Africa.

The internet works here; I stream Nicholas Kristof’s sequence of short videos about sex trafficking in Cambodia while I fold my freshly laundered university sweatshirt and hang my button-down from J Crew up to dry. Kristof provides names, which, due to the finiteness of memory, I will ultimately boil down to statistics—even though witnessing a one-eyed teenage girl cry as you hear the litany of sexual abuses done onto her is supposed to personalize it. Should I get a Swatch or Skagen? I don’t like gold bands. I want a black leather band or another all chrome one. Maybe I’ll just get two faux-fancy ones from Timex. I watch another video about forced drug-addiction in southeast Asian brothels as a way to break girls’ spirits and create unbreakable dependency. My requisite irritation and head-shaking “fuck that” under my breath works like clockwork: the clock rouses me with a single resounding gong at 1, but is followed by silence and the separation of knits and delicates. I notice a “suggested video” about Nicki Minaj. I click, watch, and after the minute-long video of one of her photo-shoots I look her up on Wikipedia. She’s from Trinidad and considers herself bisexual. Well, she claims not to date men or women, so she’s says not technically bisexual—she doesn’t like getting labeled. Shit, too bad that cardigan at Express didn’t fit. I really wanted to be able to pull one of those off.

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I am applying to study abroad in Kenya next year. If in the small likelihood I am awarded the scholarship to go abroad I would study

Mombasa, Kenya.

Swahili and intern at a human rights or economic development NGO. The acquisition of Swahili is intended to, as USAID trumpets, inculcate and perpetuate a tradition of “Kenyans working for Kenya.” My role in that solidarity will forever be imperfect, but speaking a native tongue will allow me to get as close as humanly possible. I, as I said in my leadership interview for Global Outreach, “don’t need to save the world…I just want to be able to help someone who doesn’t have any resources to help themselves.”

My mind wanders to the thought of one of the most vile and intense crimes being committed in the world today—rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I go through a mental rolodex of my friends, a good portion of which are women. Then I think about the 3^rd grade girls I tutor; and then the kindergarten girls and how innocent they look; and how the rebels would think the same thing.

It is widely believed that the DRC is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman; sexual abuses are astronomical and incalculable. There are clinics set up in the eastern DRC, where the ongoing conflict is most concentrated, where they try and treat rape victims. But without systemic change it doesn’t really matter. It’ll just happen again. And again.

DRC's Kivu Provinces.

I could never live with myself if I allowed these atrocities against women to happen to my friends. Knowing that these women are innocent victims of their birthplaces and not inherently useless or deserving of these crimes, how can I not work for it, in some way, to be different? Dude, check yourself. I don’t think you’re being reasonable…NO. How can I, as an adoptee and a direct benefactor of relocation to a privileged region away from a less equitable one, not commiserate? What if my parents adopted a Congolese girl instead of a Korean boy? I could have become just another faceless statistic of poverty—because of my surroundings and not because I deserved it.Where’s that $20,000 scholarship now? You wouldn’t even know what $20,000 was.

Movies like Blood Diamond and The Constant Gardner (which I enjoyed to varying degrees) at one time or another echo a similar sentiment: what’s the use if you can only help one? The intention is obviously the opposite—a moral turn that is sentimentalized with a neat and tidy ending—but I still scoff. I think that I am better than that; I think about my desire to hopefully one day work at a clinic in the DRC even if I can only help a few women. But then I withhold a donation to a prospective borrower on Kiva or Global Giving and search for a rationale: what’s the point if I’m only helping one? You asshole.

*****

I am terrified of being inadequate, terrified that you’ve stopped reading three paragraphs ago because my writing and convictions are garbage. I am not terrified of being unable to “save the world,” but rather, terrified that I am unworthy and inadequate of such an opportunity. My privileged upbringing– not in the traditional forms of excessive wealth or familial loyalty– allows me to dither between Fossil and Timex and fret about my shirt’s collar not being fully ironed. How can you reconcile subscribing to Gentlemen’s Quarterly, where advertisements for $300 watches are commonplace, when you devote your time to countries where most civilians make less than $300 a year? An advisor told me that it would be unreasonable to expect myself to be able to detach myself from the luxuries of American society. And to stop being so hard on myself. Morally, I refuse to acquiesce, to admit that societal advantages excuse me from being globally conscious, but of course I do—I’m going to buy a nice watch.

I read and read and read about it. I want to study there. I want to live there. I want to work in solidarity there. But I won’t stay in Africa. Eventually I’ll move back to the United States and start a family, buy a white-picket fence and coach my son’s Little League team. I am terrified that no matter how hard I try to learn, live, and love whatever foreign conflict I dive into my work will be incomplete, marred by my ability/ certainty of inevitable abdication.

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I love my Invisible Children shirt. It looks and fits great and all of its proceeds go to a worthy cause; it cost $20 USD. If it cost $40 I would not have bought it. I probably would have spent the difference on $8 beers downtown. That shirt reminds me, hopefully they have decent sales at the outlets next week. Gotta pick up some new stuff from BR.

