rwanda

Our team’s missions statement is to create sustainable differences on the road to self discovery. After interviewing a lot of our volunteers, I’ve found that the end statement, to “discover” more about yourself is a lot of our group’s goal. Many are redefining themselves out here.

I didn’t really put myself into that category with everyone else that I interviewed. I have felt that I’ve had a lot of life changing events or moments in my quarter century life and that a lot of those previous experiences have shaped and molded me. Reflecting back on this past month and a half I’ve realized that I was wrong. I’ve realized that I have been constantly re-defined things I thought I had already figured out. Here are a few examples of what I mean.

Trust. I feel like we have been forced to discern people’s motives a lot lately. I’m much more skeptical of some people after a friend of ours stole from us but then other people here I trust whole heartedly, without reservation, even with my life.
Loyalty. After interviewing five HIV positive women who were all infected by their husbands but felt no anger, I re-evaluated loyalty and what that means. I am not sure how I feel about it. It’s great that they aren’t angry and can let go and focus on living life to the fullest, but at the same time it is not okay if this is a cultural acceptance thing.

How to live my life. I feel like more than anything I’ve been slapped in the face with raw life and what it is like to live with problems that are much more survival based than anything I’ve experienced in my pampered life. Looking at a person with AIDS or someone struggling with malaria, someone who has suffered from deaths in their family and others who don’t know what they are going to eat that day, I have realized that most of my problems are self inflicted or things I’ve conjured up in my head from boredom. Spending a lot of time with people who are in extreme poverty makes me feel like I’m living more richly and it doesn’t have to do with money. I see things in a more vibrant and yet a harsher light.

That’s how I felt in Rwanda this last weekend. On the 13 hour cramped and bumpy bus ride from Kigali to Kampala, I sat reflecting on human nature and trying to decide if and how that definition has changed in my mind. The images of skulls and femur bones piled up on shelves, the room in the back of one of the churches where everyone was set on fire, the blood still left on a wall in the neighboring room, the priests changing room with a bible on a table next to a pile of bones and a huge grenade like hole where the window was, piles and piles of dirty rag clothes taken from the bodies of the victims and stacked on the church benches, thousands and thousands of pieces of clothing. In the piles of clothes, a snoopy childs t-shirt caught my eye.

The first church tour our guide Latifa explained after asking her that when she was 10 she came to this church to hide from the hutu extremists. Her family hoped to find sanctuary from the extremists in the church along with 5,000 others. When she saw the hutus coming for them in a mob like fashion, she ran and was able to escape with some others to a swamp and stayed in hiding for a month. When she came out of hiding she had to face the enormity of the slaughter of many who she cared about and loved. She said that coming to work can be difficult to have to relive the experience day after day. I was completely over-whelmed and with my voice strained said, “I’m sorry you went through that” as I left. I don’t know if I’ve ever understated anything more in my life.

The second church was a perceived sanctuary for 14,000 people. As I descended down the stairs in a mass grave behind the church I saw thousands of broken skulls and my emotions shut down. It was too much to deal with and I just had to sit for a while and try to understand what was in front of me. These uniform skulls and bones were once brothers, sisters, moms and dads and now are just bones. They were murdered in the most barbaric and brutal methods that I don’t need to go into. I factually know that numbers,1 million murdered and 2 million people were displaced, but seeing the clothes, the childrens bones, and talking to another guy my age who was about 12 when it happened and was there to visit his diseased relatives made me question the inherent nature of humans. I used to think we are inherently good.

I was taken back in my trip to Rwanda to when I went to Hiroshima in 7th grade and was speechless again at atrocities that humans can do to each other. The ways that we can desensitize ourselves. Books I read about how the Japanese treated Koreans in China and Nanking during ww2, the holocaust, the genocides in bosnia, turkey, and the native Americans, I was disgusted that 1. we don’t learn from the past and in conjunction with that 2. that it is HAPPENING NOW in Darfur.

