Kibondo and the heart of darkness

In January I headed to Kibondo, in western Tanzania. Although the area is nice- lovely rolling green hills, a cute small town, and wonderful fruits and vegetables, this location is acknowledged to be one of the harder places that JVA works. This is mainly due to the nature of the refugee population we work with there, Congolese people, and also some Burundians and Rwandese.

The history of political and ethnic conflicts in the region is long and complicated, and numerous refugees had fled for their lives on more than one occasion, making for my most challenging interviews and longest case histories to date. The acts of violence perpetrated against them were also quite gruesome, often motivated not only by political or ethnic issues, but also traditional beliefs and witchcraft. Many of the women had been gang raped on more than one occasion, some children had been forced to watch their parents slaughtered and mutilated, and members of certain tribes were targeted because their body parts were believed to have special properties to enhance effectiveness in battle.

These acts were most often motivated by ethnicity, and unbelievably often committed even by the refugee’s own family members who had turned against them. I had truly never conceived some of the evils that people could commit against each other. The even more tragic aspect of life for many of the refugees was that even after fleeing to the safety of another country, such as Burundi or Tanzania, they often still weren’t safe. I interviewed some survivors of a well known massacre that took place at a camp in Burundi. The attackers had crossed the border from DR Congo. Even within the camps in Tanzania, there were many reports of persecution or insecurity due to gender or ethnicity. One family had lost a child- he had been beaten to death by his classmates for being ‘too clever’ for someone of his tribe.

I have to say, I think the fact that I was so pressed for time during the days was really helpful to me, because I didn’t have a lot of time to internalize what I was hearing. All I could do try to ask the right questions to draw out the story, and then type my fingers off as it came flowing out. I really hope that each one of the families I worked with is received favorably when their cases are adjudicated, not only because they have suffered so much already, but also because the fact is that they would still be in danger if they were forced to go back. Unfortunately, the camps in western Tanzania are set to close by the end of this year, and many of those who did not get a resettlement case may be forced to do just that…

Below are a few links for more info on this very interesting region, and the challenges it has faced.

Wikipedia info on Rwanda, Burundi, and DR Congo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda

BBC timelines on events in Rwanda, Burundi, and DR Congo
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1072684.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1068991.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1070329.stm

Info on camps/refugee issues
http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=1714
http://www.sheltercentre.org/news/feeds/943
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40389

Kibondo and the heart of darkness - Pics

Pic - the view of our plane coming in to the landing strip. It was about a two hour flight from Nairobi, my first charter flight ever!















Pic - Fresh off the plane. You like my new ultra cool Kenyan specs?



















Pic - Kurt, our team leader in the main 'office' at the transit center. It was all made of wood, including the ultra-hard chairs! The tin roof made it tough to hear during the frequent rainstorms!
















Pic - Sunrise on the way to the worksite. It was about 25 minutes over a hilly road of that distinctive orangy dirt. One afternoon on the way back, we surprised some boys using a puddle near the road to skinny dip!















Pic - IOM compound. It was a nice, peaceful setting, with daily volleyball and badminton matches between IOM staff. Props to the staff who prepared the cafeteria style dinner each night, and to the 'cleaning fairies' who washed any article of clothing left out!





























Pic - View of Kibondo town from hilltop. A nice little town, reminded me a little of Uganda. Our Kenyan colleagues told us that the Swahili spoken in this part of Tanzania is really 'proper' and refined compared to Kenyan Swahili!
















Pic - Refugees looking on as the plane approaches. There was a group of approved folks headed out on there way to be resettled. It was so joyful to see folks on that end of the process, since I work with them when the future is still a big question mark. The first plane sighting definitely trumped first muzungu sighting for the refugee kids!


































Pic - Mark and I at the 'airport.' Check out Mark's party shorts!

Christmas in Nairobi

I hope that you all had a lovely holiday season, and that 2010 is off to a great start. I'm very thankful for the great ways that God blessed me in 2009, and look forward to seeing what He has in store in the year ahead. Most of all, I'm thankful for all of you, and pray that 2010 brings many blessings.

For me, the holidays were pretty low key. After so much traveling this past fall, all I wanted for Christmas was to stay in one place! I got my wish, and spent a lovely couple weeks enjoying Nairobi. I got to relax, read some good books, and visit some of those little spots around my neighborhood that I had not gotten around to seeing yet, like the lovely arboretum that's about a 15 minute walk away.

