Anyway, this week was AWESOME. After years of planning, months of prayer, and one stunning billboard recruitment campaign, we had seven brand new team members join IJM Uganda! We went from 21 staff members to 29 (including a former staff attorney who’s back as our Director of Structural Transformation). That’s huge!

With those 29 staff and our six interns and fellows, we barely fit in our regular conference room. Offices and desks have been shuffled. Everything feels brand new and brimming with excitement. This a truly great time to be present at our little office and I can’t wait for all of the incredible potential in this group to spill out into the Ugandan public justice system.

Is “watch this space” still a thing? Because if so: WATCH THIS SPACE!

Melinda Gates visiting a nutrition center in Bangladesh

I’ve really enjoyed this article series on Nicholas Kristof’s NY Times blog bringing reader questions to philanthropist Melinda Gates. You should give both parts a good read for some great insight into the work the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports abroad and why this work is necessary. (Connection: the Gates’ were critical partners in IJM’s Project Lantern in the Philippines.)

I was particularly struck today by this question and response:

Reader Cosima Bartlett (to both Nick and Melinda): Why do you not concentrate more of your efforts on American children who are so lacking in so many important areas as statistics now show?

NICK: That’s an interesting question, Cosima, and it’s one I wonder about in relation to my own reporting: Do I spend so much time writing about crises abroad that I neglect problems festering at home?

I’m not sure, but there are two reasons why I understand a focus abroad. First, poverty in the world’s poorest countries really is different than poverty in America. On my first win-a-trip journey, I brought a student with me who was skeptical of all my Africa reporting. Casey Parks had grown up in Georgia and Louisiana in a poor family, without insurance, and she didn’t see that there was any need to go to Cameroon to write about global poverty. But then in Cameroon, Casey and I watched a woman named Prudence dying in childbirth, completely needlessly. And Casey told me that she realized that yes, there really is a difference – and that in the world’s poorest countries a $10 investment in a bed net really can save a life, in a way that is not true in the U.S.

The second point I would make is to push back at the idea that we should solve our own problems first, before we try to solve Congo’s or Bangladesh’s. At some point we are all humans, connected by a web of humanity, and that’s true whether we are New Yorkers and Californians – or whether we are Alabamans and Bangladeshis. It doesn’t feel right to me to ignore people’s needs and lives because they didn’t win the lottery of birth and end up with American citizenship. What matters most is their humanity, not their passport.

That said, I sometimes worry that American university students think that it’s cool and glamorous to spend a summer fighting poverty in Africa, but have much less interest in mentoring disadvantaged kids across the tracks in their own cities. That troubles me, too. And as a matter of fact, I hope to do more writing this year about America’s own challenges – including education. [Source]

I think this was a great challenge for me to consider why I feel compelled to work in Uganda and less so to work in America. Kristof’s right that poverty in the developing world is very different from in the US, but I think I resonate most with the birth lottery question. It’s why I get so choked up about the kids I worked with in Kenya and with the widows we help here in Uganda. It reminds me that, while we were never ”wealthy” growing up, I entered a life of privilege and stability just be being randomly born white and in a Western country. The imbalance of that lottery gets me fired up every time.

It’s also a challenge to re-examine my motives. Am I caught up in the glamour and romanticism of working in Africa when I could be just as effective domestically? When I talk about my experiences, am I looking for some social approval for my choices or the start of an honest dialogue? These questions are crucial as I develop life goals and as I write on this site.

Either way, I think it’s critically important that everyone identifies what moves them. Kristof spoke at Elon University, my alma mater, a few years ago and said, “The ultimate aspiration is to connect to some cause larger than yourself and try to make a difference in doing that.” I care about social justice in the developing world; for my friend Nicole, it’s spinal cord injury patients in Colorado. I’m not gifted and moved where she is gifted and moved, and the world gets a little better because of it. As long as people are pursuing causes that engage them, I think we won’t need a complicated debate on home versus abroad. As long as people are taking action, I’m happy.

*Read more from Nicholas Kristof on his blog On the Ground by The New York Times.

