Drawing Connections

Multiple times a day I’ll start this blog entry in my head. It’s startling to think that I’ve been doing so for a month.

In Dubai I wanted to write about my transition from the Judy of the logic-devoid, sensory-assualting jungles of Kenya, Sudan, and Ethiopia to the Judy of sweltering sands and capitalist construction capital of the world. The transition into the uber-developed Emirate was easy; Sudan felt light years away. I wasn't at all astonished by the fluidity with which I transformed from bush-woman to high-heel wearing, 300$-a-night-hotel sleeping tourist. I forgot all of the mosquitoes, mudboots, and yellow-cabbage instantly. Seventy-two hours later, in Manhattan, with 72 hours before my flight home to Florida, I saw friends, took cabs, bought expensive toys. Only four days later, bathing in Siesta Key's sunshine, did I feel a bit stunned and moved by it all.

I suppose it's contrived to acknowledge that. White bloggers always seem to reflect and comment on their departures and the symbolism of picking up and peacing out: always able to do what the people around us can not. I've been processing that, but like most other bad-bloggers, have been of course too busy to make meaningful entries, overwhelmed by this pace and that offer and those assignments, to take time and concentrate on writing out all of these nonsensical blabberings.

But then, small things start happen.

A headline about Castro winning a humanitarian award was one thing. A 'dictator' we chastise consistently, won the Ubuntu award? Ubuntu - an ethos based on our interpersonal relations with other humans, generosity, community, and fairness - in the headlines transported me instantly back into Addis Ababa's Bole Airport, where chance circumstances exposed me to that spirit, the spirit held by "those people," those who can't get up and leave, and who by their categorical circumstance have every reason to want to do such things, but, who, by their inherent senses, take graceful stock of their situation and don't choose to flee the way I have. Without losing you too much, dear reader, I'll divulge this 'Ubuntu in the Airport' experience:

After all the hullabaloo with immigration and the ministry of the interior and the court house and lost paper work and my laptop being held up in immigration, I wasn’t expecting a smooth departure. When I arrived at Bole International Airport, with two hours before my flight to Dubai, and an immigration officer was unwilling to return my computer to me, we called Save to intervene. When Save gave the go-ahead to release to me, the officials couldn’t find the computer. One hour til take off and they found the computer in the dusty storage holding chamber and told me to pay up. I had been told a price, and naturally, it was wrong. And, naturally again, all the airport banks were all closed. There were no ATMs. My flight out was in 45 minutes and I had no way of paying off my fine. I began debating getting on the plane and leaving my laptop in Africa, in order to escape myself. I tried raising my "what am I supposed to do" voice in desperation just as a handful of immigration staff approached me with an offering.

Four Ethiopians came to rescue me - a woman who cleans, a man who runs the x-ray machine, a man who blew smoke at the tourists, and a woman with beautiful curly hair gave me the money I needed to pay off my computer fine. They pooled together and paid off the four dollar equivalent that was going to cost me either a laptop or a flight out of Africa. In the face of this humbling experience, I could only offer thanks and a conscious appreciation for this atypical salvation, as I ran with my reunited machine to the terminal.

This spirit of giving, and unified action, and doing good in the name of positive living and positive change in humanity, has been repeatedly evoked within the concrete jungle of Manhattan over the past few weeks. I've gone with friends to see the incredible off-broadway production Fela, and was moved both by the afrobeat rhythms of my favorite musician and by this showcasing of the power of concerted efforts to create change. If you know me, you know I am a believer and advocate of the arts for education, advocacy, demonstration, and for generally shaking-people-up to make things different and better for humanity. Seeing Fela's messages against corruption, military-might, human-rights abuses, and the collapse of Nigerian traditional norms, performed for hundreds of people in such a captivating format was overwhelmingly awesome. As was the month-long showing of children's art from around the world at the United Nations headquarters, of which my work in Uganda was a part.

Small signs on the internet have been abundant, but reading this beautiful op-ed piece, about a teacher at an international school in metro-Atlanta, Georgia - in the community of resettled refugees, within which I first began my work in the arts for social change and my work with Sudanese, and my work with refugees and community development - brought my experiences over this summer, in a way, full circle. The writer's look at lives transformed resonated with me so strongly; her "testimony of transformation" concerning both her life and that of her Sudanese student, echoed powerfully with my journey, and in calling attention to the undeniable truth that we are all interdependent for these highly sought after transcendent moments, within which we see our own power and that of those around us cultivated most beautifully.

Ultimately, be it through churches in Ethiopia, obnoxiously common capitalistic-cultural phenomenons (shopping in Dubai), to nature at its finest, to well-crafted music and the arts, this shared vein of give-and-take connectedness and utility can be felt. And it is this constant balance, that I hope to shed light upon through this writing, as well as learn to craft with more beauty through my thinking, that will take me both around the island of Manhattan and around the world, back to Africa, yet again.

