Partnership to Protect: An Advocacy Toolkit for Civilian Protection
A piece I wrote on promoting the principle of the responsibility to protect.
A piece I wrote on promoting the principle of the responsibility to protect.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Una educacion liberadora
My masters' thesis on liberatory education for marginalized, indigenous Bolivians.
My masters' thesis on liberatory education for marginalized, indigenous Bolivians.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Forging ahead with international aid
Forging ahead with international aid
A little piece I wrote about my struggle to stay involved with international development and humanitarian assistance. Page 34-35.
A little piece I wrote about my struggle to stay involved with international development and humanitarian assistance. Page 34-35.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Acholi Inn
The chanting grew louder and pulled me from sleep as the rays of the early morning sun trickled in to my room. I pulled aside the mosquito net covering my bed and moved quietly to the nearby window, petrified. Peering out, I listened as the sound of the men’s voices, still chanting in unison, grew closer. The pounding of my heart intensified. It was the first time as an adult that I had felt pure fear.
It took some time to convince myself that I was not the target of the rebels’ anger. Yet, I could not ignore the fact that I was staying in the same hotel as their enemies. I was at the Acholi Inn, a storied hotel in Northern Uganda’s largest town of Gulu. The Acholi Inn had been bombed at some point during Uganda’s two decade conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army. The remains of the original wing of the hotel, built in the 30s under British rule, stood crumbling and the new wing was just behind it. I was in this wing. So too were scores of Ugandan government representatives, some of whom I had shared a dinner with the night before, and who were in town for peace talks with the rebels. The very rebels who did their work during the night and could be heard, as I heard them that morning, returning to the bush in the morning, chanting. Their work, of course, involved mutilation, rape, abduction, pillaging, slavery and other acts of terror against the Acholi people.
So there I hovered, peering out the window, wondering if perhaps the rebels would decide to greet the Ugandan government representatives earlier than scheduled and in not so friendly a manner. As the seconds ticked by, the voices began to fade into the distance and my heart began to calm down. They had passed the hotel and were indeed going back to the bush to rest.
As I sat on the edge of the bed processing the experience and my reaction to it, a truth came to me. The fear that I felt that morning, wondering if the rebels were coming to the hotel and if I was actually in harm’s way, gave my trip greater meaning and my professional aspirations increased clarity. In that moment, I recognized that my fear was minute compared to that instilled in the children who I had come to Northern Uganda to help. Unlike mine, their fear was a constant reality, and it was ingrained in every element of their lives, in every moment of their waking days and sleepless nights. They too lined up together once a day and walked in unison, like the rebels. Except they walked together at night, before sunset, gathering together along the roadsides and leaving their homes or IDP camps to settle into shelters in Gulu town, where their protection against kidnapping by the LRA during their nighttime raids was enhanced by international NGOs such as the one I was working with.
So there I was, newly calm from my abrupt wake-up call, preparing for my day reviewing our work on a food for education program. The program aimed to address the massive influx of children, both accompanied and orphaned, who had some in from the Acholiland countryside to Gulu town to seek relative safety. We were trying to both find ways to accommodate the number of school age children at host schools and also encourage them to stay in schools. Our goals involved infrastructure rehabilitation, the construction of dormitories and the provision of food, among other initiatives. And yet we couldn’t guarantee safety for our beneficiaries-at least three were abducted in the months after my departure.
I looked at the school children that day in a new light. What perhaps was once unacknowledged pity had become respect. These children more than half my age lived a life of fear, constantly under threat, and yet they came to school, did their studies and got on with the business of living. I came away from my time in Gulu knowing that I wanted to do more to help children find safe spaces in their schools-spaces where they could find protection from harm and fear and enhance their cognitive, social and emotional wellbeing.
It took some time to convince myself that I was not the target of the rebels’ anger. Yet, I could not ignore the fact that I was staying in the same hotel as their enemies. I was at the Acholi Inn, a storied hotel in Northern Uganda’s largest town of Gulu. The Acholi Inn had been bombed at some point during Uganda’s two decade conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army. The remains of the original wing of the hotel, built in the 30s under British rule, stood crumbling and the new wing was just behind it. I was in this wing. So too were scores of Ugandan government representatives, some of whom I had shared a dinner with the night before, and who were in town for peace talks with the rebels. The very rebels who did their work during the night and could be heard, as I heard them that morning, returning to the bush in the morning, chanting. Their work, of course, involved mutilation, rape, abduction, pillaging, slavery and other acts of terror against the Acholi people.
