How To Live To 101

When people asked him his secret to living past 100, my Grandpa Olaf had a standard response: "Don't die!" But truth be told, he had more going for him than just his sense of humor and hardy Norwegian genes. My grandpa actually DID have a secrets, rules he lived by that help explain his long and good life. My Grandpa Olaf - who would have turned 104 this week - was born in 1907 and died in his sleep right before Christmas 2008. My middle son cried even more than I did when we got the news. I'm so thankful that my children knew him well, the man with the Winnie-the-Pooh voice. The man full of joie de vivre who taught me to ride a bike and twirled me on the dance floor at my wedding. The loving man who made the doll bed that my daughter's Americal Girls "sleep" in today.

 The amazing thing is that, not only did my Grandpa Olaf live to be 101, but he was still going so strong. When he was 99, my mom had to ask him to (please!) stop travelling . He did - internationally, at least - but he still got a huge kick out of showing people his ID with the 1907 birthdate. He did not get much of a kick, however, out of the fact that after he turned 100, the box marked "1907" disappeared as a birthdate choice on most online forms. That made him mad.

 Some secrets are just not meant to be kept and I'm sure my Grandpa Olaf wouldn't mind me sharing a few of his. So here goes:

•  Two almonds a day keep cancer away. From the time of my earliest memories, he had a big jar of raw almonds in the kitchen. When I stayed with my grandparents, he made me eat them, too. Turns out tat there is ongoing research on the phytochemicals in almonds which may have potential health benefits, including preventing cancer. In any event, almonds are cholesterol-free, a good source of dietary fiber, and high in monounsaturated fat (which lowers LDL cholesterol). 
•  Show up!!! This was the guy who never missed a graduation - or any other important event in our lives, for that matter. He even bore witness to my brief stage career, which ended after a single performance of Alice in Wonderland in 5th grade at Wildwood Elementary School in Baton Rouge, La. (Guess who played Alice? Guess who memorized everyone else’s lines and said them for them - sotto voce - if they missed their cue? Afterwards, Grandpa Olaf said to me, "Well, Jen, you really gave it your all!") As I grow older, I realize more and more how important it is to show up for the important events. My regrets definitely center more on things that I have not done and weddings I have missed than things that I have done. 
•  Appreciate your spouse. Husband, wife, life partner, whatever. "The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." My grandpa made this sign for my dad, who later gave it to my husband. 

•  Never stop learning. He had a tough childhood in a poor, immigrant family. The kind where your Norwegian mama makes you take castor oil but you have to line your holey shoes with cardboard. He had to drop out of school to work and never made it past about sixth grade. But he valued education above all else, and sent his daughters to the best schools he could. He was so proud of my mother, the first in her family to get a PhD. As an adult, he chose to learn through experience. Between the ages of 65 and 99 - and particularly after age 80 - he traveled the world. (If you have a bucket list - Grandpa Olaf says to prioritize the Galapagos Islands.) 
• Make the effort to connect with people. My grandpa was a pretty social guy, one who believed strongly in getting out there and talking with people. He also liked to help and volunteered his skills with a number of nonprofits, fixing things for seniors and building community theater sets. He lived for the last decade or so of his life at the Holladay Park Plaza in Portland, Oregon; people there called him "The Mayor". 
•  Fight for what you believe in.  A union member for nearly 70 years, my grandpa used to tell me stories about having to wear flannel pjs under his wafer-thin airplane mechanic uniform in the Minnesota sub-zero winter cold. He was part of the fight for every benefit and workplace protection, from insulated uniforms and hearing protection to paid vacation to safety regulations. He was really, really proud of that. 
• Spend time with children. I fondly remember my grandfather reading the Brer Rabbit stories to me and my brother, but he also spun us wild yarns about a character of his own invention - Redpants Cookie. From what I remember of this young, maroon-chaps-wearing cowboy, he always returned safely home from his adventures to find a glass of milk and a plate of cookies. (If I ever write a children's book, this is it, so don't go stealing my Redpants Cookie!) What I didn't realize until his memorial service was that, in addition to me, my brother, and our cousins, he had been Grandpa to his second wife's grandchildren as well. 
• Talk about things, don't bottle them up inside. My grandfather was an airplane mechanic in the Pacific during World War II. He saw a lot of stuff, but what really troubled him was taking the returning POWs off the planes. Like most of his generation, he didn't talk about it for years. In his 90s, however, he would recount in vivid detail the helpless and emaciated bodies of these human rights victims. "I should have talked about this years ago," he told me. " I shouldn't have kept it inside for so long." 
• Don't postpone joy. After my grandmother died, he went on an Elderhostel trip to Russia; my step-grandmother was on the same trip. They met, they fell in love. When they returned, they decided to get married. They had only known each other for about a month, but at their age (he was 80, she was 70) - they figured, why wait? They were married for 21 years. 
• Seek your luck. As a boy in the late 1910s, he delivered papers in City Hall in Minneapolis. His job required that he run, carrying a heavy bag of newspapers, up many flights of stairs to the offices. There is a large marble sculpture, called "Father of Waters" after the nearby Mississippi River. According to legend, rubbing his big toe brings good luck. My Grandpa Olaf paused every day on his paper route to rub the big toe of the "Father of Waters". Later in life, we visited the statue together. This week, on the 104th anniversary of his birth, I went by myself to City Hall and I rubbed that marble toe. I thought of my grandpa and all that he taught and me. And all he continues to teach me. 