Feeling spirited and spiritual in Ethiopia:





UAE/Dubai:
Indoor skiing, shopping, sunning, and stirring (at the airport)






At home in Sarasota; simple, sunny.



And back to NYC; exhibitions and exaltations:

Backlog, August 15: The Great Escape

On my last night in Africa I feel that I should feel differently. More inspired, transcended somehow. Hungrier, more determined, or learned would be appropriate.

I guess I am feeling human, though barely. In the face of all the suffering, poverty, derision, and disease in South Sudan, it's really been these two weeks, stuck in Addis Ababa, that have make me feel a bit bereft of my spirit, my humor, my sense of humanity. Much like visitors to ground zero, I feel like a tourist visiting death. I drink the green-gold crop – bottomless cups of it – while watching CNN coverage of famine across this land, and can't help feeling ridiculous.

Luellen and I spent moments aplenty reflecting on our respective summers; moments that carried a fleeting sense of inspiration, transcendence, hunger, determination or learning.

I've learned about myself, it's true, and I've learned about people, and about seeing through as opposed to around and over. I recognize changes in myself and stronger ideas and convictions. My patience will always be limited, but it's certainly expanded and has grown softer. I'm more conscious of my professional tangent, in that my resolve for avoiding halogen lights, cubicle corners, and anything termed 9 – 5 has never been stronger. I can assert that I don't want my cynicism to prevent me from reaching people, but I also realize that my ability to state the obvious can be an asset in an industry plagued by obfuscation. A dashing Irish-man with a dream job convinced me that not all dreams are enviable.

My instinct to escape is as palpable as ever. While I can taste this unending need-to-flee, what it is that I'm escaping remains as mysterious as ever.

Off to Dubai.

I know why the caged lion sings

It’s startling to me that it takes a shell-shocking BBC-World News special on China’s “arming of the killers,” for me to see an element of sophistication in the wars of both the South of Sudan and that in the west, given the experienced daily impacts, rooted in fairly rudimentary measures of violence. In both cases, the humanitarian disaster hangs in the air, amidst dead trucks and a bullet riddled ground, with human tragedy looming everywhere. The stories and individuals profiled on this television special, Hilary Andersson’s inquiry into the role of China in Darfur, sound so similar to those I heard and spoke to every day. “I lost my husband and four children when the bombs dropped,” “I was raped with my sister while fetching water,” “Our home was destroyed, along with our neighbor’s homes, during the fighting.” War and Sudan are dizzying.
Then again, so is Ethiopia and forced tourism. While I’m happy to be far away from the bush I am looking forward to getting out of Africa, even if only for a minute, to get my spinning head to stop.



With that said, the spinning stalled on Tuesday, after my ten days in Ethiopian legal limbo; I went to court and immigration, and then court, and then immigration, and then court, and court, and court, and more immigration.

The judge ruled in my favor – according to my ‘representatives’ – sticking me with a one thousand Birr fine for entering the country illegally. I’ve been provided with a temporary business visa which requires me to be out of the country within the week. The plans Luellen and I made for traveling in the north of Ethiopia are being put on hold – indefinitely? – and we’ve been getting to learn Addis Ababa most thoroughly.

It's not the historical route, but the smack you in the head route. My friend Marcin coined it “dirty poverty.” The destituteness that is teeming across Addis Ababa is filthy. Of the 25 + countries I’ve visited, including a handful of African capital cities, I’ve never borne witness to such an upsetting and unending array of troubles; poverty’s grip on A.A. – ranging from the horrendous prevalence of leprosy to school children peddling banana-flavored chewing gum at every intersection - and the daily grey skies are wearing on me a bit. All of the polio, elephantitis, and psychosis is haunting.

This critique is all, of course, a partial justification for our activities, which will henceforth be referred to as the excellent adventures of Ju and Lu. During my half working-days, we luxuriated with posh cocktails at the Sheraton, lazy price-haggling for jewelry and market purchases, and glamour treatments at a range of spas. Lu’s friend, Lee, brought us out of the city for a waterfall-fed beer-factory tour. We were the only people in AA eating Chinese food during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We’ve been learning about Rastafarianism from the source and practicing our shoulder shaking. Marcin arrived from Khartoum, via Kampala, and put us in proper tourist mode. Orthodox churches, museums, more salient observations forthcoming. Photos for now.

