The girls dorm top left
with clothes drying on
the lawn (day without rain)
I rested last night so I could keep my eyes open after 3:00. We expect the students to, so I’d better be a proper model. I made it until half-way home today.
We had a full day planned, beginning the Transformational Leadership training and several other things. When we arrived at the school, we were told that four of the girls had been hospitalized due to trauma incidents. I mentioned before that the whole month of April commemorates the genocide, and many, many images and sounds of the massacre are shown in newspapers and on T.V. Tomorrow is the final memorial service in every village and sector. We were told that twelve other girls were sleeping and had been triggered and crying all night. We checked in with our Project LIGHT group and three of the young men had been called to help hold and carry the girls to the hospital (one in a health center nearby, and three all the way to Kigali). We did Energy Medicine and breathing exercises with them and then Lori and I went to the dorms to check on the girls. They were no longer sleeping, but eight of them were in full flashbacks, screaming and crying as I have never heard in person before. One girl was screaming over and over, “They are going to kill me—no, no. God has left me.” (translated) Other students, about three for every girl in trauma, were holding them, stroking their heads, comforting them as best they could. The girls in trauma were not present; they did not recognize anyone or anything that was being said to them. I asked for guidance and all the unseen help available. I helped the comforting girls with how to touch and breathe to create more calm, used Reiki, used intuitive healing, did surrogate Energy Psychology and learned the Kinyarwandan words for “safe now” and “you are not alone.” I had a translator only about ten minutes, as she was helping Lori with the most severe girl most of the time. The doctor was there when we came in and had just given the girls shots which he said were not working, but it made our work more difficult. One girl I worked with was able to calm enough to tell the translator that she fell and hurt her back and that was why she was still crying. Her cries before had sounded like a baby (and she would have been a baby during the genocide), but now were loud whimpers which did sound more like pain. I was going to do energy work on her back, but another girl began to thrash and scream, so her friends put a mattress on the floor and carried her to it so we could work with her. The two things that seemed to work with her were my doing surrogate Tappas Acupressure Technique and the Energy Medicine life force points on the bottom of her feet. After coughing and seeming like she coughed up something that was stuck in her throat, she calmed down and went to sleep. When she awoke about 20 minutes later she asked for water and was present. Her friends took her to walk outside. I went to work with another girl, training her friend and starting to use energy work. She was calming, but still sobbing. The principal decided to take all the crying girls to the hospital because they were triggering the other girls. Lori and I knew we were making progress, but we also know we are there for only a few days and they are there all the time. Sixteen girls ended up in the hospital. The community officials from the local village were called, and promised to provide whatever was needed for the girls and the school over the weekend. We taught our eleven (our most traumatized girl was in Kigali for an appointment—another miracle) how to breathe and hold someone in trauma, and practiced all of the trauma healing techniques they know to date on themselves so they can help over the weekend. There are over 150 new students there this year. The principal who was at the school for all the past years that Lori has been there, Pastor Seth, and who has been trained by her left this year, and there is a new principal who has had no training. The Headmaster, Rev. Thoms, who runs the program with Lori was gone to Uganda until Sunday night. Had either of them been there last night we feel confident there would have been a different outcome.
I am so grateful for all the training I have had in my own healing, Energy Psychology and Energy Medicine, and intuitive healing. Even with all of that, there is no way I could think of what to do. I had to allow a higher power to direct me. In a situation like that, I didn’t care what the other girls thought about the weird pose I was in or that I was tapping on one girl’s hand or that I closed my eyes and smoothed my hands down her back. I had some struggle to keep focused on love and seeing the girls whole and calm. Hearing and seeing the unbelievable pain and terror they were in and having my own momentary flashbacks to scenes from the movies “Hotel Rwanda” and “Beyond the Gates” brought up anger at the perpetrators that I had to clear as quickly as I could. I am now even more dedicated to teaching as many of the students as possible, and as many people in Rwanda as possible to use Energy Psychology, mostly EFT, to release trauma symptoms and feelings as early as possible so that they do not get into the space of losing themselves in the past reality. It is very, very difficult to bring someone back from that. I am also even more in awe of those who have healed and forgiven.
I want to mention another aspect that was very disturbing from our time in the dorm. The mattresses are about five inch foam, most of them smashed down, stained, many of them with big hunks torn out. I would not be able to lie on them for more than five minutes. The sheets are worn thin and stained. None of them match (I’m sure they don’t care about that, but I’d notice). It would take $4,000 to replace the mattresses. One donor has raised $1,000 for mattresses so far. I’m going to put the link to my First Giving page in case any of you know of an angel, or many angels, who could help with this. Here is the link: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/kathryn-brewer/create-global-healingproject-light.
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