Le Respect

I was in Geneva last week and happened upon this bit of public art on my way to the tram.  "Le respect, c'est accepter quelqu'un même si on ne l'aime pas". Translated loosely: "Respect is accepting someone even if you don't like him."

For full post, go to www.humanrightswarrior.com.  

Raising Boys Not To Be Total Jerks

At some level, I’ve known since before my oldest son was born that this moment would come.  But when it did, it took me utterly and completely off guard.  I was driving a car full of boys home from a soccer tournament last week when my 9-year-old son piped up from the back,

“Hey mom! I’ve got a funny joke.  I’ll ask you a question and you say, ‘Ketchup and rubber buns’”.  ”Oh, I know this one,” chuckled my 12-year-old son.  Snickers all around from the soccer players.  Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t know what was coming next.

Read more at www.humanrightswarrior.com

Rise Up Singing!

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History shows the incredible power of music to inspire and influence, to energize and heal.  The power of song can be seen in its impact on movement-building,  from the anti-slavery and  labor union movements in the 1800s to the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s.  Liberation music has been important throughout the world, including songs of resistance during the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa.  Most recently, music has been part of this year's Arab Spring.  In protests against Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, for example, music was a powerful way to convey the voice of the people.  (NPR story did a great story on The Songs of The Egyptian Protest)



I absolutely love Rise Up Singing, the folk music group singing songbook.  The book contains the chords and lyrics to more than the 1200 songs.  When you flip through it, you get a sense of how many songs there are out there that speak to such a wide variety of social justice issues.
But music that inspires me to stand up for human rights is not just about protest songs or folk music.  Music speaks to the individual; inspiration is personal.   About five years ago, I was in Geneva with representatives from dozens of U.S. human rights groups to participate in the UN's review of  US compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  We were all working on different issues and we came from all over the country, from Florida to Hawaii.   As an icebreaker at our first meeting, we were asked, "What is your favorite human rights song?"  I remember being amazed as we went around the room at the tremendous variety in terms of songs, genres, languages, meanings that had inspired this group of activists.   I told the group that my song was "If I Had a Hammer".  (My kids were still quite young at the time and we were listening to a lot of Pete Seeger, who is my own personal antidote to Barney.

Since then, I've been making a mental playlist of the songs that have inspired me over the years.   My list of songs is actually long enough for several playlists, but I thought I should keep it short.  I have also decided to pull out just a few songs from each of the eras of my life so far.  This was a real challenge and there are a lot of obvious omissions.  Maybe I'll just have to do another playlist someday.
In the meantime, I've got the HUMAN RIGHTS WARRIOR PLAYLIST for you on YouTube.  You can also link to each song individually below.   Enjoy!
From My Childhood

1. If I Had a Hammer - Pete Seeger
2. Free to Be You and Me   - Marlo Thomas & Friends     In my opinion, one of the best things about being a kid in the 70s.
3. The Preamble - Schoolhouse Rock      Did you know that the U.S. Constitution is one of the first documents to establish universal principles of human rights?
4. Star Wars Main Title/Rebel Blockade Runner - John Williams  People say Star Wars was a Western set in space, but I saw the Empire for the police state that it was. Not to mention the genocide on Alderaan.
5. Freedom - Richie Havens         My parents had the Woodstock album.  I think I know this and every other song on it by heart.

From My Youth 

1.  Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2       I first heard this on my high school radio station WBRH. I went right to the library and looked up the 1972 Bloody Sunday Massacre in Northern Ireland. (Yes, I'm a nerd. I know.)
2. Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys      I went through a big DK phase in high school.  Also, I knew a family that had fled the Pol Pot regime.  I still think of them when I hear this song.
3. Talkin' Bout a Revolution - Tracy Chapman    Growing up in Louisiana, I had seen poverty.   But it didn't prepare me for the mid-80s urban poverty I saw when I went to college in New Haven.
4. Tell Me Why  - Bronski Beat      I remember this as the first song I heard that directly addressed prejudice against homosexuals. Rock on!
5. Waiting for the Great Leap Forward - Billy Bragg     The lyrics have changed since I first bought Worker's Playtime (on cassette!) in college, but I think it is possible that I have listened it to 1,000,000 times.

From My Adulthood

1. All You Facists (Are Going to Lose) - Lyrics by Woody Guthrie, Music by Billy Bragg & Wilco     From the Mermaid Avenue album.
2. Hurricane - Bob Dylan       Rubin "Hurricane" Carter did an event for us to help raise money for our Death Penalty project.   If anyone ever wants to make a movie about your life, he highly recommends that you ask that they get Denzel Washington to play you.
3. Living Like a Refugee -  Sierra Leone's Refugee All Star Band                     I spent the first 5 years of my career working with asylum seekers.   This song captures many of the things I heard about their experiences.
4. Face Down  - Red Jumpsuit Apparatus     Violence against women is the most common human rights violation in the world - 1 in 3 women will experience abuse in her lifetime.   In the US, a woman is beaten or assaulted every 9 seconds.  Kudos to these guys for singing about it.
5. Minority - Green Day      Sometimes I have to remind myself that not everyone thinks the way I do about human rights - yet.
6. Sons & Daughters - The Decemberists        This is kind of where I am right now.  With the sons and daugher.  Hoping to "Hear all the bombs fade away."