Backlog, August 5: Addis dissin’ me

Addis is cold. Both in temperature and temperament. The immigration authorities took my passport upon arrival. This, following three days stuck in Gambella because a) my passport was stuck in Nairobi, b) my contact person traveling with my tickets missed his flight, c) the plane was full, etc etc etc., was not exactly the warm, post-Sudan reception I had hoped for. After last round battling immigration and being deported back to Sudan, overland, one would ask why I traveled via Gambella, where there is no immigration office, again. I would tell them that there was no other way, that south Sudan has no roads connecting Upper Nile to Juba, that the rains were so heavy I couldn’t leave by air, that the armed banditry on the roads between my town and the neighboring town meant I couldn’t travel inland, that I didn’t want to go to nasty, malaria-riddled Gambella by quadbike, that THEY should have immigration offices at their borders, but they wouldn’t listen. They would, however, berate me, asking if Mexicans attempt to enter the US without visas, and then yell at me some more, in Amharic, when I told them we have a fence. So I’m off to court now. Hopefully I’ll have a passport and visa sometime within the next two weeks so that I can leave this continent. Thanks for beating me up this round, mother Africa.



Backlog: August 6: and the saga continues.

So I went to court, twice and someone suspected that I had been in trouble in Ethiopia before. Evidently it’s not so common to get a white lady causing such trouble. No resolve. Back to court on Friday for my ‘hearing’ or trial if you will… and if you wont then…well, I’m out of answers. Nothing here makes much sense. Except for good food and friends. And
company expense accounts (haha, humanitarianism, psssh, jk).





Hopefully someone is on my team.

Backlog, August 2, Paddling my Own Canoe.

I really couldn't have picked a more appropriate day to re-read
Slapstick, Vonnegut's wry, satirical auto-biography about the tiresome
boredom of humanity and how often those of little power or fortune are
the bearers of the most resplendent pleasures, than today, my first
day out of South Sudan.

In the crumbles of a future Manhattan – Skyscraper National Park -
plagued by death and stupidity all around him, he talks about how the
time flew and how we're all really fighting against a virulent
lonesomeness, and how family neglect is the bane of civilization. He
jokes of the future deference we will all pay to the miniaturized,
flying Chinese: "I await your instructions. You can be anything you
want to be. I will be anything you want me to be." And all I can think
of is the complexity of relief and development and what we are trying
to prove and who we are trying to serve and why we are doing what we
are doing in this industry.

In my journal I wrote about the idea of not spoiling the
"neanderthaloids," Vonnegut's self-description of futuristic
simpletons, lest we destroy all the simply joys of existing. It feels
particularly salient to me at this hour. Maybe it's because I spent
the whole two hours on the quadbike laughing as mud hit me in the
face, birds flew past me, and kids smiled at seeing a white person
turned brown. The people seemed fine. I felt fine. And I didn't even
care (for about two hours) that I couldn't take the airplane and that
I didn't have a visa to legally enter nor a flight out of Ethiopia,
and that I had no computer. I felt fine living simply (ok, the moment
was barely there, but it counts!), and the people around me were so
much happier than any of you reading this at your air-conditioned desk
with high-speed wireless. Accordingly, and as a result of all these
other experiences this summer, I can't stop nurturing my internal
crisis in accepting the post-conflict reconstruction model. I find
myself deeply quizzical of the ethical trajectory of this engagement.
Are we really helping these people 'improve' their lives somehow? What
does improvement really mean in a society where the people don't
really want to live as the rest of the west or the rest of the world?

More than one person has told me that the Nuer consider their culture
to be 'the best' in the world – something that kind of makes me and my
anthropological background laugh a bit. When a child is orphaned, he
is immediately absorbed by the community. Despite that husbands and
wives don't talk to one another after their wedding night (I'm being
100% literal on that…) family units are cohesive. People know each
other. Even if there were more than one 'bar' in Pagak town, everyone
would feel like a living episode of Cheers or a to the Max or the
Peachpit. As I sit here thinking about how emotional my departure from
Uganda was and how different this has been, I can only wonder how 20+
years of violence halts the desire for forward-thinking change, and
how, just maybe, the people don't see our oil-dependence, and our
gender-equality, and our commercial exploits as something desirable.

I'm certainly not sad to be leaving. I don't see myself paddling my
own canoe here in the bush, nor in Morningside Heights for that
matter, as particularly enviable. If nothing else, Sudan has been a
trip. A brain shaking, heart-pounding nightmarish-at-times hoo-haa
trip. And now I've arrived in Ethiopia. More adventures forthcoming.

Hi ho.

Enjoy my final pictures from Sudan and the journey.

Princess of the Mud, Elated by departure:


The Broken Bridge separating Sudan and Ethiopia –
only kind of unlike the Brooklyn Bridge:


Sudanese Sky:


Stuck: Saving the Children or Saved by the Children:



Covered in Mud in Kuergeun, Ethiopia – border town survivors!