It's always hard to be away from home during Christmas, but it was great for our Vanilla Park crew to be able to host some of the other 'Christmas orphans' from work for a nice Christmas eve sleepover and Christmas morning brunch. It was also great to discover how cheap it is to use Skype to call the cell phones of friends and family in the US ($0.02/minute!) Enjoy a few pics below:

Pic - Lindsay and I don Christmas colors
















Pic - Our little Christmas tree (courtesy of Lindsay's parents) surrounded by Secret Santa gifts and covered with 'spray snow.' I was the lucky recipient of that hoola hoop, by the way! The Christmas eve gift exchange was followed by a viewing of 'Elf.'














Pic - Our 'spread', which included quiche, cinnamon buns, pancakes, fruit salad, sausage, and mimosas! It was followed by a Christmas nap and a viewing of 'Love Actually.'














Pic - Yummy mimosa with real strawberries! Now that's brunch



















Pic - Christmas 'orphans' enjoy brunch together around our new dining room table

Article on Eritrea

ASMARA, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said on Wednesday that Western intelligence agencies and special interest groups were persecuting Eritrea by inventing lies, rumors and defamatory reports.

The Red Sea state, which has faced criticism in recent weeks from international diplomatic and humanitarian organizations, denied any wrongdoing.

"It's been the cause of the all problems we see all over the world ... it's a network of (Western) intelligence agencies that serve special interest groups globally," the long-serving Eritrean leader told Reuters in an interview.

"It is sometimes very perplexing for me. Why all these lies? Why do you have to go and cook such statistics and make statements about the reality in Eritrea when you don't even know what's going on in this country?"

Isaias, a former rebel commander in power since 1991, said he was unmoved by the criticism.

ERITREA MALNOURISHED?

The Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report last week that Eritrea was dangerously underfed. The U.N. agency said as many as two in every three Eritreans were malnourished, something Isaias denied.

"It's not true, it's all lies. It's a fabrication," he said, adding that humanitarian organizations were motivated by the business opportunities crises and aid offer in other African countries.

"It's money-making for them. It's not solving problems. It's a collaboration of domestically corrupt special interest groups with international mafia that have a big interest in publicizing hunger and other crises," the 63-year-old leader said.

A recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Eritrea said the economy had weakened significantly in the last 12 months due to a severe drought in 2008 and the global crisis but Isaias had no time for such assessments.

"They (the IMF) make judgments on very limited knowledge and the government of Eritrea has been very skeptical all along of comments, judgments, suggestions that come from the IMF. I personally don't take them seriously."

WHERE'S THE PROOF?

A separate report this week by international advocacy group Reporters Without Borders named Eritrea, in an assessment of its press freedoms, as the worst country in the world for a third year running.

It said that no independent media is tolerated in Eritrea and that 30 journalists were in prison -- as many as in China or Iran but with a much smaller population.

But Asmara bristled at repeated accusations by rights groups that it puts independent journalists and non-Orthodox Christians in jail, tortures detainees, and keeps people indefinitely in military service.

The president insisted all such accusations, and his alleged role in destabilizing the region, were malicious fabrications designed to blacken Eritrea's name.

"Why these accusations about Eritrea's role in this region when there is no fact to prove what is being claimed?"

The former Marxist guerrilla leader has ruled one of Africa's smallest economies since its 1993 formal independence from Ethiopia. For supporters, he is a symbol of resistance and self-reliance, but critics say he is an authoritarian whose government brooks no dissent. (Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura)

Salam Shire!

The day after I got back from my whirlwind Uganda trip, I headed back to the airport again for my third JVA trip to Shire, in northern Ethiopia. This is a location that has a lot of bad hype among JVA staffers, due to the dust, isolation, and prevalence of virulent amoebas and stomach bugs.

For me, Shire did not at all live up to its 'bad' reputation. It is a nice small town, with lots of great local food options. I loved being able walk around easily from place to place, and being able to get easily out into the countryside for a run or hike. Our team for this trip was pretty stellar too, very fun folks. The airport was also interesting- we literally just landed on an airstrip, walked off the plane, and loaded our stuff onto the bus that had driven out to get us.

Shire is very near to the Eritrean border, and so we again dealt almost exclusively with Eritrean refugees. Because Ethiopia and Eritrea have historically poor relations, they are not welcome to assimilate into life there, and that's why resettlement is the most viable option for them.