So there I hovered, peering out the window, wondering if perhaps the rebels would decide to greet the Ugandan government representatives earlier than scheduled and in not so friendly a manner. As the seconds ticked by, the voices began to fade into the distance and my heart began to calm down. They had passed the hotel and were indeed going back to the bush to rest.
As I sat on the edge of the bed processing the experience and my reaction to it, a truth came to me. The fear that I felt that morning, wondering if the rebels were coming to the hotel and if I was actually in harm’s way, gave my trip greater meaning and my professional aspirations increased clarity. In that moment, I recognized that my fear was minute compared to that instilled in the children who I had come to Northern Uganda to help. Unlike mine, their fear was a constant reality, and it was ingrained in every element of their lives, in every moment of their waking days and sleepless nights. They too lined up together once a day and walked in unison, like the rebels. Except they walked together at night, before sunset, gathering together along the roadsides and leaving their homes or IDP camps to settle into shelters in Gulu town, where their protection against kidnapping by the LRA during their nighttime raids was enhanced by international NGOs such as the one I was working with.
So there I was, newly calm from my abrupt wake-up call, preparing for my day reviewing our work on a food for education program. The program aimed to address the massive influx of children, both accompanied and orphaned, who had some in from the Acholiland countryside to Gulu town to seek relative safety. We were trying to both find ways to accommodate the number of school age children at host schools and also encourage them to stay in schools. Our goals involved infrastructure rehabilitation, the construction of dormitories and the provision of food, among other initiatives. And yet we couldn’t guarantee safety for our beneficiaries-at least three were abducted in the months after my departure.
I looked at the school children that day in a new light. What perhaps was once unacknowledged pity had become respect. These children more than half my age lived a life of fear, constantly under threat, and yet they came to school, did their studies and got on with the business of living. I came away from my time in Gulu knowing that I wanted to do more to help children find safe spaces in their schools-spaces where they could find protection from harm and fear and enhance their cognitive, social and emotional wellbeing.
Wake-up calls
Despite my requests for wake-up calls at the various hotels in which I was staying, which I carefully translated into Ethiopian time, which uses 12 hour intervals, I never received a single call. But in fact, they were not needed. In Ethiopia, there are many options for establishing the transition from night into day. The cock’s crow is one such option. Heralding the day, the crow often rings out before dawn, in anticipation, it seems, of sunlight. Next come donkey bellows. Soon thereafter come the dueling calls to prayer. I say dueling because it sometimes seems as though the muezzin and the priest are vying for first dibs to send their voices out to the faithful. The Ethiopian Orthodox Abba seems to win every time. He begins his calls at 430am, the first of seven for the day. By 5am, the muezzin begins his adhan. If you are not awake by this point, you will be by 6am, when, thanks to the common use of transparent and gauzy curtains, the sun’s rays begin to trickle into your sleeping space.
On one particular morning, I arose before the rooster, the donkey, the Abba, the muezzin and the sun. I had my cell phone’s alarm to thank for my 4am awakening. Trudging into the dark morning, I greeted my colleague Mulugeta and climbed into the truck. As Mulugeta pulled away from the hotel and made his way down the main dirt road of the town, riddled with pot holes and freshly dug trenches, he waved to someone on the side of the road. He slowed and motioned for me to roll down my window. I greeted the smiling man who approached us as he and Mulugeta exchanged friendly greetings. “My brother” Mulugeta said as we drove off. We headed east, to Axum, said to house the Ark of the Covenant, and also the location of the plane that would take me back to Addis.
