Hope Realized

Joy at turning the impossible into the possible

10/21/10: I’m looking at the pictures today, & I see the faces of the children & young people of Rwanda. I wonder how they are doing, if the interaction they had with us is still with them as they are with me. Yes, it has faded to some degree in the last week, but their energy is still very alive in me. Their perseverance, their willingness to risk, their unrestricted sharing of their joy of life, their eagerness to embrace hope in the face of circumstances we would consider hopeless—these qualities endear them to me & dictate to me that I remember them; that I continue to put effort into finding resources to make their hope realized. Theirs is the exaggerated journey of all of us. Can we find inner peace & joy no matter what our circumstances? Can we acknowledge all of our gifts in each moment regardless of what we think we lack? Can we cherish each relationship & be fully present with it even though we know it is temporary? Can we wonder at the beauty of a flower or a smile even though we have seen the darkest of days? Can we forgive when all that we once held dear has been taken from us? Can we surrender to a Higher Power that appeared to have abandoned us? Can we use our most difficult experience to become more of the loving essence we truly are? Most of these young people can answer yes to all of those questions.

I haven’t directly spoken of the need for financial support to continue the work of bringing hope to these young people, & creating a model to do that in all parts of the world where it is most needed. The extent of the need could easily use millions of dollars, but our project, ProjectLIGHTRwanda needs just $30,000 to complete the pilot project, & I will be able to return to Rwanda to help create that for $4,500 in donations. If you feel drawn to participate in something that you can help create that makes a difference in fostering world peace, support in your mind & heart is warmly appreciated & valued greatly. If you want more tangible participation you may donate online at createglobalhealing.org. When you reach PayPal, click on the box that says “Instructions to seller” & write in “Credit to K. Brewer.”

I would like for all of you to have the life-changing & life-affirming experience that I just had in whatever form means most to you. Does anyone have a jet & a big house in Rwanda?

Natural Resource

Joy of dance

10/19/10: So many things in Rwanda call into question assumptions I have held for years. How can a 7-yr-old girl with machete cuts on both sides of her neck so deep that they require physically holding her head on survive alone in the forest for weeks? How can a child without parents or family from infancy & who lives in an orphanage with 499 traumatized others deeply connect with peers & adults—why don’t they have Reactive Attachment Disorder? They would here. Why don’t young people who experienced the most heinous torture ever perpetrated by man have Dissociative Identity Disorder? They would here. What does their society have that we are missing? I don’t know the answer, but I have some guesses. They do not question that they are their brother’s keeper. The village does raise the child. They take what they have & create what they need. They find joy in small moments. They sing & dance whenever they can. They find deep meaning in their Christian religion, despite the priests who betrayed them (80% of Rwandans are in church on Sunday, for 3 or 4 hours). They feel gratitude for the simplest of things. They do suffer greatly from the poverty & the losses, but there always seems to be someone who comes up with something to try as a solution, & it is freely shared. I know there are still Rwandans, especially those in self-imposed exile in The Congo, who are consumed with hate so I am not speaking about them. I also know the people we interacted with most are those who choose to care about & work with those in need & are the most mature & loving of their society, but I see the same kind of interactions when I walk down the streets of Kigali or drive by the mountain villages. I see true joy in children who appear to have nothing, not even shoes or clean clothes. There is something very special about Rwanda. I wonder if there is a way to export some to us here.

Gratitude

Children of Kigali for peace

10/16/10: I am returning to this reality, but it is not the same. I see things differently. So many things to be grateful for—push a button & warm my house, push a button & heat my food, push a button & have light, have so many clothes it’s hard to choose what to wear, drive to get enough groceries for a week & carry them 10 feet to the refrigerator, push a lever & have water to drink, rinse my toothbrush under the tap, eat fresh, raw fruits & vegetables, breathe clean air, trust my neighbors, sleep without insect repellent & mosquito netting, and so much more. I will have to learn where & when & with whom I can be as completely open & connected to others as I was at the orphanage. I didn’t know before that I wasn’t. I knew this journey would change me, but I don’t think it’s possible to be prepared for what you have never before experienced. All of the discomfort of the long, crowded flight, the running to make plane connections, the dust & diesel fumes, the vigilance about insects & water, the rollercoaster rides up the mountain, no toilets (except at the motel), not knowing the language, the early risings—they are like slight blemishes on an exquisite work of art, hardly noticeable in the beauty of the whole. I’m not sure where I will take my blog next, but I think I’ll focus on aspects of Rwanda & of the trainings & what the implications are for us here. Stay tuned.

Beacon

Last day. Notice how the students connect & touch one another

10/15/10: Jet lag is insidious. I’ll be perking along just fine, & all of a sudden I can’t keep my eyes open. I set my alarm for a one-hour nap & just couldn’t get up for another 40 minutes.