I think that sometimes we convolute and make excuses for things that should be black and white. In a situation like Rwanda where the Germans, Belgians, priests, hutu extremists and the international community were all at fault. The international community just sat back when they only needed 5,000 troops to stop the genocide and 5,000 UN troops were in Rwanda at the time but were not allowed to stop anything unless they were directly shot at. It’s ridiculous that we have to sit back again and allow innocent people to die again in Darfur until political will changes. People are dying NOW and I’m just frustrated and feel helpless. At the same time, the helplessness is exactly what de-sensitizes us on the outside. Our cook Mary just went back to sudan last weekend and just knowing that she is waiting for peace to be reunited with her husband is more motivation for me to get involved so it’s stopped.
Anyway, Rwanda as a place is gorgeous, it is so much more developed than Uganda and I felt much more safe there. The streets are manicured, tree-lined, and there is not garbage around. I love it there. Getting there was typical African fashion of definitely struggling. The first bus that Lezlie found was going to take about 16 hours to get to the Rwanda Congo border. We decided that was not the right match for us so frantically at about 6pm found another company and went to buy tickets for that night. We got to the bus ticket office, I clarified the tickets and we bought six tickets for Lezlie, Alexis, me, Kat, Kellyn, and Drew. We got there at 12 for our 1 am bus to find that they booked us for the next day. We sat there frustrated and tired at 1am as we watched our bus drive away in the middle of a dark parking lot and were not wanting to try to find a way home to Lugazi again. The manager figured out a way to squeeze us into a 3am bus and we happily accepted. Sadly, the tranquil bus ride sleeping was not on the agenda. We felt like we were on the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland. I’m not being overdramatic. The third or fourth time we were all air-born about 3 hours into it, I blurted “ARE YOU SERIOUS?” and then Lezlie followed up with “THIS IS RIDICULOUS” and Alexis “I’m going to talk to the driver.” And we all erupted in laughter at the pitiful state we were in, heads bumping all over the place as we pretended to sleep as we rode at about 80mph through fog in pot-holed roads.

Besides almost missing the one bank to get our money out and finding that French, Rwandan Kenyan (I think) and English are spoken pretty equally, one third of the time we were able to effectively communicate. I did NOT communicate effectively with our hotel man when we were talking about prices and ended up paying four times what we had thought, which turned out to be about $18/person/night but when we were expecting $4 it was annoying.

That aside, I once again wish I had more time there. We ate great food and I was soo impressed with the beauty of the country. I could live there. I also had great company so it was a great trip.

Oh lastly guess what? Mzungu is Swahili, so we didn’t escape that phrase.

June 1

“Ugandans are very friendly” is a phrase many Ugandans say about themselves. I’ve found this statement to be true. They are also helpful, and generally give you good advice or directions, but the sociology major in me has made me question why. I do think that some people help us because they are sincerely good people and just want to help. If they are men, I think that the motives vary. They may still confidently help you no matter what you need, but deep down may want money, an address, phone number, girlfriend, or any means to a green card. Either way, many Ugandans have helped me and despite some leading us WAY out of our way or giving us a bad deal, generally they really are eager to help. Fred was one of those guys.

We decided Saturday night at midnight that we were going to attempt to register and run a half marathon Sunday morning in Jinja (a town about 40 minutes away). I spent Saturday in Kampala eating heavy Indian curry, ice cream, and watching a movie. I definitely did not carbload and I also most definitely have only ran about 3 times in the past month. Anyway, we got up at 5am and after an adventure of finding the registration point, they allowed us to register at 7:15 am. The race didn’t start until 9am so we had a few hours to kill and to try not to fall asleep. In true Ugandan fashion, the gun shot went off at 9:45 am and hundreds of us took off running. The front of the line included Olympians from Uganda and a traveling Olympic team from Kenya. They looked straight out of a nike commercial and even their warm up jog would have worn me out. Despite trash talking in my head, I didn’t see them once during the race. I’m fast,but that is an idea of how fast they are. We took off running through Jinja with many people lining the streets cheering for us. We got to the first water station, which were water filled sponges which I drank from and then when we got to the real water station I wanted to kick myself for once again drinking unsafe water, but didn’t have time to think too much about it. After the first water station the five of us help intl runners spread out into our respective comfortable paces. I was feeling good running behind Kat and felt like I was keeping up a good pace. We ran into a more rural area right by the nile and lake Victoria. It was beautiful. We could see people washing clothes in the river and there were kids running along with me after I would give them five or “bonga” (fist pound) while I ran along. The problem was that the sun came out strong and I realized that I like to drink a lot of water in those humid situations. I kept telling myself that just around the bend there would be water and was feeling exhausted. After running for literally twenty minutes feeling like I might pass out, I stopped to walk for a second and my legs almost gave out under me so I just picked up and kept running. I passed a prison where a guy in his jumpsuit was cleaning a railroad track and stopped to cheer for me. By the time I finally got to water about 30 minutes of miserable dehydration had set in so I walked to try to get re-hydrated. As I was walking a Ugandan guy came up to me and was completely encouraging. His name is Fred. We started running together and he became my favorite running partner. I found out he has a family with two little kids and as we jogged along, we were passing time just chatting among beautiful landscapes. After a little lul in conversation and I was kind of wondering if he was one of the purely nice people or if there were any ulterior motive for befriending me, he turned to me and asked “do you know Jesus Christ?” I smiled to myself as I told him yes. I realized I probably needed some missionary work done on me considering that I was missing church at that very moment. I really was hoping that this conversation would NOT evolve to something that I couldn’t physically run away from for the next 6 miles, but it worked out okay in the end after I told him that I also am “saved.” He’s great and I’m soo glad that I was able to run with him. Every water station from fred to the end, I grabbed two bottles of water to run with as a death-prevention measure.

