words are right
Sometimes they are wrong
Sometimes they haven’t learned it all
So they just open their palm for a 200 CFA education
Insha Allah they have money for the Marabou
Who they pay to teach them
Bit by Bit
1 then
2
Hits with the stick for coming up short
So hustle, not for the MTA
Not for no basketball or baseball team
But to put money in your pockets and get off the streets
Get something to eat
So the next time you come to a car window singing
Sing like the world should listen

The Talibé are the forgotten children of Senegal. They are boys between the ages of 5-12 (maybe older) who are orphans. They typically walk around with buckets collecting money from people in order to pay the Marabou. The Marabou are teachers, some are corrupt and exploit these children to work for them. They charge the Talibé 200 CFA a day for a brief education whereas other children whose family can afford it pay 150 CFA a week. They collect money by trying to recite what they can remember from the Qu’ran which was taught to them by the Marabou. It is a cruel practice and my inspiration to this poem. It reminds so much of children on the train in NYC who break dance or sell candy so they can dress ‘fresh.’ But it is the opposite out here, seeing that ‘fresh’ is the last thing on these children’s minds.

By Debbie Carey

Am I a bad person
Because I miss the Planet?
Or because I miss walking on her bridge
On a breezy night
Effortlessly;
Without run-ins with
Donkeys, wooden wheeled carts, scooters,
Black and yellow dilapidated taxis,
Nothing left here but you and me
And talks about the universe
And silly things like that.

Flag me down a taxi
And let’s get out of here
Only to return back to
Where we started from.
Everywhere I look for the
Signs to tell me
How to be effective,
How to be useful,
How to be…

I saw a fire in the distance,
A fiery orange icing
outlining the horizon,
But that wasn’t it.

I saw 10,000 white doves
Fly over my head and momentarily
Everything was illuminated
For five seconds.
And I misinterpreted clarity for an all too
Deceiving illusion of comfort and beauty.

I listen to a delicate woman
Tell me her dreams.
She tells me in them she thought of me
As she rolls the dough
That leaves powdery stains
On her hands.
Although each word that
Passes through her soft lips
is photocopied in my mind,
it still wasn’t it.

I listen to a rooftop of
Men and women chanting
In unison, guided by moonlight,
Like 50,000 voices
All tied together by an
Invisible thread,
Desperately seeking solace –
Yet still not a sign.

I watch group of kids
Weave in and out
Of the dusty streets –
Victory is theirs –
At least for tonight.
I hear their chants of pride
And I smile in the dark
And I secretly share
In their moment,
That can’t ever be
Taken away from them.

Despite all of this, I remain clueless.
I know nothing.
And I still want to be useful.
And I still hope you are doing well
And still I’m sorry I couldn’t
Answer you with the exact words
You hope to have heard.

Love,
Marissa

What happens to a country developed?

Does it put a McDonalds
on every corner?
Or discriminate against immigrants,
forgetting they were once foreigners?
Does it get weapons companies wealth?
Or exploit peoples
to the point of shattered health?

Maybe it pretends
no disparity unfolds.

Or does it explode?

Your Liberation is Bound Up in Mine

Apollo, a relative of Dr. Beatrice (the doctor who runs Kairos clinic), has been our companion/tour guide/translator for the time we’ve been here in Gulu so far. He is 20 years old and studying medical technology at the university. His demeanor seems a little serious at first, but he laughs a lot and his laughs are long and drawn out, which in turn cracks the rest of us up. His English is impeccable and extremely proper. We joke that his English is in fact better than ours! He is patient with our questions and speaks openly about his experience growing up during the war in northern Uganda. He tells us about his near escapes from either kidnapping or death at the hands of the LRA (rebel army), not once, not twice, but dozens of times. Once they came to his house, ordered him to sit and not move, but when they were distracted, he ran. They chased him for many miles. He tells us he had to run in a zig-zagged way, since they chased people in a V formation to surround and overtake them. When they capture people they ask them, “Do you want shorts or pants?” If you respond shorts, they will cut off your legs above the knees. If you respond pants, they will cut off your feet. Apollo has only known war for his entire life. It has only been 3 years since there has been peace in northern Uganda. Apollo’s faith in God, grounded in Christianity, has no doubt carried him through his experiences. His quiet conviction reflects his strong belief that he has survived to fulfill a greater purpose: to serve his people.