They had many different reasons for leaving Eritrea: Some wanted to escape forced military service, some had been imprisoned for disagreeing with the government or for practicing their religion openly, and others were unfortunate enough to have accidentally crossed the border while taking their animals out to pasture!

Regardless for their reason for leaving, they all now face the same problem: it is against the law to cross the border, and once you have left Eritrea, you can expect prison time up to the death penalty if you return. Many people crossed the border because of pressing danger, with no time to say goodbye to loved ones. Their only hope of ever seeing their family members or their country again might be if the government changes.

I'm not going to say much about that regime here...suffice it to say that they don't do autocracy very efficiently... If you look at the number of actually loyal people who had to leave because they were falsely accused by the 'intelligence' of being spies, and the number of folks who escaped from detention by pretending to use the toilet it's pretty mindboggling! In my next post, I'll paste in an article one of my colleagues sent me. Given the testimony of the 60 refugees that I personally spoke with, I can only roll my eyes at some of what it has to say!

I also promised that I would say something more about the whole issue of irritability with the refugees (and interpreters!) When I first started, I heard others using an impatient tone of voice, or saying harsh things to refugees, and I was pretty taken aback. However, all too soon, I found myself doing it too!

If you can tell someone's lying to you, or you are just not able to wade through their convoluted logic, or you can't pin them down on their basic biographical data, or you can't get them to say what you know they need to say in order to have a viable case, or the interpreter is just not communicating information clearly, it can be pretty frustrating. This is especially true when there is time pressure, something I hate in any job!

I would really feel disappointed with myself after getting snippy with a refugee, because here they are, having already been through some really traumatic and dehumanizing experiences at the hands of others. With my snapping my fingers and telling them to speed it up, I'm adding another layer of insult on top of all that. I have had some good discussions with colleagues about this, and have come up with a few coping mechanisms that seem to work well for me:

- If we're getting bogged down in one area, like past education or address data, leave it, move on to something 'easier' for awhile and come back to it later. You'll just keep getting more frustrated if you keep hitting a brick wall and losing valuable time.

- If the interpreter is not getting the job done, send them out and get a new one! Seems harsh, but this is the refugee's life we're talking about, and it's better to hurt the interpreters feelings than have the refugee not be understood. If I suspect the interpreter might not be very strong, I've even taken to telling the refugee up front that it is their right to request that they be changed out (and many often do!)

- Control the conversation more tightly. If someone is getting off on a tangent, it's important to politely reign them in, and just start asking very closed-ended questions to ensure you get the information you need. This can be hard, because for many of these people, it's their first opportunity to be able to share their story, and every detail is important to them. I overheard one of my colleagues using a great phrase that I think I'll steal, "I would really like to listen to every detail, but I can't do that right now. Could you please just tell me..."

- If all else fails, and you do get a little snippy, it's not too late to salvage the situation. One of my other colleagues suggested even stopping the interview right where you are, apologizing to the refugee for getting impatient, and explaining the source of your impatience (ie I need you to give me more information about xyz so that you have a strong case.) This just lets the refugee know that you respect their dignity as a person, and while the process can be difficult, you're just trying to help them as much as you can.

Pic - check out the cute kid playing in front of the plane at the Shire 'airport.'


Pic - Our work trunks being loaded onto the bus. We all held our breath and closed our eyes as the guy climbed the ladder with trunk balanced on his neck!


Pic - Me during a hike of the pretty surrounding countryside.


Pic - Cute kids in the market


Pic - Nice view of Shire town from the hotel rooftop

Yalama! (or was it yamala...or yamaka...)

The day after getting back from Djibouti, I headed straight back to the airport to board my budget 'Flight 540' flight to Entebbe. Ya gotta love an airline that picks bright orange as its signature color!

My colleague Laura happened to be traveling to Uganda too, so we enjoyed a nice chat (and an even nicer nap) as we crossed over Lake Victoria. At the airport, I was met by Dennis and his brother Emmie. My mission for that Thanksgiving weekend: to 'meet the parents!'

Dennis was heading to the US in early December to continue his residency program selection process, so it was our last chance for quite a while to meet up with his family together. I got to meet his mom, dad, step mom, all his siblings, and a number of cousins and other relatives.

It was definitely different from that side of things- when Dennis was coming to meet my family last summer, I just felt comfortable and excited, enjoying being home and fully expecting that both sides would make a favorable impression. As the one being brought home, I felt a little more nervous. I think it's challenging enough trying to find your fit in any new group, let alone a new family, let alone a family from a different culture.