My Suffragette Grandmother

Suffrage procession in Minneapolis on May 2, 1914
From the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society
Source: thomaslowrysghost.tumblr.com

I noted with interest the announcement this week that women in Saudi Arabia will be able to participate in municipal elections and become members of the consultative Shura Council.   The first thing I thought of was my Grandma Lillian, who died in 1988, and how this news would have made her very happy.


My grandmother was raised by her grandmother Thorina Melquist, a Norwegian immigrant and suffragette who participated in demonstrations in Minneapolis for the right to vote for women.  My Grandma Lillian would still have been pretty young in 1919 when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by Congress and ratified by Minnesota.  Women's suffrage became national law on August 18, 1920 when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the Constitutional amendment.


In some ways, it is surprising to think that less than 100 years ago, women in America could not vote.  I was a toddler in Louisiana when that state ratified the 19th Amendment in 1970 - 50 years after initially rejecting it.   And Mississippi didn't ratify the 19th Amendment until 1984!  Now the right to participate in government is one that we Americans take for granted - so much so that less than half of the population votes unless it is a Presidential election year.  In 2008, the voter turnout was 63%, a high water mark that is low in comparison with most countries.  In U.S. local elections, the voter turnout is even lower.  Many of the mayors of major U.S. cities are elected with single-digit turnout.  


I love to vote.  In fact, I vote every chance that I can (legally). I always try to bring my kids with me when I vote, so they can see that having a voice in the democratic process is something both important and valuable.  But when I'm standing in the voting booth, I feel like there with me are some of the people I've met who have risked everything to secure their right to participate in government.  For example, the young Haitian asylum seeker who was beaten by police at a polling place in order to discourage him from voting for Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990.  He held his own, though, and stood there bleeding and bandaged for several hours before he finally had the opportunity to put his check next to Aristide's rooster symbol on the ballot.  It was the first time he had ever voted and, he told me, "It was a very good day."

Village meeting about 2004 elections
Kono district, Sierra Leone

When I was in Sierra Leone, I met many people whose hands or arms had been amputated with machetes by members of the Revolutionary United Front.  Some of them had been targeted during an elections so that they couldn't vote by leaving their fingerprint mark on the paper ballot.  I also heard that the RUF hacked off hands during one election because the government's slogan was that,"The power is in the hands of the people."   I visitied Sierra Leone in 2004, after the conflict had ended and just prior to the first post-conflict elections.  As I traveled through the countryside, I saw people coming together for meetings to discuss the upcoming elections.  In spite of the horrors that they had endured, they were coming together in villages big and small, to exercise their right to participate in their government.   

Obviously, there is still a long way to go for women's rights in Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the world.  The Saudi government has a history of broken promises on voting rights and, even if they stand by this announcement, women will not be able to vote until the municipal elections of 2015.  Other discriminatory laws are still in effect -most notably the male guardianship system and the prohibition against women driving.  But it is an important step towards full participation in public life that will hopefully lead to other changes for future generations. 

Girls in an upcountry village, Sierra Leone
Photo by Rosalyn Park

Although my grandmother gained the right to vote, she was never able to go to college.   She was certainly smart enough, but her family couldn't see the point in wasting good money on educating a girl.  Grandma Lillian never expressed bitterness about this to me. But one afternoon when I was in high school, I stopped by to say hello and get her thoughts on my top college picks.  I remember sitting in my grandparents' darkened living room.  A mantel clock ticked and the air conditioner hummed quietly.  It now seems impossibly calm and quiet, so different from my current raucous and messy living room. My Grandma Lillian told me that the most important thing was to follow my dreams.  "You can do whatever you want to with your life. Be what you want to be.  But never forget those of us who weren't able to follow our dreams. Follow your dreams for us."  


The photo at the top is of the Scandinavian Women's Suffrage Association marching in a parade in Minneapolis in 1914.  I keep it in my office in honor of my Grandma Lillian.

The Right to Education (Back to School Edition)

Photo by Dulce Foster

As my three kids head back to school, I find myself thinking about another group of kids at a school halfway around the world.  Unlike my kids, who are driven to their well-appointed classrooms on the first day because they have too many school supplies to carry, the kids at the Sankhu-Palubari Community School (SPCS) in Nepal do their work on rickety desks in cramped classrooms.   These kids in pre-K through 10^th grade walk - some an hour each way - to school six days a week because this school provides the opportunity to realize their human right to education. 

In the United States, where education is both compulsory and free, we often forget that the right to education is not meaningfully available in many parts of the world.  The UN estimates that there were more than 67 million primary school-age and 73 million lower secondary school age children out of school worldwide in 2009.  In addition, an estimated 793 million adults lack basic literacy skills. The majority of them are women.

Sankhu-Palubari Community School
Photo by Dulce Foster

Overwhelming as those numbers are, there are pinpricks of light that give me hope that they will someday change.  I saw one when I visited Nepal for the first time in March 2011.  Opened in September 1999, the Sankhu-Palubari Community School is a partnership between The Advocates for Human Rights, Hoste Hainse (a Nepali NGO), the local School Management Committee, and the dedicated teaching staff.  The school now enrolls more than 300 students in grades pre-K-9, as well as scholarships for graduates who continue on to 10^th grade. 