We rode mainly in silence. We were both tired and my Tigrinya was limited to three words. On occasion, we would motion to something and eke out a few words in the other person’s language. We saw camels that morning, more than I have ever seen in my life. They came in three groups on our one a half hour drive, with each group containing at least 30 head. They were on their way to market, and at USD1,000 a head, they were precious cargo. We also saw men and women on their way to church, to market and to their fields. The men carried their walking sticks, in typical Ethiopian fashion, on their shoulders-so that the sticks served more as an aid to better posture than in propelling them toward their destination. Bathed in swaths of gauzy cotton fabric typical of the pious in Ethiopia, they girded against the chill air as we sped by in the truck. We saw school children in uniforms heading to class: I couldn’t help but be reminded of the stories generations before us would tell about their mile long walks to school. At 630am and with an 8am call to class, these children’s walks were much longer than a mile each way. We saw Chinese construction crews: the juxtopositioning of Chinese characters and Ge’ez fidels on signs provided for me an oddly surprising example of the rapid and seemingly sudden reach of globalization.
But perhaps the most striking vision that morning was that of the sun. We drove into its ascent that morning, and I was ever aware of its increasing hold on the day. It highlighted all of what I have described thus far, but it too had its own place in the experience that morning. I felt like we were rushing to greet it, to welcome it, to bathe in its glow in some way. It felt inspiring to seemingly become closer to it as it cast its rays over the valleys and hollows of central Tigray province. It also seemed to signal my transition from 10 days off the grid as it were and my return to the reality of the modern age of information and communication technology. I kept my gaze fixed on the sun as it made its way over the horizon and headed to its zenith for the day, and bid my adieu to the peaceful, grounded experience of my time in Tigray.
On one particular morning, I arose before the rooster, the donkey, the Abba, the muezzin and the sun. I had my cell phone’s alarm to thank for my 4am awakening. Trudging into the dark morning, I greeted my colleague Mulugeta and climbed into the truck. As Mulugeta pulled away from the hotel and made his way down the main dirt road of the town, riddled with pot holes and freshly dug trenches, he waved to someone on the side of the road. He slowed and motioned for me to roll down my window. I greeted the smiling man who approached us as he and Mulugeta exchanged friendly greetings. “My brother” Mulugeta said as we drove off. We headed east, to Axum, said to house the Ark of the Covenant, and also the location of the plane that would take me back to Addis.
We rode mainly in silence. We were both tired and my Tigrinya was limited to three words. On occasion, we would motion to something and eke out a few words in the other person’s language. We saw camels that morning, more than I have ever seen in my life. They came in three groups on our one a half hour drive, with each group containing at least 30 head. They were on their way to market, and at USD1,000 a head, they were precious cargo. We also saw men and women on their way to church, to market and to their fields. The men carried their walking sticks, in typical Ethiopian fashion, on their shoulders-so that the sticks served more as an aid to better posture than in propelling them toward their destination. Bathed in swaths of gauzy cotton fabric typical of the pious in Ethiopia, they girded against the chill air as we sped by in the truck. We saw school children in uniforms heading to class: I couldn’t help but be reminded of the stories generations before us would tell about their mile long walks to school. At 630am and with an 8am call to class, these children’s walks were much longer than a mile each way. We saw Chinese construction crews: the juxtopositioning of Chinese characters and Ge’ez fidels on signs provided for me an oddly surprising example of the rapid and seemingly sudden reach of globalization.
But perhaps the most striking vision that morning was that of the sun. We drove into its ascent that morning, and I was ever aware of its increasing hold on the day. It highlighted all of what I have described thus far, but it too had its own place in the experience that morning. I felt like we were rushing to greet it, to welcome it, to bathe in its glow in some way. It felt inspiring to seemingly become closer to it as it cast its rays over the valleys and hollows of central Tigray province. It also seemed to signal my transition from 10 days off the grid as it were and my return to the reality of the modern age of information and communication technology. I kept my gaze fixed on the sun as it made its way over the horizon and headed to its zenith for the day, and bid my adieu to the peaceful, grounded experience of my time in Tigray.
The university grads
As we piled into the four by four, I settled in next to Tetros. Mebrato and Deray sat in the jump seat in the back. All three were refugee health workers, on their way to a training. There were four more passengers in the truck, along with our luggage. We sped off away from the camp, heading back to Shire, the main town about 3 hours drive away. We raced down the mountain away from the camp, pausing to honk our horn as we passed a truck that had recently gone over the edge of the cliff. A fellow driver’s half hearted attempt, it seemed, to see if there were any survivors.