I'll reserve the minute details for person to person conversations, but suffice it to say that it was a very great, very challenging, very emotional weekend. Dennis' family are awesome people, I can see that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree! Nevertheless, I really came face to face with the reality of what we might be getting ourselves into, in terms of splitting ourselves (and potentially our children!) between at least two different continents.

There is also a lot to learn in terms of culture and language. It took me at least a couple days just to learn to say 'thank you' in Ateso, Dennis' language. (The title heading includes a couple of the different variations that came out of my mouth during that learning period! The first is correct.)

At one point I told Dennis, "there's a million little things that every little girl that is raised here knows, that I just don't!" He of course assured me that he is more than ok with that. From my side, my main conclusion from the weekend was that, yes, it is going to mean being out of my comfort zone and putting forth extra effort, but this man is totally worth it!

Here's a few pics from the weekend:

Dennis and his mom in Soroti. She runs a UK-based NGO there that supports orphans and vulnerable children. A real spiritual powerhouse!


Me and Dennis trying out the new borehole that was put in at his mom's agency.


The mzungu girl here is Nicole. She's originally from Canada, and is engaged to Dennis' older brother Patrick. We had a great time hanging out with them. Here they're sharing the story of how they met.


Me and Dennis' Aunt at his dad's country home near Soroti. She was so excited to meet me, that she greeted us with shouts of 'ai yai yai' and carried me from the car to the house! (She also blessed me with many babies and presented us with a live chicken to bring home to Kampala!) By far the most welcoming welcome I've ever had!


Me driving on the left! Although I kept hitting all the wrong indicators at all the wrong times in the beginning, I got the hang of it. And, we only suffered one flat tire while under my leadership...not too shabby!


A family pic at Dennis' dad's place in Kampala. He and Dennis' step mom invited a bunch of cousins and other relatives over to meet me and say goodbye to Dennis as he headed to the states. Dennis' Dad and stepmom are seated in the front. Can you pick Nicole and I out of the crowd? ;)

Bonjour Djibouti

Well, it has been a whirwind fall season!
(Side bar- I never realized how ingrained in me it was to use the seasons as a benchmark for passing time until I came to a place without the four major seasons! Fall/winter/spring/summer- kind of meaningless here!)

My second work trip, to Djibouti, was one of the most coveted assignments among JVA staffers, not only because it is so beautiful and unique, but also because it is a very rare destination. Djibouti is quite frankly one of those places I had vaguely heard of a child playing geography trivia games, but never imagined I would actually visit! So, before you read on, here's a little pop quiz for you:

1. Name two countries that border Djibouti?
2. Which European country colonized Djibouti?
3. What is the name of the capital city of Djibouti?

(ANSWERS BELOW)

I'm finding that on any JVA trip, the main questions are:
- What are the accommodations like?
- What population of refugees are we working with,and what is the 'claim' we're looking for?
- What are the working conditions like, and what is there to do outside of work?

Accommodations:
In Djibouti, we stayed in the 'Sheraton Djibouti', a nice, though slightly outdated hotel sitting right on some lovely (but smelly) waterfront property. There was a hearty breakfast buffet included the hotel room, which also supplied lunch for those of us who had been smart enough to bring along some tupperware! Real classy, eh? ;) There was also a little gym in the hotel, which I LOVED. I finally got back into running a bit on the treadmill, and it was a great way to unwind after a stressful work day.

We each had our own hotel room, with multiple channels in French! In the evenings I got addicted to a French version of 'name that tune.' C'etait super! The bathrooms in the hotel room had not only a toilet, but also a bidet (a point of crucial importance later in my story.) Our fellow guests were mainly foreign military personnel, particularly German navy crew. The hotel owner threw a 'happy hour' each Wednesday so the guests could mingle, and we were regaled with stories of some of their run-ins with Somali pirates.

Pic - me in front of the Djibouti Sheraton



Pic 2 - The view of the water from the hotel pool

Refugee Population
The first few days in Djibouti, half the team drove two hours each morning to the province of Ali Sabieh. We processed lots of Somalis and Ethiopians out of the local UNCHR facility there. It was a long, dusty drive, but I was glad to have the chance to seem some of the countryside. It was a little stressful working out of that location, because of timing. The cases were rather complicated, and we still had to finish, pack up and be out of there by 4:30pm in order to be back in Djibouti City before dark (due to security concerns.)