The goals of the Sankhu-Palubari Community School Project are to prevent child labor, encourage gender parity in education, increase literacy rates, and improve the lives and well-being of the neediest children in the area.  Most of the families work in agriculture, farmers with little or no money to spare on school fees, uniforms and supplies.   Many of them are from disadvantaged groups such as the Tamang.  An indigenous group with their own culture and language, the Tamang students must learn Nepali as well as English when they come to school.  Frequently, the adults in the family are illiterate. 

8th Grade Class
Photo by Dulce Foster

The impact of the school both on the individual students and on the community over the past 12 years has been profound.  As part of our evaluation and monitoring process, our team interviewed approximately 60% of the parents of students at the school in March.  It was clear to me that parents value the education that their children are receiving and, seeing the value, have ensured that the younger siblings are also enrolled in school rather than put to work.  Twelve years ago, there were many students in the area out of school but now most are in school. I could also see the physical benefits that the students derived from attending school when they stood next to their parents, towering over them due to adequate nutrition, wellness checkups, and not having to work in the fields from a very young age.

Challenges certainly remain, particularly as the cost of operating the school continues to rise.  But so far two classes of students who started at the school in kindergarten have

graduated from the 10th grade; they all received either high distinction or first division on their School Leaving Certificate examinations.   While girls are generally less likely to access, remain in, or achieve in school, 52% of the students in K-8th grade this year are girls.  And a girl is at the top of the class in most of the grades at SPCS.

Morning Assembly
Photo by Dulce Foster 

The Sankhu-Palubari Community School may be a small school in a remote valley, but it is a place where the human right to education is alive and well, providing a better future for these children, this community, and – hopefully - their country and the world.

(There's more about the school at Nepal School Project.)

The Definition of Family

Extended family from 3 continents at my brother's wedding
(Nes kirke, Norway, August 2010)

I’ve been thinking a lot about family recently.  We had just dropped off my old friend Erik and his “unwieldy crew” at the airport, when my daughter Eliza sighed, “It’s pretty much BORING without our cousins.”  Knowing there was no actual blood relation, I cross-examined her on why she thought they were our cousins.  (It must sometimes stink to have a lawyer for a mom.) Finally she said in frustration, “Because, I just FEEL like they are.”

How do you define family?  Is it common ancestry? Shared experiences?  Mutual commitment? Living in the same household? Common values?  The people you know you can count on for support?  The people you know you can get into a knock-down-drag-out fight with but they’ll still love you?  People who you feel deeply connected to even though you rarely see them?  All of the above?  Or none of them at all?

When I was at the Buduburam Refugee Settlement in Ghana, I met a woman who runs a cook shop there.  Called Ma Fatu, her feisty personality would have been equally at home as the proprietor of a saloon in the Wild West or of an inn in medieval England.  She took a lot of pride in her cooking and in knowing her customers.  She’d eye me critically as I tucked into my jollof rice and say, “I know what you white people like to eat.” Then, the next day, she would serve me up a heaping serving of jollof vermicelli.  

I had noticed that there were several young people helping in the cook shop, washing dishes, waiting tables, whatever needed to be done.  It was only on my second trip to Buduburam that someone told me that they were not actually her children.  During the war in Liberia, her husband and children – her entire family - had been killed.  Over the years at Budububuram, she had taken in several young people who had also lost everyone.   In the face of all this loss, Ma Fatu had created a new family.  In a refugee camp - miles from home and without even the  possibility of legal recognition - she had forged familial bonds of love and support.

Like every parent, I’ve got a stockpile of my kids’ drawings of our family - stick figures showing Mom and Dad, Brother and Sister.  Sometimes Grandma and Grandpa and/or Cat and Hamster.   When you are young, the definition of family is very narrow and also very immediate.  But as you get older, you develop deeper relationships with people who are not related by blood.  In many ways, you create your own family of the people who give you what you need to flourish.

I’ve had this discussion about the definition of family with a number of asylum clients.  Under U.S. immigration law, your family is defined as your spouse (only one – your first spouse), your children by birth or legal adoption, and your parents.  Of course, many people in the world use a broader definition, with half-siblings, cousins, and children adopted without legal recognition counting as immediate family members.  I once had a client say to me, “I feel so sorry for you Americans.  Your families are so very small!” 

Article 16(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, “The family is the natural and fundamental unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” Back when the UDHR was written in 1948, it is doubtful that the drafters envisioned even biracial marriage, much less the multiple forms of family that exist today.

Now, I am a strong supporter of same-sex marriage.  I also believe that the equal rights of LGBT persons to marry, file joint taxes, visit partners in hospital, raise children, etc.  will be guaranteed by law sooner rather than later.  But the bigger point I’d like to make is that, no matter how you define “marriage”, the push for the change in law happened because of thousands – maybe millions - of personal decisions by individuals to define themselves as “family”.  The reality is that there is a very human need to live in a family social structure – the natural and fundamental group unit of society.  The law can better accommodate that reality but regardless of what the law says, people –like Ma Fatu - will create their own families. 

Maybe my six-year-old Eliza is right – the true definition of family is a very personal one, self-defined by each of us.  The definition of family maybe IS really the people who you feel like are your family.  And if that is so, wouldn’t we all be better off if society and the State protected our families? 

So I think the real questions are: How do you define your family?  What does your family mean to you?  And what could our society and State do better to support YOUR family?