I have been thinking about this trip. ProjectLIGHTRwanda is not just about helping people in abject poverty. It isn’t just about helping people heal from trauma. It’s about much more than that.

Imagine a family member you love dearly & is in your life daily dies. Now imagine (s)he is murdered. Now imagine you watch helplessly as it happens. Now imagine the murderer is your neighbor who you thought was a friend. Now imagine he kills the rest of your family, & tortures them as you watch, knowing he is coming for you next. Now imagine you somehow escape, & see from a distance that your house & the bodies of your family are burned to the ground. You manage to survive for months in hiding while the murderers search for you, calling your name. Then the exiled army returns & liberates your area & you go home—to nothing. No house, no family, no possessions, no family pictures or keepsakes, no friends. Now imagine you see the murderer living with his family in his house with some of your possessions. Nothing has happened to him. He denies he did anything—it was the soldiers. And nothing happens to him. You can’t sleep because you fear being killed or when you do sleep you are awakened with flashbacks to the night & days of terror. How do you cope? How do you move into the present & ultimately into forgiveness? If you live in most of Rwanda you are now safe. If you live in the far northwest, you may still be killed by Hutu Power bands crossing over from the Congo. You do not have money to go to school. You find other survivors & together you learn to survive, but never enough food & always simple carbohydrates when you do have food. As one survivor says in our video, “I cried every day. Tears were like my food.”

This is what ProjectLIGHTRwanda is about. It’s about giving hope where there is none. It’s about healing from the unthinkable, the unforgiveable & finding peace in your heart & forgiving because it is what you need. It doesn’t mean abandoning the call for accountability, but understanding that feeling shame & guilt, even though denied on the surface, is also living with trauma. When these people are able to reach this place with themselves—and they do, IT GIVES HOPE TO THE WHOLE WORLD. IF THESE PEOPLE CAN HEAL, ANYONE WHO HAS SUFFERED ANYTHING CAN HEAL. These children show the amazing power of the human spirit beyond anything I have ever experienced. They are the antidote to the virus of genocide, to the disease of war. It would take much less effort for me to work with those here who have been traumatized, but they would not be the beacon toward world peace that the children of Rwanda can be.

Choice

Community building an aqueduct; all ages participate

10/14/10: The trip home was a combination of joy, miracles & physical stress. Being awake for 48 hours (except several 1.5 hour snoozes on the plane) leads to an altered state by itself. The plane into Kigali was over an hour late (gave us time to have a laugh-filled goodbye party with the team) so that we left Uganda almost 2 hours late & arrived in Brussels over an hour late, giving us less than 30 minutes to make our Frankfurt flight. The passport officer at first frowned about us making the flight, but then said, “It’s possible,”—exactly what we have been saying since Alisoun created that activity for the kids. We literally ran (you have to go through security again) & they had to open the plane door to let us in. Our luggage didn’t make it, so it is supposed to be brought to us late today. The plane to L.A. was another one of those with 10 seats across & no room to move or stretch your legs. Fortunately it was a smooth flight & I could get up every 90 minutes to go to the galley to stretch. My body is loving having raw food again, but it is still quite stressed & feels almost like having a virus.

I feel as if I am back home, but not really here; I move between two realities & neither, & both, are real. One of the orphanage board members/interpreter e-mailed us a thank-you, & it increased my awareness that I am still connected to the people back there. It is extremely rare here that people are open enough to their own feelings & to others that you can create a true heart connection in a few days. That happened with most of the adults & kids at the orphanage. It is true that there are some people in Rwanda who put on a front of sweet accommodation to manipulate the Muzungas (rich white people) like our motel manager did, but that was not true for the great majority of the people we met. Even the children we passed on the street interacted with us in open curiosity, fun & connection. A few of them asked for money, one wanted to trade his toy for our flashlights, & many of them wanted us to take their picture & then show it to them. One group of 6 or 7 of ages about 3 up to about 8 entertained us with cartwheels, the peace sign, chasing goats, & running circles around us all the way to the motel (about 2 blocks). The contrast between the school children in their clean uniforms (they go to school until about 5PM) & the street children in clothes that often look as if they haven’t been washed in many months, often barefoot with that red dirt on legs, arms & face is stark. Still, we only heard a child cry once in all the time we walked or drove the streets. They are a clear example of happiness being an inside job, not dependent on external circumstances, & of the power of family & community. After Rwanda, I no longer fear a collapse of our economic system, because I have seen how community can take desperate poverty & make life joyful. That is not to say that they aren’t stressed & suffering because of having almost no resources at all. We cannot imagine what it would be like to have no money at all for months at a time, even years. I have thought that having to spend almost all of your time providing for basic needs of food, water & shelter would prevent having time to grow very much spiritually. What I observed was that being as connected to the earth & to one another as that requires is just another path to finding connection to the Divine. It is all choice.