The year 2011 had me living in reaction. And while it was an eventful year, and maybe one of the more growing seasons of my life, it was filled with mistakes and way too many people and projects. I feel like I lived on planes and gave half efforts to books and blogs and conferences and movies. I had a vague notion of what I wanted to do with my life, but really just went where the wind blew. I’m hoping 2012 is different. I want to live more wisely, stick to my values and ethics, live a much smaller, slower life. I also want to surround myself with people who have integrity, who can help me become more healthy, pillars who are grounded in reality so I know where I am and what life is really about. None of this is going to be easy … But I’m going to give it a shot. [Source]

Donald Miller’s passage above sets up perfectly the things I’ve been thinking about the New Year. (Seriously, how does this guy speak so deeply and so clearly into my life? Get outta here, Miller!) Last year was definitely a period of growth and challenge, but 2012 has the potential to be twice that. At some point, my time with IJM Uganda will close, I will leave the friends and coworkers that have made Uganda home for two years; the recent process of booking my return flight in July has made my six-month timeline all the more concrete.

Despite this looming unknown, I’ve started 2012 with an inexplicable positive attitude. I’ve shed all the drama and stress of 2011 and found myself refocused (thanks in part to my awesome Turkey trip) and ready to go. While I’m looking ahead for my next adventure, I’m giving thanks for getting to live in a paradise like Uganda and do work that I love.

Soon enough, I will be job searching, resume refining, and (hopefully) interviewing. Soon enough, I will move to some new… something. It could become a trying year, but I’m granting myself time to deal with stresses only when necessary. The future is scary, but for some reason I’m overwhelmingly optimistic.

I’m looking forward to a truly happy new year.

Honestly, you could probably see most of the main sites in Istanbul in two days; the city is very accessible and the attractions are close. With nine days there, my brothers and I got a much more thorough tour. Each day was its own adventure, but here are the highlights of what we saw and did in Turkey:

Aya Sofya: I must have seen a photo of the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia) in middle school or something, because I remember wanting to visit for the longest time. It was almost surreal living just a few minutes’ walk away and standing outside its gate within an hour of landing in Turkey. Sofya had me at hello. On our tour, it was just as grand and staggering as I’d always imagined. It’s incredible to think how old it is and how many people have visited and worshiped there, staring up at the same intricate mosaics and immense domed ceilings. Bucket list: checked.

Galata Tower: This medieval tower stands overlooks all of historical Istanbul, both Europe and Asia, and provided some awesome views of the city. We ascended around noon one day, so we got to hear the Muslim call to prayer ring out from hundreds of different mosques at once. That epic, full-stereo sound – somewhat unique to that specific place in the world – was pretty awesome to experience.

Bosporus Cruise: We had great weather for our sail up the Bosporus Strait, which divides Turkey into Europe and Asia. After bouncing between both coasts, we docked in Asia right at the Black Sea, where we broke into explored an old castle and ate awesome seafood. Coming back down that evening, we watched the sun set majestically behind Istanbul’s historic skyline.

Ephesus: Our one excursion outside of Greater Istanbul was a day trip to the ruins of Ephesus along the Aegean coast. Fun fact: our guide figured that only 17% of the city has been excavated and displayed. Along with a ragtag tour group of South Africans, Nigerians, and New Zealanders, we oohed and ahhed over the beautiful Library of Celsus, Amphitheater, Home of the Virgin Mary, and Temple of Artemis. We also ended up – quite randomly – at a sad leather jacket fashion show and a local carpet manufacturer. Handmade carpets were fairly interesting. Bored local fashion models were not.

Other than those highlights, we also saw the Archaeology Museum, Basilica Cistern, Beyoglu shopping district, Blue Mosque, city walls, Dolmabahçe Palace, Egyptian Spice Market, Grand Bazaar, Kariye Museum, Military Museum, New Mosque, Old Book Bazaar, Prince’s Mosque, Suleiman Mosque, Takfir Square, Topkapi Palace, and ferried over to Asian Istanbul for an afternoon stroll.

Looking back, Turkey was everything I needed it to be. Ten days with my brothers in a completely new country and culture helped me to mentally finish up 2011 and get ready for the New Year. Huge thanks go to my parents for sending us and giving me exactly the Christmas present I needed. Y’all are the best!

Got any questions? I’ll answer it all in the comments.

]]> http://onewhiteguy.com/2012/01/03/turkish-holiday/feed/ 1 sadams2 IMG_0270 IMG_0297 IMG_0314 IMG_0939 IMG_0506 IMG_0552 IMG_0686 IMG_0706 Turkey3 Turkey6 http://onewhiteguy.com/2012/01/01/owg-2011-annual-report/ http://onewhiteguy.com/2012/01/01/owg-2011-annual-report/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:52:13 +0000 sadams2 http://onewhiteguy.com/?p=2347 ]]> The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

(Thanks, everyone, for reading! Hopefully 2012 will be even more enjoyable to read!)