Så Heldig Jeg Er (How Lucky I Am)

Me and Simon in our bunads

I’ve often been asked how I ended up as a human rights lawyer. It would be inaccurate to say that any one event made me decide to go into the human rights field.  Many little, meandering creeks had to come together to make this river flow.  Without a doubt, though, one reason for my career choice was my longstanding interest in all things international. That interest was nurtured during my childhood summers in northern Minnesota at Skogfjorden, the Concordia Language Villages’ Norwegian language camp. It would be hard to deny that the Concordia Language Villages, the mission of which "is to prepare young people for responsible citizenship in our global community," had a big impact on my life.  (For more on the Concordia Language Villages, check out www.concordialanguagevillages.org)

Here is something that I wrote last year when I went back on staff after 22 years of life in the “real world”. I’m reposting on this blog as Sevrin, Simon and I are leaving shortly for two weeks at the Skog, but also because one of the things that I have learned from doing human rights work is that I am so incredibly lucky.  I am lucky to have my health, my family, my home.  I have plenty of food to eat and good healthcare.  I am lucky to be able to say whatever I want and associate with whomever I want without fear of arrest and imprisonment.  Even though I am a woman, I had the opportunity to get a good education and to make my own decisions about my career.  Nothing reminds you of how lucky you are like spending time with people who don't have these rights and opportunities.  And I feel so privileged and lucky to be able to do the work that I do.

Så Heldig Jeg Er 

When I hung up my stabsjakke (staff jacket) for the last time in 1988, I fully expected to someday drive up Thorsenveien with a minivan full of kids bound for Skofjorden.  I never imagined that I would park that minivan and spend two weeks here WITH my kids.  But here I am, wearing a navnskilt (nametag), living with the girls in Tromsø, and sharing the Skogfjorden experience with my 10 and 8 year old sons.   

There have been some changes in the 22 years since I was last on staff.  The first thing I noticed was how much taller the trees are in front of Utgard.  The circular staircases are gone, as are the woodburning, metal mid-century modern fireplaces in the hytter (cabins).  There are new places - Fagertun, Låven, Mine's Brønn - as well as some new names for old places.  There are new hand movements for songs I once knew and a whole lot of new songs.  The schedule has changed a bit, so sometimes I feel like a villager myself, "What happens next?  Where am I supposed to be now?"

Sev playing kubb (that's a navnskilt/nametag)

As a parent, I can say that I feel that Skogfjorden is even better than when I was a villager or on staff.  It's a safer place, both in terms of physical plant and safety policies, and staff members receive better and more comprehensive training. I see every day how hard the lederer (counselors) here work, with patience and good humor, to give our kids the best possible experience.  More than ever, this is a place that supports and encourages all levels of learning and abilities. Staff are as creative and energetic as they were in my day, but they do a better job of making this a total Norwegian immersion experience.

One thing that has not changed is that Skogfjorden is a place where kids learn and grow and have fun.  LOTS of fun.  It's a joy to watch my kids singing their hearts out at allsang (singing) and to eat middag (lunch) with them and hear about what they did during kretser (an activity that was new for me, too).

One of the new songs that I learned this week captures my feelings about this session exactly.  The refrain of the song is, "Å så heldig jeg er, som kan være her med deg."  "Oh, so lucky I am to be here with you."  Å så heldig we parents are to be able to give our children the Skogfjorden experience.

Beste hilsen,

Jenni

Forgiveness

I am just about the last person who should be lecturing on the subject of forgiveness.  I've always tended to savor the little niggling injustices in my life, holding onto them and working them over the way you worry a sore spot in your mouth with your tongue.

I've noticed that my children are constantly denying responsibility for wrongdoings.  Or, to state it more accurately, they are always claiming innocence and then laying the blame on someone else.  All three of them will pipe up with "I didn't do it! It was (fill in the blank)!" in response to questions about who left the door open, who spilled the milk, who left gum on the floor, who threw that bread at me (just to give some examples from the last 20 minutes).

That says something to me about human nature. Our first instinct is to shift the blame, deny responsibility.
Admitting you are wrong is one of the most difficult things you can do.  It's so much easier to deny or make excuses or pretend like you didn't know what was going on.  And while it takes a lot to acknowledge blame, it takes even more to ask for forgiveness.  What does it take to really, truly grant forgiveness to someone who did something that hurt you?  Simon came home from Sunday School with one of those sheets where you have to decode the hidden message, which turned out to be Colossians 3:13  "If someone does wrong to you, then forgive him.  Forgive each other because the Lord forgave you."  "So you should forgive your brother for eating your candy, right?" I said.  "It's not that easy,"  he replied.

Houses at the Buduburam Refugee Settlement

No, forgiveness is NOT that easy.  But when we were working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia back in 2007 and 2008, I interviewed a surprising number of people who said that they had forgiven the people who had hurt them and killed their loved ones.   We made two trips to Buduburam Refugee Settlement in Ghana to take statements.  At the time, there 38,000 refugees living there, some of whom had been there for almost twenty years.  The conditions on the camp were very difficult. It was hot and crowded, with inadequate sanitation and electricity.  All the water for drinking and washing had to be purchased; most people didn't have enough money to do both and a lot of people only ate one meal a day.  There weren't a lot of job opportunities in Ghana, so most of the refugees relied on remittances from relatives in the U.S. or Europe.  Educational opportunities were also limited.  Also, as in many refugee situations, there were ex-combatants and perpetrators living there along with the victims of human rights abuses.  Many of the people we talked to had encountered the perpetrator their on the camp.  One woman I interviewed told me that she saw the men who had raped her every single day.  In spite of the harsh conditions of daily life at Buduburam, however, I saw firsthand not only the possibility of forgiveness, but the necessity of forgiveness.

