... To my utter relief, it became apparent that our visit to the airport camp had created space for a genuine exchange, and was a source of real hope and much-needed encouragement for an entire community scraping out an existence in the margins … and all too easily forgotten.
Read More... This was my first experience of the raw reality of life in a camp. Pictures are one thing; personally embracing innocent victims of unutterable tragedy is another.
Unsurprisingly, I was also wrestling with concerns about potential exploitation … drive-by photo-op relief missions … questions about what could really be accomplished given the built-in limitations of our visit. I confess to some inner ambiguity as we stepped from the tinted interiors of our black SUV’s into the blazing African sun.
Read More... Whatever official story would emerge in the press, they wanted us to know: “This woman is free because of the message of Bridges to Common Ground!”
Furthermore, after reporting to the rest of their leaders about our meeting, they reached consensus that the anti-Balaka should rejoin the peace process, which they had withdrawn from just a few days prior. They expressed renewed hope that real peace could come to their country.
We were stunned.
Read More... The explosives went off, and bridges that led to Friendship Hall were closed down, even as the president was making his way to speak to the nation about the way of peace. Some bombs had been intentionally planted and detonated in the city in prior weeks, so security forces and the population at large understandably assumed some sort of attack was underway.
Leftover munitions. Heat, friction, bumps in the road. Running on fumes, uncertainty, explosions. Fear, reactions, paralysis. Bridges shutting down. Empty seats.
They all go together.
Read More... I forced myself to turn and look into the sea of eyes, many looking intently, curiously, skeptically at us, at me. ... The space between us was defined by so much more than the deceptively low banister over which we studied each other. A millennium of wall-building is not reversed in a weekend visit, no matter how sincere. I breathed out a prayer for the God-sized task facing us all.
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