Two weeks I have been here in Gulu, Uganda. Two weeks, which have felt like an eternity – yes, time has a definite kairos quality to it. To back track a little bit, we arrived on June 1st and for the first 2 days, Apollo took us around town and introduced us to life in Gulu. The town is small and easily accessible. Like most developing countries I’ve been in, the streets are littered with bicycles, motor bikes, chickens, goats, and the occasional cow. But let me tell you about the market, oh the market! The market here is almost as fun as the wet markets in the Philippines. I love the markets! They’re a world in and of themselves! Rice, beans, meat, vegetables, clothes, soap, hammers… you name it, you can find it in the maze of sights, sounds, and smells. The markets are still my favorite places to be when I am in another country because here is the center of life for a community! Here is where people come to buy sustenance, to sell what they have grown in the fields, to haggle over prices, to come together to exchange goods and conversation.
After we got familiar with the center of town, Apollo took us through the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps close by. These camps were established during the war, when the LRA was terrorizing the people in the countryside. The government ordered the people to relocate and organize in these areas, which resulted in cramped living conditions. Disease, unemployment, and alcoholism run rampant in the camps. Now, the problem is that even though there has been 3 years of peace, people do not want to move back to the country. Not only have they grown accustomed to the camps and NGO handouts, the conditions are so dire that they have to start from scratch upon returning to the rural areas. There seems to be no way to escape poverty.

The poverty here in Africa is different than what I have witnessed in other countries. I dare not say it is any better or worse here than in other places, but it is of a different nature. This trip is reminiscent of my trip to the Philippines, where I saw poverty on a large scale in the city amongst the squatters and in the slums and out in the country amongst the farmers. Here, in Africa, the poverty situation is just as terrible, yet they are coming out of a 20 year long war and the physical, mental, and emotional trauma is fresh, if not, still just beneath the surface. The One World mission is to link minority communities abroad, so we are in Gulu to work with the minority Acholi community, who has been the primary targets of the LRA during the war. The Northern region of Uganda suffers from the highest incidence of poverty at an average of 66% over the past 10 years. This is higher than the national average of 46% or the average of other districts. Gulu district registered 11.9% of highest HIV prevalence among pregnant women in 2002, compared with 10.8% for the western region, 8.5% for central region and 6.3% for the east. And in the Northern region, there is an even greater disparity in education as 69% of men are literate compared to 24% of women.

During the first few days, Akeema (the other facilitator) and I conducted the 3 day workshop on leadership, human rights, and social justice (what we were being trained on in DC) for the other One World US participants and local community leaders here in Gulu. We had initially anticipated 6 young leaders from Gulu to attend, but instead 15 people showed up! It was an intense 3 days, but we had so much fun and learned a lot about the situation of the Acholis here on the ground.
Now that the training is over, my internship here has begun. I am working along with the 3 other One World USA young leaders to team up with Kairos Community Health Center and do community outreach in order to educate communities on HIV/AIDS, malaria, family and community health. The structure of our week is as follows:

- Tuesday and Wednesday: meet with community members from 1 parish (multiple villages make up 1 parish) to engage is dialogue and conduct an assessment regarding the community’s challenges. Talk about HIV/AIDS and malaria prevention and treatment.

- Thursday and Friday: venture out into the community to meet with a few families to discuss more about their challenges and assess their income generating projects (usually communal gardens or beekeeping).

- Following Monday: write up our findings in reports.

So far the problems have been the same across the board: people are too poor for mosquito nets to prevent malaria, they do not have access to condoms, water and sanitation create poor health, they need fertilizer for crops and a more accessible water supply, people are too poor to go to the clinic, etc. The goal is for Kairos to use the data we collect to get the resources that the community needs.
In essence, we are attempting to assist these communities in developing. However, in reference to what I wrote about in my previous blog, the vision is to empower communities so that they can subsist on their own without charity. The people suffer from dependency now, since they have been so accustomed to hand-outs from NGOs and non-profits from the time during the war. Now, the NGOs have left since the war is over and the people are left disempowered, unmotivated, and waiting around for help. After assessing the state of these impoverished communities, the real question, first and foremost becomes: How do you empower people to help themselves when they have absolutely nothing to work from??