A kindergarten class at Buduburam

The TRC asked us to gather information about how statement givers felt about reconciliation so, unlike most of my work in documenting human rights abuses, I was asking questions about forgiveness in addition to questions about what happened.  Not everyone was ready to forgive and only a handful were willing to meet with the perpetrators, but many said that they had in their hearts already forgiven the perpetrators.  As one woman told me, "I had to forgive him, once I realized that if I didn't, I would never move on with my life."

Forgiveness does not in any way minimize the gravity of the wrong that was done.  It does not mean forgetting what happened or ignoring the need for justice.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, "Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim."  Forgiveness, at its core, is a choice to take action.  It is something that you do for yourself, because you cannot be happy and healthy if you hold on to the anger and bitterness.  It's kind of like eating your vegetables - sometimes you have to force yourself to do it, but you know that you are better off in the long run if you do.  Forgiveness doesn't happen overnight. It is a process, but it is a process of change that takes you out of the role of victim and puts you in control.

Listening to refugees tell their stories at
a skills training school at Buduburam

Recently, a woman told me this story about forgiveness.  During the war in Liberia, she witnessed the killing of her - by a neighbor who they had known for many years. She had so much anger for him for long, long time. Years later, after much praying, she decided that she needed to try to forgive him.  Eventually, again with much praying, she began to feel as if she really had truly forgiven him.  Last year she returned to Liberia for the first time.  She wasn't sure how she would feel if she actually saw the man, but when she did, she went right up to him.  This is how I recall her describing what happened next:  "I gave him a big smile and I said, 'Mr. ___, do you remember me?'  I want you to know that I saw what you did to my father.  But I forgive you for it. I forgive you and I'm praying for you.'  He didn't know what to do, he couldn't look me in the eye!  After that, if he saw me coming, he would avoid me.  Imagine that! An old man running away from me.  But now I'm out of it.  It is between him and God now."

Three Minute Fiction

Photo from the BBC

Are you familiar with MPR's Three Minute Fiction? I was not until January 8, when I heard the announcement on Weekend All Things Considered of Round Six: Laughing and Crying.  The premise is simple:  a fictional story of 600 words, which, it turns out, actually takes closer to four minutes to read the story out loud.  Each round has a different theme and this time the celebrity author/judge mandated that one character tell a joke and that another cry.

I heard the MPR piece and the following story "Why?" sprang fully-formed into my head. It did't win (the winning story will be broadcast this weekend); it didn't even get selected as one of the weekly "Favorites", of which there were 22.   That wasn't really much of a surprise since a) I haven't written fiction since the 6th grade, b) my juvenilia is Crap! with a capital C;  c) there were 4000 entries; and d) there were apparently a disproportionate number of stories about chickens.   If I had won, though, I would have told Guy Raz all about how I wrote it (only during the minutes that my son Simon was not playing) at a hockey rink in a suburb called New Hope and how, on the way to the rink,  I had to drive in the middle of the snowy road to avoid the African refugees walking, not on the sidewalks, but in the road just like I have seen so many people do on roads in West Africa.

Why?

“Here’s a classic: Why did the chicken cross the road? Ever heard that one before?”  He was a good man, a volunteer with the resettlement agency.  He drove her to doctor appointments and to the Asian grocery store that sold palm butter.  They sat across from each other at her kitchen table, drinking tea.  He had helped her find this table at a secondhand store.  He had brought her this blood-red teapot, had showed her how to use the gas stove.  He was doing his best to help her understand America.   Today he was teaching her American jokes.

But those words…chicken ….road…brought her back to her village, back to that day.  She looked down at her hands, folded politely in front of her.  It was as if the months, the miles had evaporated. She saw it so clearly. Her little son and the chicken, in the road.  Blessing loved that chicken - a small white hen, feisty and independent.  Little Blessing loved that chicken and he worried about her, following her around much of the day as she scrabbled in the dirt.  People in the village thought it was odd, laughed at the thought of treating an animal like it was more than something to eat.  That was one of the things she had noticed that was different in America.

That day, when they heard the trucks, they had all run inside to hide.  The rebels had passed on the road many times before without stopping, but it was best to hide, to do nothing to draw their attention. That day in her village, she was on her knees on the dirt floor.  It was the rainy season and there was water on the road.  She heard the squeal of the brakes, the flat splash of water when the truck stopped.  She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed harder.  But Blessing, her little Blessing, saw his chicken crossing the road. He watched the truck stop. When one of the rebels grabbed his chicken, Blessing ran out of the house. 

It was a boy who did it.  He was carrying a gun almost as big as himself.  He could not have been more than a few years older than Blessing.  In different times, he may have kicked a ball to him and laughed when Blessing ran after it on his chubby little legs.   But this was a bad time. Everything had changed when the fighting began.  The rebels took what they wanted, hurt who they wanted. That boy was carrying a gun almost as big as himself.  And it was the young ones who were the most dangerous because they were unpredictable.  