The last hour or so of the race fred and I ran and walked and ran and walked to the finish line. It was great because at the end the tables had turned and I was encouraging him to run. This may come as a shock but he was LESS prepared than I was for the race. He didn’t eat breakfast that morning and was cramping up.

Nonetheless, after about two hours and fifteen minutes, we crossed the finish line. Me in 31st place for the women and fred in 298th place for the men J. I’m sure there were just as many women as men running and that I’m just that fast.

As we stiffly grandma-walked home, we knocked on our gate and...knocked and knocked. Shaun one of our volunteers poked his head out and yelled at us. We looked over and about 30 feet of our impenetrable fortress of a wall surrounding our compound had crumbled because of what we hypothesize as erosion. I initially thought a small bomb had exploded. They are fixing it even now as I’m typing so we will hopefully be once again less exposed in the near future. When I went out to shower in my bathing suit to the well, I turned around to see about 20 teenage boys just staring at me. I pumped water into a basin and carried it to the back of the house for relative privacy but, lets be honest, the fun never stops here in Lugazi.

Yesterday I tried talking to our day guard sam. He is in his early twenties and doesn’t have much education so his English is not the best but he takes care of the compound as well as lets us in during the day. I feel guilty because we are technically paying him about a dollar a day, thus perpetuating extreme poverty…but he does have an apartment in the back so I’m hoping that it is okay. Anyway, yesterday morning I showed him another huge ant trail. The ants are merciless here. They maneuver and smash themselves inside your shoes and out of nowhere a searing pain (mostly because of the shock value)causes a mini freak out when they bite.

Last time we had an ant incident he took care of it quickly. He got gasoline and watered it down, then splashed the ants and killed them really effectively. So we had another broken conversation about killing the ants which included me promising to give him the equivalent of a quarter to buy a little bit of gasoline. I totally spaced it until we came back in the evening. I brought it up with him again and apologized for not giving him money. The conversation went something like this.

“sam, I’m sorry for not giving you money, can I now give you money?”

The respondant look of confusion caused me to make the universal money sign by rubbing my fingers together.

“you know, money for the gasoline? Petroleum? To kill the ants?”

Still confusion.

Melissa and I made little motions as if we were ants crawling

“Can I give you money for the insects?”

Sam responded

“Sex?”

sorry it's been a while, I'll do better

This week was insane. Part of the delay in my blog update is explained below. I would have updated in the past three days but we had a huge storm one day, power outage the next, and then internet was down another.

Last week on Monday we had 9 sick volunteers who had been throwing up through the night and 3 who had diahhrea. Tuesday I took Stacy to the doctor who had a throat infection. Wednesday I took Andrew to the hospital who is now being treated for malaria. Thursday we took Becca to the hospital in Kampala because her back is hurting her a lot and she previously needed surgery on it. Brook was in bed for three days with heat flashes and the chills. People had things stolen this week, more people got sick in waves, elections happened and were really intense, and a group went to kampala on Friday for domino's,lost two wallets and didn’t get home until 2am. It was a rough week. But give us a week and we will hopefully be able to laugh it all off.

When we went to Kampala on Thursday, Becca, Ivan, Mellissa, and I bargained for a while and waited for a taxi until we finally started our trek into the city. We arrived in kampala about 90 minutes later and hopped on two boda’s who were to take us to the international hospital. Sadly, Ivan told them the wrong hospital and so after swerving in-between cars and busses and even hopping a medium and turning into oncoming traffic (a policeman drove up next to the motorcycle after that maneuver and yelled at him and then yelled at us for not yelling at him) we ended up across town at the wrong hospital. When we finally reached the international hospital, the boda drivers charged three times as much. We argued and eventually had to give them a little over twice as much as we initially bargained. Instead of $1.50 each motorcycle, we paid $3.50. We entered the westernized hospital and Becca saw a phillipino doctor around 2:30 pm who referred her to a specialist at 5. So we went to the embassy on more boda’s. The consulate was closed so we went to a grocery store self titled “the embassy grocery store” and were really excited about buying oatmeal.