With no response, we made our way toward the river, passing an ambulance in no hurry, and, having successfully crossed the bridge, started our ascent up the next mountain. At the first sign of the road crew, the driver cheered-we were racing to get past a construction spot before the road was closed so that they could clear away some rocks. The crew member was holding a green paddle, signaling that we could still pass. At the sign of the second crew member around the next bend, however, a collective groan swept through the truck. This crew member was holding a red paddle. We were stuck at this point in the road for at least the next two hours. And to make matters worse, we were only five minutes late in arriving.
Everyone but Tetros piled out of the vehicle to search for a respite from the late afternoon sun. “You don’t want to come?” I asked Tetros? He shook his head—he didn’t handle heat well and preferred to stay in the car. I explored the surroundings for a bit, passing judgment on the strategy of the road construction crew’s handling of the earth movers and wondering if I should venture a suggestion to help save us time. Deciding I had best stick to sharing advice within my chosen profession, I then climbed to the top of a nearby hill, surveyed the striking landscape and sat on a rock for a spell. Growing anxious, I then decided to try and get some work done on my laptop.
I joined Tetros in the car-he had taken off one layer of clothing and was clearly feeling overheated. I came to understand why. He was from the highlands of Eritrea and, only having been in this part of Ethiopia for a year’s time, he was not yet acclimated to the warmer temperatures of his new home. I explained to him that I was accustomed to this weather, having grown up in Washington, DC where heat and humidity are the norm. I further explained that my present home base of Boston saw extremely cold winters. Tetros asked me to draw him a map of the US and its climate zones. I obliged, and the result was an embarrassing portrayal of both the landmass and an over simplication of our country’s climate patterns.
I asked Tetros to draw a map for me to show me where he was from. With care, he drew a map of Eritrea, breaking it down into its regions and showing the capitals of each. We talked at length about the ethnic , linguistic and economic aspects of the various regions. We talked of his history and experiences, of his path to Ethiopia. A university graduate, he felt his wellbeing was threatened and his choices all but limited to government or military service, and so he sought safety as a refugee. His parents, however, were put at risk by his decision and his guilt was obvious. Without a means for communicating directly with his family, he sent messages to them through Diaspora communities in Israel and Sweden.
By this time, Mebrato and Deray had joined us. We continued the conversation, and I learned that Deray had been in jail for nearly nine months. On what charges I didn’t ask but it didn’t seem to matter. Their stories were of young men pursuing what we in the US often take for granted: a higher education and a chance at choosing one’s own path. All, however, faced the threat of military service and a form of servitude to the government. One’s profession was chosen for him and anything but adherence to this path was unacceptable. The jail in which Deray had found himself for nine months was so crowded that he spent most of his sentence standing, packed in amongst others of his ilk without room to move. I can tell you that his face changed as he told me his story. I asked what they expected for themselves in the coming years. They were silent. “We wait.” Mebrato said.
With no response, we made our way toward the river, passing an ambulance in no hurry, and, having successfully crossed the bridge, started our ascent up the next mountain. At the first sign of the road crew, the driver cheered-we were racing to get past a construction spot before the road was closed so that they could clear away some rocks. The crew member was holding a green paddle, signaling that we could still pass. At the sign of the second crew member around the next bend, however, a collective groan swept through the truck. This crew member was holding a red paddle. We were stuck at this point in the road for at least the next two hours. And to make matters worse, we were only five minutes late in arriving.
Everyone but Tetros piled out of the vehicle to search for a respite from the late afternoon sun. “You don’t want to come?” I asked Tetros? He shook his head—he didn’t handle heat well and preferred to stay in the car. I explored the surroundings for a bit, passing judgment on the strategy of the road construction crew’s handling of the earth movers and wondering if I should venture a suggestion to help save us time. Deciding I had best stick to sharing advice within my chosen profession, I then climbed to the top of a nearby hill, surveyed the striking landscape and sat on a rock for a spell. Growing anxious, I then decided to try and get some work done on my laptop.
I joined Tetros in the car-he had taken off one layer of clothing and was clearly feeling overheated. I came to understand why. He was from the highlands of Eritrea and, only having been in this part of Ethiopia for a year’s time, he was not yet acclimated to the warmer temperatures of his new home. I explained to him that I was accustomed to this weather, having grown up in Washington, DC where heat and humidity are the norm. I further explained that my present home base of Boston saw extremely cold winters. Tetros asked me to draw him a map of the US and its climate zones. I obliged, and the result was an embarrassing portrayal of both the landmass and an over simplication of our country’s climate patterns.