She remembered everything else that had happened that day.  The bullets that blazed her temple, her leg, her arm as she ran to Blessing.  She remembered the women from her village who were raped, the men who were killed, the children who were taken to be porters and fighters.  The rebels took all their animals, all their food; they burned all their buildings.  She remembered her months in the refugee camp, her long journey to this strange, cold country.  But she had built a wall inside around that part of herself since the moment when her little Blessing had crumpled to the ground.  Until this moment, this unexpected American joke about the chicken and the road. 

She saw that her hands, balled into fists now, were glistening with wet.  Another teardrop fell, rolling over her her knuckle, pulled inexorably down.  She looked up and saw that he, too, had tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.  “Please tell me.  Why did the chicken cross the road?”

(597 words)

When I wrote this, I remember thinking that this story would also be an appropriate blog entry.   I hoped to show with this story the connection between two people who outwardly don't have much in common.  He doesn't know why she is crying, but still feels and bears witness to her pain.

I also hoped to show that plenty of normal-seeming people are walking around with hidden scars, pain that is kept at bay, but only just and that might be suddenly triggered and result in a full-blown flashback. This story is fiction, but I have been in situations where something I said sent a human rights victim back into a bad time and place.  Here is an example, if I gave you Coca Cola in a glass bottle, what would you think of?   I think of the Coke machine in the basement of Audubon Hall on the LSU campus.  When I visited my dad at his office, I was allowed to go down to the basement and put a quarter in the old-fashioned machine, open the door and retrieve an ice cold bottle.  So for me, a bottle of Coca Cola has entirely positive connotations.  But I had a client once who was tortured with an empty glass Coke bottle.  For her, the thought or sight of a glass bottle could cause her to panic.

It's scary when someone suddenly begins to disassociate.  And like the guy in this story, you feel guilty when something you do triggers it.    Ideas for stories (some realistic fiction like this and some not) spring into my head all the time, but I the reason that I took the time to write this one down - in that ice arena in New Hope, MN - was because I think more people need to be aware that many of us (not just refugees) are carrying a heavy burden of memories from a painful time.  More of us should be on the lookout for how we can make that human connection.  It won't change the world, but it might just help make it a little bit better.

My New Year's Day Pralines

I generally cringe at the term "self-care".  Yet I also know that in my line of work, burnout is a very real occupational hazard.  Those of us who work regularly with refugees and other survivors of trauma often experience something called "secondary" or "vicarious" traumatization. Even though we may never have had a traumatic experience ourselves, just listening to so many stories of loss and suffering can lead us to experience some of the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  And because secondary traumatization is a slow, cumulative process, it can sometimes be hard to detect until it's too late and the stress has already burnt you up to a crackily crisp. 


To reduce secondary traumatization, we are advised to follow the ABCs:  Awareness, Balance and Connection.  The thing about it is that these are actually good principles to follow to reduce the stress that we all have in our lives.  Remembering the ABCs has been particularly helpful to me in performing my other job - caregiver of three children.  Parenting is long term, stressful work; I know from experience that I am better able to to that work if I invest the time in taking care of myself as well.  Here's a brief introduction to the ABCs:


Awareness:  This means paying attention to yourself and how you are feeling.  It means acknowledging that you are not Superwoman (or whatever) and that it is OK not to be perfect.  It means identifying the signs and symptoms of stress in your life.  There is a long list of symptoms of PTSD and secondary traumatization, but I will give only a few examples of the ones I have identified in myself.  

• Nightmares/sleep disturbance. For me, weird nightmarish dreams are the number one sign that I need to back off at work. I call it the Richard Pryor stress test. The first time I recognized this symptom was when I had a nightmare that Richard Pryor was chasing me around with a hypodermic needle, bugging out his eyes and saying "I'm gonna get you!  I'm gonna get you! I'm gonna get you!" (picture that for a moment -if you dare).  I woke up heart pounding and on the verge of screaming, but also with the crystal clear realization that I needed to take a break from doing so many asylum interview intakes. 
• Preoccupation with safety of self and loved ones.  I am constantly and compulsively locking the front and back doors at our house when we are at home. I receive much mockery from the other household residents about this, but it just seems too easy for some baddie to walk right in.  
• Sensitivity to violence.  I absolutely cannot watch violent movies anymore.  Unless, ironically, it is about human rights.  I guess the professional side kicks in or something. 
• Difficulty managing emotions/strong emotional response.  I cry like a baby at movies now.  I went through half a box of Kleenex during the opening sequence of UP, but even stupid (both sappy stupid and just plain stupid) movies make me cry.  Music also makes me tear up but only when it is live and either classical or church music.  When people say nice things about me or my family, I just lose it.  The weird thing is that I usually don't even feel sad.  I just can't stop the waterworks.  So my coping strategy is to always wear waterproof mascara and carry a pursepack of tissues. 

Balance:  This means taking care of yourself by doing activities that provide what YOU need to be at your best mentally, physically and spiritually.  Generally, this means finding a balance of activities in your personal and work life that provide you with the opportunity to rest, play and physically or mentally escape from the stress.  It's hard sometimes, with kids around, to find that balance but sometimes you just have to do it.  That's exactly what I did on January 1, 2011.