At this point Melissa and ivan had other errands to run and needed to make it back home, so went their separate way. Becca and I saw the doctor, got xrays, a prescription, and the name of a hotel that had a store underneath it where we may be able to buy a back brace. It was basically a scavenger hunt, racing against the sun. We hopped on yet another boda and went across town, ironically close to the first wrong hospital of the day and were dropped off, got a brace and went back outside with vague directions to where to pick up a cab back to Lugazi. Ironically we had to motorcycle to get becca a back brace, but just pretend that is logical. I was getting nervous as the day came to an end because we had a long trip home and Uganda at night is a completely different place than Uganda during the daylight. We started walking in the direction of a man’s waving hand and then asked someone else who sent us walking perpendicular to our trajectory. Finally I asked a girl who was about our age to take us. She was a saint and walked through alleys and through a night market to get us to a hectic taxi park. There were hundreds of taxi’s (aka minivans that have four seats of three but somehow manage to frequently squeeze in well over twenty people). She helped us ask and found that we can’t get directly to Lugazi. So, we went halfway home, waited again in the dark, and then got on another very crowded bus to town. It was election night and there was a lot of partying going on so we jumped on boda number…I don’t even know, and booked it home. Besides being stopped by a group of drunk twenty something year olds who were up to no good (yes I'm embracing that I sound like a grandma with that statement), had our boda driver not taken off with a jolt, we arrived home safe and sound. I am grateful for our no traveling after dark rule and plan to obey that.

Friday night before we saw a bunch of kids perform traditional African dance which once again made me in awe at the African gene to dance. It’s got to be genetic. They had rattles on their ankles, some half hula skirt and a fur around their waist and would put shakira to shame if she were to see how they shake it. There were a few boys playing the drums who were equally as talented. The dance troop performs, most are orphans, and the money they make from performances fund their school fees.

On Saturday we went rafting on the Nile. It was amazing. Probably one of the top ten things I’ve done while on vacation in my life. Yes, I realize I made another sweeping absolute statement, I just can’t help myself. Some went bungee jumping before but around 10 am we all separated into boats of 8 people and my group included our Ugandan guide Sadun who is hilarious and awkwardly gave me a hug at the end and asked for my number infront of all of his other rafting buddies. We rafted through three class 5 rapids, two class 4, and about five class 3. We flipped during one where I got hit by drew and then by the boat. I thought I might die.
That being said, It was so fun and I’m going to go again with the mindset of what sacrifice I’m going to put my body through. I once again had to face the reality that 1. My arms are really weak. 2. Doxycyclene + 8 hours in the sun without any shade = major sunburns. 3. Inhaling Nile water causes my body to naturally cleanse itself. I have been daydreaming of the good old days when I was a little more comfortable. Days when I took for granted things like, being able to choose when I go to the bathroom instead if it choosing me. I’m also thinking back to this time last year when I actually PAID for a cleanse. I’m ridiculous.

We ended up going down about 17 miles of the Nile which was breathtaking. (if you are curious, which I was, it takes 3 months to raft to Egypt). And I always assumed that rivers should run north to south because of a gravititational pull. It’s just logical. But the Nile obviously missed that physics lesson.

During our trek we paddled past lush Ugandan countryside with hills and mountains on both sides. We also passed villages with people washing their clothes (pronounced clothe-ez here). There were places we were able to get out and swim and tried to overtake another boat pirate style.

We were able to stop for sandwiches, potato salad, pineapple, and watermelon at lunch time and we all felt like we were in heaven.

The weekend was great. We officially have a day guard who I need to keep reminding of his responsibilities considering I spent ten minutes banging on our fence in a really heavy rainstorm to eventually get let in by a sick volunteer. We should have a refrigerator tonight, and we are taking legal action against the guy that we think stole from us. Such are the adventures here in the pearl of africa.

bugs

Yesterday we all were having a good time together. We celebrated Aly's birthday and went to church, ate etc. but in the middle of the night something got us.

Basically a virus is wiping everyone out. We have 9 volunteers at home, 6 throwing up, 2 with diarrhea, and one with a sinus infection. Not only that, but our computer is also infected with something funky because it wont work.

awesome.