I will expound on that question in another blog, but currently, I am confronting some fundamental issues on the structure of our work here. Although we are from impacted community ourselves, we (us folks from the US) still come from privilege being from America. Being of color does not, by any means, put us on the same playing field as the people here. We are all very aware that our 1st world status gives us economic and educational privilege. Yet, we are unique in that, for example, both Nadia and Jon, who are both African Americans from the South can claim that black southerners experience poverty and neglect that resembles the discrepancy between the Acholis and the rest of Uganda. I feel a strong connection to this work through my connection to my roots, the struggles of my father’s family, my experience being bi-racial and the daughter of an immigrant, and my previous traveling experiences. I connect the experience of my father’s family growing up in the Philippines, the struggles of Filipinos in the Philippines and in other countries (discrimination, marginalization, domestic violence.. etc), the struggles I’ve witnessed amongst the peoples in other developing communities to my work here. Therefore, this work becomes personal, and as I have travelled and made connections with people living in the Ukraine, Thailand, Nepal, Egypt, and Ecuador – the urgent need to transcend race, ethnicity, religion, nationality to unite on a global front to work for social justice becomes even more pressing. My identity is no longer limited to my family, friends, ethnicity, or nationality – it transcends and includes all those I have connected with in all those places. I am no longer just obligated to care for people in my immediate community, city, or country – I am obligated to work for change that includes all whom I have met along the way and all those whom I have yet to meet and those whom I will never meet. Their struggles are bound up in mine and my liberation can only be found through theirs.
Anyhow, I am feeling highly sensitive to how we are going out our work educating the communities considering our privilege. Basically, our work feels hierarchical. While we emphasize from the beginning One World’s mission to connect minority communities across the globe in order to exchange experiences and empower from the ground up, our job for Kairos is to educate (which I realize naturally is hierarchical in structure to begin with). At first, I felt that, wow, what we are doing, we could just be some random white people from some random NGO doing this work. But we’ve tried to incorporate more community dialogue and emphasize the need for the community to have these meetings on their own in order to brainstorm ways in which they can work together to get the resources they need, instead of waiting around for western NGOs to come and save them.

Basically, what has become problematic for me is that we are telling the communities what they need to do. It is still reminiscent of a top-down process. However, we are aware this is the first time Kairos and the community are doing this type of community outreach and organizing. With that in mind, I know this is going to be a learning process not only for us from the US (since we will need to continuously be aware and sensitive to our own privilege and try to do what we can to NOT reinforce the hierarchy of 1st world “helping” 3rd world paradigm), but also for the community leaders here in Gulu. Although we are only into our first week of work, I am already coming to the conclusion that what is needed is for us to engage in more dialogue with the young leaders in Gulu (who were involved in the training and represent the community), instead of directly with the community themselves. I think that if we can bring in officials to educate the community leaders in micro-credit opportunities, agriculture techniques, community health, etc., then they can disperse that information out to the people.

Although I am feeling that there will be a hierarchy nevertheless and no matter how hard we try, I feel certain that when people come together with genuine selfless intention and a common vision that is grounded in the well-being of everyone, then the hierarchy can be transcended. When the hierarchy is transcended, then all that exists in people is an undeniable and overwhelming feeling that I am not separate from others. And when I am not separate from others then their fate is bound up in mine, not only by the decisions that I make, but by the values that govern my actions and how I choose to use my life.

As Lila Watson said, “If you have come to help me you are wasting my time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us struggle together.”

I hope you feel bad.
I hope your days are sad.
I hope you feel guilty.
I hope you cry.
I hope your stomach hurts.
I hope you are in pain.
I hope you get sick.
I hope that you wish you could go back.

Because the fact is that you will return.

You will go back to your homes;
Some plush and lavish, others ordinary.
You will eat food that is safe.
You will drink water that has ben treated.
You will not have to bribe your teachers for an education.
You will speak your native tongue without fearing
That your survival depends on a foreign language.
You will return.

But when you do, remember “them.”

Because we cannot return to where you go.
We are already home.
The discomfort you want to escape from
is everyday for us. Forever.
There is no leaving for us.

And so, it is with great love in my heart,
That I pray you are uncomfortable.

You will return. We, are home.

Peace Family,
I hope ya’ll are all well! We are all truly blessed to be in our current positions where we can connect with so many in the struggle and connect to so much human love and hope. I send my love out to all of ya’ll. We are together. Solidarity Homies! Hold it down, be open, and listen.

Peace,
-Abe

PS. June 24th - June 26th 2009 I invite you all to join me in a 3-day fast as a sign of solidarity for us all over the globe and as a remembrance of all the different things we are privileged with. Please prioritize your health and don’t do anything that would jeopardize your well being. Give as much as you are comfortable with giving. For example, if you want to give up eating chocolate for 3 days because you love it, than give it up. If you want to not eat any food for 3 days, and its safe for you, more power to you! Love, my Peoples, Love.

So far we have traveled to three different IDP camps and have walked a lot, a lot no really a lot. lol But it has been all good, because we are seeing so much so I count it a privilege. It is crazy just to think about what these people went through just a couple of years ago. The stories are so touching and I know that I will walk away from this experience with a completely different outlook on life and what it means to fight social injustice and advocate for human rights? Well I have to go now, hopefully next time I will be able to put up some pics. Peace.