Impact

Rev. Thoms, Myself, Chris, Peace, Alisoun & Lori at the Women's Coop

10/11/10: We met the young woman from Butare today. She is a beautiful, intelligent person and came on a 2-hour bus trip just to see Lori, her clothes in a paper sack. Lori was in a meeting, so the 3 of us, the interpreter & the young woman went to see the National Genocide Museum here in Kigali. It was very different from the ones in the field. There were pictures, explanations of the history, videos, interviews, & hundreds of pictures of the victims before the genocide that their families brought in. The young woman from Butare was deeply affected & stood frozen in front of one of the videos. We walked all the way back (about 45 minutes) to help her release, & when we returned to the motel Lori was able to help her get back to her smiling self. When we expressed concern about her emotional state, she told us the genocide prepared her for anything & there is nothing that can happen to her now that she cannot handle, & that she knows God saved her because there is something she is to do. Create Global Healing gave her the money to pay her back rent so she can return to Kigali. She will be one of the young people the International Youth Healing Center will help when it opens.

Back at the motel we filmed the interpreter singing songs she wrote & will put it on YouTube. She has a beautiful, moving voice & is very talented, but no resources to pursue her talent. She doesn’t know how to read or write music & wanted to take a class but couldn’t get off work to go. I wrote out basics of music writing on a napkin & told her to find a music store & get a book. She has excellent English & is very bright & will teach herself.

Synchronicities continue to happen—one of the board members of the orphanage was just invited to be part of a government conference next week on vocational training programs so will e-mail the full report to Lori. A friend of Lori’s just lost his job while we were here & he has many contacts that will help set up the center & now has time to set them in place. We were going to walk the interpreter to the taxi stop but the dirt roads were solid mud puddles & we were headed back to pay the motel manager to drive her when a car pulled up & offered her a ride for free. The wife of the couple from Uganda who have a project to bring safe water to Africa & who are advising the orphanage went to UCSB & has mutual friends with Lori. The founder of the community coop who knows all the important political people just happened to come to the motel when our interpreter friend who needs a better job showed up & they made a good connection, etc.

It doesn’t seem possible that we leave Rwanda tomorrow. This will be my last blog from the field. I know it will be weeks, maybe months, before I realize the total impact of this journey. I have lived in a culture so different from anything I even knew to imagine that returning to life as usual is not an option. It remains to be seen how I integrate this experience into a new way of being. I now know that there are no differences great enough to divide people who come from love.

Children near Kigali on a highway between villages. Water needs to be carried even in many homes in Kigali

10/10/10: (This will show as 10/11 because the internet was down last night when I wrote this) Day of rest & reflection. Africa is a great teacher. In my last blog I shared some of my process in confronting my initial defensive response to being “paraded” as a source of money. It seems I did not clearly share the almost immediate lesson I learned—that my purpose here is to love & to give whatever I have to offer & the opportunities may come in forms I have not anticipated. I need to remain constantly present & aware of what is possible for me in light of the overwhelming need here or I can feel inadequate & defensive.

I uploaded the rest of my pictures & the pictures of children in the villages & along the road stood out. Most of the children are very thin, & so many are not in school. The government provides a free primary education, but it is not mandatory to attend, & many families need the children to do the work of daily living in order to survive. I have pictures of children carrying water jugs, firewood, baskets, etc. on their heads as they walk barefoot on the rocky roads. I have seen a few one gallon sized jugs, but most look to be either 2 or 3 gallons. Two gallons of water weighs 16 pounds. Children looking to be as young as 6 are carrying these on their heads. Our interpreter said it is a problem as many people have severe neck problems as a result. Children help carry rock for the walls & aqueducts, dig in the garden, herd goats & Rwandan cattle, and work in the rice paddies. One young man at the orphanage (18) works weekends at a rock quarry, hammering out huge chunks & carrying them to a wheelbarrow. Peace (from the women’s coop) said that most families know that beans are the highest protein of any food they can afford to buy, but they take so long to cook that the firewood cost (in the city) is more than they have & there is no refrigeration, so they can’t make a big pot & save it. She is teaching them to rotate foods.

There are also many success stories. Our interpreter that we took out for her birthday dinner started out living with her sister in a tiny room, crying every day & as thin as a rail. Tonight she is healthy, has a job & her sister has a job & they live in an apartment. She has hope to be a full-time interpreter & sing the songs she has written. She has a beautiful voice, & Lori is arranging to make videos of her singing & put on YouTube. Lori found another young teen hiding in a shed in a village with no food, water, sanitation or possessions. Lori paid a local charity to go pick her up & then paid for her to stay there until the money ran out. She is now in another city going to school. You already heard about the young man who graduated from the orphanage & is making films. They really do make the most of what they are given. For our interpreters’ birthday we went to a very nice restaurant (at least 4-star) with a delicious meal including complementary appetizers & soup. The hostess at that restaurant was a beautiful young woman who was an orphan graduate.