Early Sunday morning (in a few hours, actually), I will board a plane to Istanbul to spend ten days with my brothers, enjoying some cold weather and old culture. I’ll get to explore somewhere new and check another country off my bucket list. I’d be excited regardless, but, I’ll tell ya, Christmas is coming at just the right time this year.

I wish I could attribute blog silence to the every-other-day power outages we’ve had for the last three months, but that’s not it. I’ve fallen into a bit of a routine, with very little travel or exploration, and it stinks. Uganda should still be an adventure, but instead I’m getting cabin fever.  : (

So I’m stoked for a change of scenery. Just to be in a different environment for a couple of weeks (with electricity! and roads! and with my brothers! and no mosquitoes!) will be huge. I’ll get an adventure again, which centers me like nothing else. I know I’ll feel so much more invigorated to start 2012 in Uganda with the passion I felt back in June 2010. I’m so stinkin’ excited.

I hope everyone gets a time for rest and restoration this season. And thank you, truly, for all of your support. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Over the last month, I had been struggling to write a profile of Joyce, a woman who IJM recently helped back onto her land. By all means, this should have been a young reporter’s dream: in our interview, Joyce was open and honest; her attorney and social worker helped with new insight and legal details; my notes were thorough and compelling; and when I sat down at my keyboard, I was thoroughly prepared to write and write well.

But every day the story refused to come. In my mind, I could see the narrative, but nothing came together how I wanted. I worked all day long and often in the evenings, but kept finding little more than neatly arranged facts and a few pleasant phrases. No full story, so much frustration.

Last Friday, suddenly, it struck me why I was having such a difficult time: this woman had put so much trust in me. The further we had moved through my questions, the more vulnerable she became. This was not only a story of a legal intervention over land; this was her life story, retold to me through teary eyes as we sat on a woven grass mat in her front room. This was every single one of her fears and triumphs, from childhood to now, spilled from her memory, translated to my ear, and captured in my notebook. Some hadn’t been shared with anyone before, and certainly not with some visiting white guy. I’ve interviewed dozens of clients before, but never to this degree of vulnerability.

I could tell you the noble thing – that this amount of responsibility with someone’s story is humbling and gratifying – but once I realized the magnitude of my task, I was terrified.

Suddenly, my pressures came not just from meeting my targets or improving my own writing, but from representing this woman’s entire life. By some fluke, she entrusted me with all of it, and I had to compile it, express it, and send it off to the world, representing all the things she wanted to say from the dim light of her living room. I get one shot to express her value to people who will never meet her and who will never hear this incredible story firsthand. This is the case for every IJM client I’ve met, but this was the first time that responsibility hit me so clearly and so heavily.

I wish that my epiphany, my sudden revelation of purpose, had sparked a flood of words to rise up, but the process was still just as strenuous. I felt more pressure to be deliberate in every word choice and resolve any of my writing’s shortcomings that would detract from the story she told. In the end though, I feel like I’ve written a profile that will honor her. I’m sure the writing is still imperfect, but it rings true to this woman’s life and the ways she trusted me. I don’t know where or when it will be used, but I only hope I’ve done my best to represent her well.

This whole process highlighted the unique responsibility journalists or those in the development community hold for those we work to assist. It takes so much bravery to share about struggle and hardship, and so each story must be treated with utmost dignity and human respect. (I know that’s Journalism 101, but it feels so much more urgent when it’s suddenly personal.) And as consumers of media, when we read about these stories from around the world, we must always be mindful of the very real, very difficult barriers each person overcame to share their own story.

I feel comfortable that every client profile I have written in this job represents the truth, but I am so thankful to Joyce for taking me deeper than that. Her vulnerability opened my eyes to how I can work better and more earnestly to tell these stories well. I can’t wait to see her again soon and thank her in person, and I hope you’ll get a chance to hear more about her soon.

Structural transformation appears to be an idea pretty unique to IJM, at least as far as justice systems go. To not only help victims individually, but to affect the way law enforcement operates is a daunting task. IJM defines structural transformation this way:

IJM seeks to impact the structures that allow abuse to occur in order to create lasting change, protecting vulnerable individuals from future victimization. IJM pursues structural prevention by reducing the vulnerability of at-risk populations and providing training that empowers local authorities to stop abuse in their jurisdictions. IJM works in local communities to build social demand for professional, responsive law enforcement and judicial systems as well as build the capacity of those agencies to respond to injustice. (Source)

My colleagues – heads of departments with years of experience doing this work – highlighted issue after issue that frustrates human rights in Uganda. Some offices abuse power and some lack it. Some bodies lack resources to help and others favor only the rich. Sometimes the problems seem frustratingly simple to solve and sometimes they will take generations.