I asked Tetros to draw a map for me to show me where he was from. With care, he drew a map of Eritrea, breaking it down into its regions and showing the capitals of each. We talked at length about the ethnic , linguistic and economic aspects of the various regions. We talked of his history and experiences, of his path to Ethiopia. A university graduate, he felt his wellbeing was threatened and his choices all but limited to government or military service, and so he sought safety as a refugee. His parents, however, were put at risk by his decision and his guilt was obvious. Without a means for communicating directly with his family, he sent messages to them through Diaspora communities in Israel and Sweden.
By this time, Mebrato and Deray had joined us. We continued the conversation, and I learned that Deray had been in jail for nearly nine months. On what charges I didn’t ask but it didn’t seem to matter. Their stories were of young men pursuing what we in the US often take for granted: a higher education and a chance at choosing one’s own path. All, however, faced the threat of military service and a form of servitude to the government. One’s profession was chosen for him and anything but adherence to this path was unacceptable. The jail in which Deray had found himself for nine months was so crowded that he spent most of his sentence standing, packed in amongst others of his ilk without room to move. I can tell you that his face changed as he told me his story. I asked what they expected for themselves in the coming years. They were silent. “We wait.” Mebrato said.
Eyob
The pool hall was filled with men. Samara went in and came back moments later with a tall man in a baseball cap with an Alaskan company’s logo on it. He was tall and strikingly handsome. He introduced himself as Eyob. He would be serving as our main liaison and translator for the afternoon as we collected data from parents and children about their reading interests, goals and habits. He asked me if he could have a few minutes to finish up his game. When he came back, we started walking to his home.
He told me about his life in Eritrea. He was Tigrinya and he lived by the ocean. He was forcefully conscripted into the military and served in the trenches during the border war with Ethiopia. After that, he went to university and studied IT. As per custom, upon graduation, the government assigned him to a civil service position, where he served for 13 years without remuneration. “I was like a slave.” He said. To make ends meet, he worked in an Italian restaurant where he cooked seafood, and primarily shrimp and lobster. He preferred shrimp, he told me, because lobster was such a common food in his seaside town. He used red and white wine in his cooking, he told me with pride. His home, which he shared with his wife and two children, had a small balcony and faced the beach. He and his family went swimming in the ocean on a frequent basis.Upon arrival at his new home, in My’Ayni refugee camp, we settled under the overhang of his stone house. His wife set about making a coffee ceremony and he gathered his son and some neighbors to sit with me. I began asking about the ages of his two children and some basics about their education status. His daughter, he said, was 14. His son was 10. She was in grade 6 and he was in grade 2. His face changed a bit as he explained that they were both two years behind because of the process they went through to arrive in Ethiopia. He went on.
In 2007, Eyob’s friend was murdered by government officials. For what reasons I do not know, but I assume he presented some kind of a perceived threat to them. Eyob began to plan his escape, fearing the same outcome for himself. He sold all of his belongings, raising USD3,000. He paid a friend to fly him and his family to the Sudanese border. He intended to get to Ethiopia but he explained that if the Eritrean military caught him at the Ethiopia/Eritrea border, he would be killed. If he was caught by them at the Sudanese border, he would be put in jail. The choice seemed obvious to him.
Once in Sudan, he paid an additional USD1K to smugglers to safely secure his and his family’s entry into Ethiopia. He and his family were some of the first arrivals in My’Ayni and he had become a community leader as a result. He proudly showed me the notebook he bought for his son to encourage him to do extra English practice outside of school. His dedication to his children was obvious.
He talked about how he was called to the camp’s primary school one morning because his son had gone missing. He was later found in the river that runs behind the school, swimming. In seeking an explanation for his truancy, Eyob’s son told him that he missed their old home and the ocean water that was only a few meters from their balcony. I could tell that Eyob was not sure how to explain to his son that by forgoing the ocean water off the coast of their homeland they were safer and laying the foundation for a new and better life.
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