While in Ali Sabieh, I saw one of the Kenyan staff doing the preliminary interview with an older lady, obviously uneducated. The staff person seemed to be having trouble getting the information they needed out of her, probably due in part to her age and illiteracy. I thought to myself, "oh boy, hope I don't draw that file for casework!"

Now, of course I did draw her file for casework! And man, was she difficult to work with! This is the tricky thing sometimes in this work- you just need certain information out of the refugee, and you need it quickly and accurately, because you have a quota of cases to meet for the day. This urgency and the resulting frustration when you have a hard case can sometimes war against the compassion you feel for the refugee's situation.

I was just on the edge of extreme irritability with this lady when we started getting into her story. It was almost like something out of 'Black Hawk Down'- some American soldiers had burst into her home fleeing from local militia. She took them out the back way and helped them to escape. When she came back to the sitting room, some of the local militia burst in and punished the family for helping the soldiers. They killed her husband and sons in front of her, and then raped her in a very barbaric way (almost made me physically ill to have to document it.)

What a lesson for me- hearing what she had gone through really helped to put things in perspective, push my irritability aside, and bring my compassion back to the forefront.

After a few days in Ali Sabieh, my team worked out of a detention center in Djibouti City. The population there was mostly Eritrean men who had fled across the border to escape mandatory military service or other persecution. (I'll write more on the Eritrean refugee plight in a later post about my visit to the town of Shire in Ethiopia.)

Because of the lack of proper facilities and poor relations between Eritrea and Djibouti, the refugees are being kept in prison. Although they are secure there, by international standards this is not acceptable. for this and other reasons, this is a high priority group with the U.S. government. One of the top officials dealing with African refugees at the American embassy actually came by the site for a visit!

The other JVA team worked out of the UNCHR office in Djibouti City, and tackled a hodgepodge of interesting 'urban' refugee cases. One of my colleagues there said that she had her "top five most interesting JVA cases of all time" at that site! These included one atheist family that had fled Yemen because they faced persecution for not being Muslim.

Working Conditions
Except for the large fly population and shared toilet facilities the work site was ok. However, I found the work there stressful because we had to do five cases per day, rather than four (due to the small case size.) Some of the UNHCR referrals were multiple pages long, and it was very time consuming match our stories against those, especially with the communication challenges. At times, I found myself almost shouting at the interpreter or refugee because of my frustration, and that made me feel pretty horrible about myself! (More about that phenomenon in a later blog post.)

The after work time was quite fun- I enjoyed bumming around the pretty downtown, trying out delicious local food, and enjoying the gym and French TV at the hotel.

All in all, I had a great time in Djibouti, though I would say 'out of work life' definitely trumped 'work life' in this location. One loose end to the story though... I mentioned the importance of the bidet...Well, I had gotten into the habit of shaking each refugee's hand once we finished our work together. However, on the last day of work, I neglected to wash my hands before eating lunch. A couple hours later, I felt something funny in my tummy, and knew I was in deep trouble.

I spent the next 24 hours purging whatever bug it was from every half hour or so (from both ends, so to speak.) The bidet was very strategically located to make this possible... ;) Some oral rehydration salts finally helped me to break the cycle. Although I had to miss the fun group boat trip that, the one good thing about being so sick was that I really, really appreciated it when I finally felt better again!

Pic - A shot of the architecture in the centre ville.


A 'Newby' No Longer
So, my stomach has officially been initiated into the JVA world, and I, having completed two trips, am no longer a novice caseworker! It sure feels good to be getting into the swing of things, and I look forward to experiencing other locations and refugee groups!


QUIZ ANSWERS (you're lucky I couldn't figure out how to turn these upside down!)
1. Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen (across the water) Amazing to me how Djibouti could be so 'together' given some of those neighbors! I guess it could have something to do with the foreign military presence...

2. France. Some downsides to colonization to be sure, but the French did leave behind some great architecture and a lovely 'cafe' culture. Besides French, Arabic is an official language, and Afar and Somali are also widely spoken. The Somali 'man skirt' is also quite common to see out and about :)

3. Capital City is Djibouti City, which is located in Djibouti province in the country of Djibouti! The population of the whole country is only about 700,000, of which almost half live in Djibouti City. That makes for a pretty sparse population elsewhere, as you can see in the pic below.

Pic - you can see our vehicle's shadow on our ride out to Ali Sabieh. Like I said, sparsely populated, though lots of camels!


Bonus pic - Our 'ride' was really quite something else! Decked out with fringe and various other adornments, the most impressive point in my view was the ornate side view mirror!