Luckily we have good contacts and talked to the mission president who said it's totally normal and should expect about 24 hours of sickness to get whatever the bug is out of everyones systems. for now we left out the BRAT diet snacks and are hoping for the best.

After cleaning out a bucket of throw up and bleaching the bathrooms again, melissa and I walked, disheveled, out of our house. When we closed the gate, we looked at each other and just started laughing. We remembered the fact that last night we were discussing the potential of this week being smoother than last week. :)

The sick people are in high spirits despite their un-comfort and we are taking the sinus infection volunteer to our landlord the doctor this afternoon (he practiced in australia for many years). We also can get good antibiotics over the counter here so we will get these guys better.

p.s. Andrew Harrison is not sick.

May 15, 2009

Our group is here! All 28 of us. It’s kind of out of control but also pretty fun. We now have running water which is a great improvement and Melissa and I anticipate the day our mattresses that we washed about 10 days ago will dry completely. Everyone seems to be getting a long great so far. It could definitely be the honeymoon phase but we are all having a really good time together and will hopefully have some good projects coming up in the near future. Some of the things Melissa and I set up for this week included meeting with the Sanyu school.

Prosper grew up an orphan but was sponsored by a school for school and board and really loved by her teachers. When she married Pastor Francis she wanted to give back through education. So, they started Sanyu (that is her Ugandan name) school from a seven room house. They lived in three of the rooms and started with 6 students. Each year they expand a classroom to fit the senior class and have one more year to expand to make it seven years with seven classes. They are struggling to find the finances for this last building. In Uganda you have to take a standardized test to get into middle school and need a “hole” or a hall for both the seventh grade and to administer the standardized test at your school to be considered legitimate and eventually be sponsored by the government. The problem is, they need $3000 USD to do it. Micro credit loans will only give up to $300 with almost a 30% interest rate. The bill for complete funding is currently over half of all of our project funds for the summer so we can’t do it alone. They would also want to use it as a meeting place for women’s groups and a community center. So, I’m going to try to find other NGO’s around Uganda that specialize in schools and see if we can partner with them.

When Melissa and I arrived and were struggling to find housing for 28 people in a poor community, Pastor and Prosper took us around for 7 hours one day, completely dropping what they were doing to help us find housing. Prosper stayed with us for almost three days straight helping us get the best prices on all the house supplies and teaching us how to clean the house here. They have four kids of their own and have adopted three orphans. I am amazed with this couple and know that they sincerely just want what is best for their community. We are going to do some teacher training, fix their adobe stove, build square foot gardens for each grade (so they can learn math and incorporate some more nutrition with applicable life skills) and teach business classes to the 53 moms whose children go to Sanyu school but who can’t afford the small tuition fee. Sanyu and Pastor Francis can’t turn them away and in turn, can not make enough money to expand. Although their school is humble, they have been getting recognition from the community because they try to instill in the children a love of learning and also really grow attached to the kids.

To get the community involved we were thinking of having those families who cannot afford tuition donate labor to building to pay for tuition. We were also thinking of having the kids work on the school for about an hour a day so they also have ownership. We haven’t promised anything, but I am also hoping for a miracle so we can help them with their school.

Kizza


Kizza is a man whose love of life radiates from his countenance. We built something like 15 adobe stoves with him last year and in the year since HELP Intl has been gone, his community built about 35 more. Adobe stoves are important because they save on fuel costs and time, but most importantly, women traditionally cook over open fire in their homes and get respiratory disease and very irritated eyes. Children would suffer as well. We are helping him now build a mushroom house for his womens group which after about $200 of investment, it would help support up to 16 families. I want to include in the contract that a percentage of the money earned must be saved for their children’s schooling. Kizza is so excited about life and one day said, “I may not be rich, but I am happy.” When I heard that statement, I was really impressed by its simplicity. For some reason it is such a puzzle for most of the world. He has found happiness through his family and giving back to his community.