After effects/shock


Hi Ho Happy

backlog, July 27: Art Days Continued

We hit bumps in the road. Trying to create ownership of a project is a tremendously challenging endeavour, when the ownership is not innate. Working with Dang was difficult too – translator, intermediary, and 6’9” beneficiary at once does not a simple solution make. But in kind and patient form, he was always eager to participate in finding the solutions and helping us move forward with the program.

After negotiating that we would provide new footballs, volleyballs, and netballs, and continuing to stress that this program/project was one for self and community benefit, the kids regrouped. The art projects continued. From our portraits and connect the shapes experiments we moved onto talking about the role of youth/adolescents in community development, how parents can support schools and educational infrastructure, and in which ways the youth participants could best share their findings/images with people in the community.

Introducing new technologies may have sealed the deal as well. While in Uganda someone criticized my work – or rather that of my organization – for focusing on economic development through agrarian policy and practice reform. “How will Africans ever move up the food chain when they’re still ploughing fields instead of entering fields in Excel?” the Manhattan-based photographer-come-philanthropist barked at me via email. He raised a valid and tricky question that still haunts me. It’s obvious that in Sudan there is no way to drop in a computer training facility and see rapid results – most people have never written their name on paper, let alone do they have spreadsheets to tabulate nor emails to send. But I do lean on pro-globalization winds and hope that introducing some bits of the modern world will – if nothing else – inspire these kids to think bigger, brighter thoughts, and aspire to do, see, and live more. Who doesn’t love an ipod or digi-cam? Their pictures were remarkably awesome, for the record.




The kids’ images and messages continued to surprise and impress me. One participant noted the importance of ‘multiculturalism’ that can flourish within schools, depicting me in his image. He told me about the community’s own diversity, between tribes and varied experiences of war.

From my informal research and casual discussions with people here, I’ve uncovered how sensitive the role of returnees in the community is. While refugees in Ethiopia, Kenya, or Uganda, many individuals gained valuable skills and were trained in different areas, such as soap-making, education (as teachers), tailoring, brick-making, etc. Their eyes were opened to new things that the ‘stayees’ have never seen. Tensions exist between those that return to the Sudan that the “stayees, stayed and fought for.” Anyway, an example of this trouble is in the reality that the military mite that stayed and fought the war occupy protective positions (like a guard for a compound) and are unable to offer deference to a person – be it their supervisor or not – who was not in the military, but who may have higher managerial and or technical skills or authority. This of course has come forth through the youth’s art creations and messages, when they tell me that school is for everyone, and that all must be treated equally. We’ve worked together to cultivate and draw forth these messages to generate a final, collective message from the group:

We the adolescents of Pagak Payam would like to share our artwork with
you to spread an important message for our community:

Through education our children and community can see a better future.
Growing peace and the return home of many people provide opportunities for
education and cooperation to create change for all people by working together in
unity.
Education improves our community and living standards. Education is
for all people, young and old, boy and girl. Children should go to school
and parents must support their children's education, even from the earliest
ages. Through community education and working collectively we can overcome
harmful practices and move from old traditions, like keeping the girl-child at
home and boys with the cattle, to let the children of our future become educated
participants in our communities and strong society. It is a shared
responsibility, requiring the participation of the community to build, maintain,
support, and improve schools. It depends on all people working
together.

Support children going to school!
Support school development!
Working together as a community is the best step for
change!

We decided that to drive the good message home we would distribute the works of art and have a public function to discuss the matters of serious importance. The artists selected the 10 best, most representative images from the collection of over 100.





I’m hopeful that this work will continue to move forward after my departure this week and that I can count on my colleagues and partners to carry the vision out: we’ve scanned the pictures, translated the above message, and are creating small flashcard-sized, laminated, color cards to distribute throughout the community.

It’s exciting to see such a project come together. I feel like the social-marketing output from this engagement is far more sincere than those of the art-projects with refugee youth I’ve facilitated in the past. This was certainly the most challenging and thought provoking as well. In really seeking to look at the role of returnees in community development, and acknowledging that by community development, I actually mean regenerating social-capital within a system where the political infrastructure and standard government social services are provided by the international aid community, I’ve come to see a mix of bleak prospects as well as striking possibilities. Of course I believe in the power of youth as the strongest agents of change, but here in South Sudan it feels as though they are the most critical actors to seeing any progressive changes for this place at all. I’m honoured to have had the chance to work on this project and see the capacity and insights that these young people have to offer and I have nothing but hope for the changes they can bring about.

i <3 NY

i
Originally uploaded by judester1213.

I tried to leave today.
The plane didn't come.
It would seem I love Pagak.

not exactly.