She screams for help. I hear her. But I’m not there. I’ve been standing next to her for years but I’ve never been able to stand with her. The Fossil says time’s up– my flight back to New York leaves in an hour. And I’m worried that I never even left.

The Next Fame Monster.

From the BBC:

Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Eric Horvath and Usher are among stars signing off social media including Facebook and Twitter in aid of singer Alicia Keys’ charity. The campaign Digital Life Sacrifice will raise money on Wednesday – World Aids Day – for Keep a Child Alive, which supports families affected by HIV/Aids in Africa and India. The celebrities have filmed “last tweet and testament” videos. They will sign back online when the charity raises $1 million. Their videos will appear in adverts showing them lying in coffins to represent what the campaign calls their digital deaths.

I think this is a great idea. Gaga will be back on twitter in a matter of days if $1 million’s the goal, but I know Horvath’s going to hold out for longer than that. I knew I quit Facebook for a good reason, I just wish we aimed a little higher.

More Visible Children.

Last year Fordham hosted a screening of Invisible Children, a documentary about child soldiers in northern Uganda. I didn’t make it to the live screening but managed to stream it later on during the week.

The documentary focused on the Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) “recruitment” of child soldiers by abducting them from their homes. Children flee their homes at night to places that aren’t traditionally infiltrated by the LRA for safety. The majority of Joseph Kony’s army is made up of abducted child soldiers.

The subject matter easily caught my interest, however, I wasn’t too impressed by the documentary. Its creators, three 20-somethings from the West Coast, seemed more interested in an adventure than reporting a serious issue. They started in Sudan but stumbled into Uganda and utilized the ravaged images of a war-torn country.

Invisible Children (the organization) came to Fordham again, last week, and I was much more impressed by their most recent film: “The Rescue of Joseph Kony’s Child Soldiers.” The high production quality of the film supported the clear, concentrated, and sincere intentions of the organization. Invisible Children has inspired many to join in their grassroots movement and made their voices heard in Washington.

 

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It is now looking to protect Congolese villages from LRA attacks via radio towers that send out distress signals.

~~~

The best part of the event was speaking to one of the Ugandan women that tours with Invisible Children. She spoke to the group as a whole but was noticeably timid on stage. I got a chance to talk to her after and since I’m considering traveling to eastern Africa next year it was amazing to talk to a native Ugandan about Museveni and political relations within the EAC.

 

Check out IC’s blog here: http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/

Don’t Tell if Asked: Uganda.

Homosexuality is illegal in a lot of Africa and not just under Sharia law. In Uganda being gay is considered a disease and currently punishable with up to 14 years imprisonment.

MP David Bahati proposed a bill last year to implement the death penalty for repeat offenders of homosexual acts. The bill has, justifiably so, received tremendous international scrutiny and most likely won’t be passed into law (another question to be considered is, how come the international community is only now outraged? is a 14 year prison-sentence not unjust enough to merit outrage?). There are also some links to Americans influencing Bahati’s bill, but you’ll have to read the article for that dirt.

Find the article here: http://www.theramonline.com/opinions/anti-gay-sentiment-plagues-uganda-1.2400940

…and wikipedia “The Fellowship” aka “The Family” when you’re done.

wtf.

Book: Half the Sky.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

By: Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

I stumbled on Kristof’s book after I decided to actually read one of his OpEds in the NYT. After following his column for a few weeks and reading his book I’m ashamed to say that I once asked a friend “Kristof? He’s the conservative-ish columnist for the Times, right?”

***

The title’s inspired by the Chinese proverb “Women hold up half the sky” and provides one of the main points of Kristof’s persuasion for a better world: empowering women worldwide through economic opportunities and equal rights.

Half the Sky manages to give the reader exactly what he’s expecting while simultaneously shocking him. Kristof systematically touches upon the major (but not necessarily most publicized) atrocities done to women still going on in the 21st century: from sex trafficking (which he re-defines and labels “slavery”), to rape, to “honor” killings, to economic and educational marginalization, and most glaringly, maternal mortality. Kristof and WuDunn devote a lot of their book’s 250 pages to the universally underreported atrocity of mothers dying in childbirth due to lack of healthcare.

The book’s examples of real-life success stories of how empowering women can better everyone’s lives are compelling and numerous. Their presence was a must for the book’s purpose: invoking outrage in its reader to hopefully spur action. I think Kristof and WuDunn, with their copious examples of battered and beautiful women succeed in their purpose, but in the larger scheme of things, I felt that they relied on sensationalism too much. I don’t think the commercials of starving African children on television do much in terms of sustained outrage from viewers, and I consider Half the Sky to be just as vulnerable.

That being said, I still found it an “enjoyable” read. It is spurring me to action (for a college student bound to a final exams schedule that means further reading on the subject for now) and more nuanced research on the issues. For a jumping off point into women’s empowerment I think Half the Sky is a great read, but if you’re well-versed in global gender inequalities than this book might not be worth it for you.

Either way, give it a look. I just returned my copy to the Fordham library and within a week of finishing it I’ve run into two other people who’ve read (and enjoyed) it.

~~~

Nick and Sheryl live in Rwanda with their children. Follow his blog, On the Ground, here: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/