The whole time I’ve been here I’ve wondered if it is our place to get involved in these peoples lives. I’ve been trying to partner as much as possible with the community and figure out feasible ways for more of a loan system instead of hand outs to help foster self sustainability instead of dependency. There is a woman from Kampala that Melissa met who goes around to schools and communities and gives speeches to Ugandans about the need for them to step-up and give back to their communities. She says that they need to stop waiting for Muzungu’s to come in and if they see a problem, figure out a way to fix it themselves. Melissa’s friend Clint was in Uganda for a conference and said something similar to us, he said, “stop thinking that you can’t do something. We put way too many limits on ourselves and when we say we can’t, our brain shuts down. Instead turn it into a question and ask, HOW can I do this. This forces your mind to work through the problem and you continuously ask how, you will attain much more in your life.” I like this organization because we can incorporate that by ideally “helping them help themselves”. We try to ask them how they want to solve their problems and then see if we can offer any assistance. All of our projects need to have a lasting impact to foster self sustainability and if we can help speed up the development process, even just a little bit to help small businesses, or increase health, it’s worth it. I think I will always question our involvement in the development process. There is a very delicate balance of how much we should give vs. how much we should expect from the people we are helping. One project I’m excited about is an HIV/AIDS youth outreach group that has 100% volunteers who go to schools and talk about protection, abstinence, and the importance of getting tested. We are partnering with them to build a HUGE adobe stove in the local, very under-funded, hospital. I think the more there are partnerships, the better. We are planning to run with their ideas and to mostly just support them in their mission.

I love it here. Being over the logistics of the group cuts my ability to pursue my own projects, but I love where I am. I'm excited to learn from our volunteers and continue to learn from the people we are working with.

5/10

Our volunteers are here!! Well, all but 5 who are coming in tonight. 18 of them arrived, a little frazzled, after over 24 hours of travel. We had to rent 3 mini busses to get everyone back and naturally, in my car, there was a spontaneous combustion of about 10 minutes of lion king songs. I am sure it was all the condensed oxygen in the airplane.

Everyone is excited to be here and Melissa and I have laughed at ourselves wondering if we are going to chill out at all this summer. Probably not. We are quite a conspicuous group walking around Lugazi. Before our group arrived, Melissa and I were the only muzungu’s around. Now we move in an overwhelming pack that looks like a colorfully dressed ghost parade to all those we pass. We are naturally quite entertaining to the cute little kids around town who pause to get up enough courage to yell, “muzungu!” at us.

Speaking of people yelling muzungu (white person) at us, I was talking to our compadre Ivan who was laughing about the inverse and was sure that if he were to go to America how everyone would yell “BLACK PERSON!” at him. I tried to explain that most likely, that would never happen in America.

The 18 volunteers got in Friday night to no running water (they might turn it back on Tuesday or Wednesday) and we’ve been using a lot of well water to do everything. Saturday we woke up and the newbies went on a scavenger hunt throughout the town to the bank, buy fruit from the market, buy water from the grocery store, and email home. We then met for lunch and went back to the house to get ready to ride to jinja, the source of the nile. We road a boat across lake Victoria to where the nile river begins. It has a 400ft deep spring that mixes with the lake water to start the river. I never really thought about how rivers begin so it was really interesting. Some of the group went back to swim in a swimming pool at a hotel and the rest of us stayed out and swam in the lake. There are some areas of the lake with alligators, but luckily considering how huge lake Victoria is, there are plenty of swimmable areas as well. I wouldn’t have gone swimming if there was any chance of an alligator sighting.

We got back, ate dinner, and then went to African Paradise, which lived up to its name in rhythm and groove. Just kidding. It’s a small-town dance club that was a lot of fun. Auntie Peggy’s daughter Barbara came with us and we spent the night jumping around and laughing. We have one volunteer in particular who dances like no one I have ever seen. It’s pretty amazing and I’ll keep trying to learn moves from him to bring home. He’s able to move but somehow stay really stiff at the same time. When we walked in, they played this regae song about obama, and then continued to replay it about 8 times. The lyrics include “hero,hero, hero, obama is our hero. Hero, hero hero, an African warrior…”

Our group is already bonding a lot. It’s a pretty eclectic group of people but no one with a sand paper type personality. Everyone is leaning on people they knew before but also willing to have fun together and get to know other group members. It’s going to be fun. Melissa and I scheduled a lot of activities for this week and hopefully people can use them as a spring board for next week.

I was talking to our cook Mary last night for a while. She’s from southern sudan and saw a lot of fighting in the war before she left with her three children. She left her husband in Sudan to work and sees him about every three months. We were talking about Al Bashir and how evil he has become and I asked what she thinks needs to be done. She said simply, “he needs to be stopped.” I continued to ask if she thinks that there should be international help and she said yes. She’s just waiting for him to die or imprisoned so she can go home. It is so ironic that I went to a couple of darfur rallies, a convention, and read a book last year in DC but I will never really understand what the conflict has been to people on the ground.

Well, I have five minutes to get ready for the day. Happy mothers day to all you mothers that read!