On New Year's Day, I had a bunch of overtired, bored and cranky kids hanging on me.  So I decided to make pralines.  Not necessarily logical, but I felt that it was appropriate to start off the new year doing something that I had never done before.  It's true - I had never made pralines before!  Even though I spent the first 18 years of my life in south Louisiana.  Even though, for more than 20 years, I have owned a cookbook by the American Sugar Cane League that includes an entire section on praline recipes.  I decided that I wanted to make pralines that day, so I opened up that cookbook. There were more than 20 praline recipes made with essentially the same 5 or 6 ingredients.  I understand why now, because I ended up fiddling with the ratio of brown sugar to white sugar to come up with my very own pralines recipe.  The pralines I made (with some "assistance" from my sons) turned out great.  Most importantly, they made me really happy.  Making these New Year's Day Pralines was something that I did for myself alone, putting some balance in what had originally had all the makings of a crappy day.  


Connection:  It is so important to have supportive relationships with friends, family, and community in your life. It is also important to communicate with others about your experiences, so that's what I'm doing now.  My New Year's Day Pralines recipe follows - enjoy a little "self-care"!

NEW YEAR'S DAY PRALINES

1 1/4 cup brown sugar (packed)                   1/4 cup butter

3/4 cup white sugar                                      2 cups pecans

1/2 cup evaporated milk                               1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix first five ingredients and bring to a boil on medium heat.  Let boil 3 to 5 minutes.  Add vanilla.  Remove from heat.  Beat with wooden spoon one minute (no more).  Spoon onto waxed paper.  If it gets too hard, return to heat and melt again.  Let cool and enjoy!

Same and Different

Each February, my kids' schools have special programming for National African American Parent Involvement Day.  The activities are different every year, but in 2008 there was a parent-led component that involved reading the class a book and facilitating a classroom discussion about diversity.  I signed up to be the parent volunteer in Simon's kindergarten and Sevrin's second grade class.  I had a great picture book (by no less than Kermit the Frog!) about children's rights that I had picked up at the UN bookstore years before; my kids liked it, so their classmates probably would.  Easy peasy, right?  But that's where, brakes squealing, I slammed head-on into a solid brick wall. 


I just had no idea how to facilitate the discussion or talk about human rights in a way that was simple enough for them to understand.  Fortunately, I got some help from people who are smarter than me about things like this - teachers.  You could never in a million years get a lawyer to summarize an argument in just three words, but teachers can and do.  Thanks to my sons' classroom teachers and Kathy Seipp from our Education Program, the theme for my parent-led discussion was "Same and Different".  


In February 2008, I had just returned from Liberia, a West African country emerging from more than a decade of violent conflict. I picked a few photos of people and scenes from Liberia and had them blown up and mounted on foam core.  The plan was that I would hold up a photo and have the kids point out what they saw in the picture that was the same in their lives and what was different.   


It was really and truly amazing to hear what the kids had to say.  But before I tell you, take a look at the picture and think about what you see that is the same and different from your own life: 

photo by Dulce Foster

Here are some of the things the kids said:  "I like that bracelet."  "I sometimes wear my hair in braids, too." "They have dark skin and I have white skin."  "We have different trees here, like conifers."  "We have snow here right now."  "Is that corn growing behind them?  Because I LOVE to eat corn, too."  "Is that a house? It's not like my house."  "You couldn't live in that house in Minnesota.  You would get too cold."


Here is another one:  

photo by Dulce Foster

"I think they are brothers and sisters who love each other."  "I think they are cousins.  I love my cousins, too."  "It must be very hot there. We can only wear clothes like that in summer."  "Do they have seasons?" "Hey! I have flip flops just like that!"

One more time:

street scene in Monrovia, 2008

"How do they carry those big things on their heads?  We can't do that!"  "There is a lot of trash on the street."  "We have that same blue cooler.  We take it with us when we go camping." "We have windows, too, but there is no glass in their windows."  "They have electric wires like we do."  "That's so funny that they are using the wheelbarrows to carry things.  We only use our wheelbarrow in the garden."


Each picture offered many more opportunities to talk about "same and different" than I had imagined.  For example, "I have flip flops just like that" (same) but those may be the only pair of shoes the kid owns (different).  The "no glass in the windows" comment led to a discussion of mosquitos (same) and malaria (different).  They do have power lines like us, but there is no electricity running through them.  At the time, only a  tiny area of Monrovia had electric power; the rest of the country relied on generator power - at best.  I told them about seeing the the dozens of kids huddled around the bases of the 5 or 6 working streetlights in Monrovia, doing their homework.  "Just like Abraham Lincoln," breathed one particularly precocious second grader. 

The book I read is called For Every Child, A Better World.  It's a UN Publication/Muppet Press collaboration which is now out of print but you can still find used copies online. If you follow the link  For Every Child, A Better World, you'll see the format:  "Every child needs food to eat, but sometimes there isn't enough to go around."  I've done this "Same and Different" presentation several times now in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade classrooms. Every time, I walk away surprised by how these very young kids are able to understand and express the concept of basic human rights.  If they get it so completely, what is wrong with us adults?


Simon's kindergarten teacher, however, really took the "Same and Different" theme to the next level.  For several weeks, she incorporated "Same and Different" into various classroom activities, including one assignment to draw and write about something that they thought that every child needs.  She sent me copies of all of the drawings so I'll end with a few.  Of course, my favorite is the one I posted at the top of this blog entry: "Every child needs peace."