As we sat around and brainstormed all the parts of the public justice system that succeed or fail, I got pretty intimidated. There is so much that keeps poor widows from gaining justice – so much that it seems insurmountable. I admire the heck out of our staff, but this? This seems impossible.

But I was consistently encouraged that we cannot lower the bar because it seems hard or scary or frustrating. Just because a culture of corruption and apathy hasn’t changed doesn’t mean it can’t. Those kind of excuses don’t stack up when the reasons are so much stronger. Each and every widow I’ve met is a reason to take on this challenge and every closed case is a reason to take on another. It’s pretty exhilarating when you switch to that perspective.

The truly amazing thing is that this all will be possible. IJM has helped to do it before, and will do it again in Uganda. When these leaders are convinced of the seriousness of the widow’s plight (which they will be) and they are held accountable to do justice on her behalf, slowly by slowly the situation will improve. God is faithful and so should we be.

My boss said this briefly in one of the sessions, but I think it sums up our goals really clearly. He said: “We can take joy in better. We can actually take a ton of joy in better. But we can ring the bell only when everything is where it needs to be.”

I am so excited for all that’s ahead for IJM in Uganda. The mountain ahead is huge, but we are so ready to conquer it. Bring it on.

Just like last year (posts here & here), I have far too much to be thankful for this year. The amazing weather, the fulfilling work, the adventures every day at my fingertips: it’s all pretty fantastic and I’m crazy grateful for absolutely all of it.

I spent last night with 30 other wandering ex-patriates around a well-stocked table and well-planned meal. As each friend shared their point of thanks, I was reminded of how grateful I am to even have this community. That was my biggest struggle for my first six months in Uganda – community – and now I have a huge network of new friends. When it was my turn, I thanked them for the ways they’ve challenged me since I arrived and for the ways they’ve inspired me to change. This group of people has helped me become bolder, more intentional, and far more confident. It was a little less difficult being away from home when I was laughing around a table with this clan. I kindof love them.

I’m also continually thankful for the people that helped get me here – donors, supporters, letter-writers, and prayers. My community back home is just as amazing as my new crew here; without you none of this would be possible. So I kindof love you, too.

Anyway, I know we’re out of happy Thanksgiving and into scary, scary Black Friday, but I hope you had an amazing time with your loved ones. Our lives are filled with so much wonder, I hope you’ve taken some time to experience it all and give thanks for you’ve been given.

Aha. “Ok. I found it,” I called out.

Here’s what I learned: our water was off Friday afternoon and someone left the boss’s kitchen sink on, hoping to notice when it came back. Meanwhile, plumbers had been fixing the drain on said sink and left the stopper in when they finished. Somewhere in the wee hours of Saturday, the water comes back on, overflows out of the sink, and floods into 60% of my boss’s house and 100% of mine. His four-year-old, a reliable early riser, slips and falls in the situation just before sunrise.

So fully briefed but still half-asleep, I start pulling floating flotsam to safety. I was still waiting for a wardrobe, so my clothes in my suitcase under my bed are now soaked. My laptop is half-submerged. iPod and camera, too. DVDs float around my little living room like shiny round canoes. Paintings from Rwanda, a bag of laundry, books and wicker furniture: all water-logged.

Just as I’m navigating the balance between anger and amused disbelief, boss’s three-year-old stumbles into my place in footie pajamas. “Whoa! Is this a swimming pool?” Amusement it is.

By the time I’m fully awake, boss and his wife are already pushing waves of water down my hallway with giant squeegees. Due to poor planning of our recently-constructed house, the floors slope down toward the far corner of my living room, so water pours back in almost as quickly as we can push it out. With a couple hours of assembly-line sweeping, we expel the majority of the water and wipe up the rest with towels. All of my belongings go out to the yard to dry out in the sun, but just as I’ve gotten the inside dry it starts to rain and everything comes back in. C’est la vie.

Fortunately, nothing appears to be ruined. My laptop turns on and went to our office tech support guy for a full fix. Hopefully it’ll come back healthy. Other electronics dried in the sun. My envelope of notes from donors to open at Christmas is wrinkly and transparent, but hopefully still legible. The house still feels damp, but it was all fine and sorted by the afternoon.

By the end of my Saturday, I was exhausted. Now that everything’s reasonably dry and back in place, it feels like the whole debacle never happened. Anyway, there’s a lot to be thankful for in this situation:

1. Little kids wake up early.
2. No one got electrocuted.
3. It was tap water, not sewage water.
4. My tile floors are now super clean.
5. We all survived the flood of 2011.