Synergy Magazine Fall 2010

SYNERGYDuke Civic Engagement MagazineFall 2010 Issue 4

Synergy Team

Editors-in-ChiEfKirsty Fang

Olivia HeSuanna Oh

EditorialSerra AktanZeewan Lee

Brandon MaffeiPulkit Taunk

Lara Funk

dEsignKirsty Fang

Olivia HePulkit Taunk

Brandon Maffei

PublishingChamblee Graphics

advisorEric Van Danen

Special thanks to Bassett Fund, UPB, and SOFC for their financial support and for believing in our mission.

If only someone told us how difficult it is to write a letter from the editors, we might not have created the scary empty space on the inside of the front cover at all. At one moment, there seem to be too many things we want to show off about the magazine: the touching stories, the bright colored pictures, our awesome members, and so on. But at another moment, it seems a daunting task to put out a few short paragraphs, which can adequately express all the thoughts, debates and effort that went into compiling this fourth issue of Synergy. Perhaps we could put this space to good use by giving you a better idea of what Synergy is. First of all, we hope to gather critiques, memoirs, or personal essays, which show the writers’ serious reflections on their experiences. We are not so concerned about what our volunteers did but more about how they felt, so that the “life-changing volunteering experience”, as many phrased it, becomes substantial and meaningful. Secondly, while we are always happy to have DukeEngage participants write for us, we welcome stories from people with all kinds of volunteer experiences, from tutoring at a local community center to wondering around South America volunteering on one’s own. Lastly, while we already are a small happy team, we have spaces open for new, enthusiastic members who can join us at any point during the year. With that said, we hope you better understand what is waiting for you in the following pages. We would like to welcome our new freshman member, Lara Funk, to our team, and want to especially thank Pulkit Taunk for bravely taking up a lot of work this year, saving those of us who are critically impaired by senioritis.

Enjoy!

Kirsty Fang, Olivia He, and Suanna OhEditors-in-Chief

From The ediTorS

FALL 2010 SynErgy 2

Credit of Spring 2010 issue 3 cover photos: Kelen Laine.

Credit of Fall 2010 issue 4 cover photos: Kirsty Fang

ConTenTS

FALL 2010 SynErgy 3

4

10

14

17

18

19

20

24

Alexa Monroy

Kristen Lee

Julie Rivo

Braveen Ragunanthan

Darriel Harris

Nancy Yang

Bhumi Purohit

Ching-Ching Chen

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Babahoyo, Ecuador

Haiti (Photo Essay)

Ethiopia (Photo Essay)

Uganda (Photo Essay)

Uganda (Photo Essay)

Newton, Sierra Leone

Antigua & Nehai, Guatemala

alexa monroy

guaTemala CiTy, guaTemala

CenTral ameriCa

FALL 2010 SynErgy 4

fEaturE story

The City

Despite the joys of college, I have always looked forward to going back home. Guatemala City is a vibrant Wonderland, a buzzing urban center with the best restaurants in the world and breathtaking views. Growing up in an upper-class, nicer part of the City, I had comforts that rivaled any kid growing up in the

US suburbs and as an added benefit, some of the world’s top tourist destinations lay a drive away. Even three years into my Duke career, I longed for the relaxed lifestyle amongst the dynamic landscapes created by the country’s 33 volcanoes.

[turn right into PlaCEs lEft bEhind]

FALL 2010 SynErgy 5

Then, at the conclusion of my junior spring, my wish finally came true. I was to spend my summer volunteering in Guatemala. Landing at La Aurora airport in Guatemala City, I instantly noticed how much had changed. Just the day before, I had longed for the laidback pace of Guatemala, but I realized that I had grown to fit Duke’s pace. Keep moving, do more, go above and beyond. My slow-paced freshman self could never envision this transformation. Yet, there I was, with three uninterrupted months at home ahead of me - and instead of the comfort I was looking forward to, I was mortified.

Nevertheless, readjusting to the meandering tempo of my adolescence was necessary for the next few months, as I was in Guatemala to complete my fieldwork project for the Global Health certificate. On the first day of work, I drove to my project site down the same road that led to my high school. This time, however, I turned right into the dreaded Zone 3, passing by the hectic bus terminal from which horror stories of theft and assault seemed to pop up spontaneously. Of the 20-some zones in the City, Zone 3 is notorious for its large garbage landfill and much of Guatemala’s ill living conditions and gang-related violence. As soon as I turned, I found myself wondering how anyone grew used to this mess.

On top of that, everything is polluted and on hot days the smell of waste permeates the neighborhood. Raucous city buses zoom down streets mercilessly, noisily leaving tortilla and chocolate-dipped-fruit vendors covered in dust. However, the pollution of the neighborhood cannot begin to rival the filth of the landfill, and yet most residents of Zone 3 have either worked in the trash mounds or know someone else who has. Landfill workers receive a maximum of $5 a day for sorting through the trash for recyclables and dodging the monstrous garbage trucks that unrelentingly expel their contents. These garbage trucks have been known to run people over, but compared to the constant threat of inhaling toxins from rotting food this threat seems remote.

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The Project

Working at Safe Passage meant serving families that call the landfill their home. Seeking to keep kids out of the landfill, the organization began providing local children with two meals a day and engaging them in after-school tutoring. It was not long before another need became evident in the neighborhood. Many of the children’s mothers could not read or write proficiently. While some women dropped out of school with most of their elementary education pocketed, others barely knew how to write their name. As a result, Safe Passage started the adult literacy program and opened it up to any mother who had not completed her sixth grade education. I chose to work with the adult literacy program, hoping that being a Guatemalan woman would establish a platform of commonality upon which to exchange stories with the women in Zone 3. If my summer had to take place in what felt like a past life, I wanted to push myself outside the Guatemala I knew and learn about experiences unlike mine.

The first dose of unfamiliarity arrived promptly. Lorena, our classroom coordinator, had cautioned me about the struggles most women faced daily. As a trained counselor, Lorena naturally earned the trust of every woman who walked in the door. In fact, the best way to describe her role is to paraphrase a midwife who visited Safe Passage from Duke Medical Center; Lorena ran the show with the grace of a Guatemalan Oprah. This compassion was most evident to me the day a woman named Cristina arrived with a cloth bandage around her arm, not meeting anyone’s gaze until she caught sight of Lorena. Influenced by a new crowd, Cristina’s nephew had stolen her cell phone and she decided to approach her sister about it. The discussion between Cristina and her short-tempered sister had escalated quickly, ending with her sister stabbing Cristina in the arm.

Listening to Cristina’s story, I realized that she was not really seeking advice, but rather relaying the week’s events. Violence here was commonplace, and Cristina accepted her lot. As the summer continued, more stories like Cristina’s arose compounding into a

FALL 2010 SynErgy 8

help guide my decision. Truth be told the website did little to help me consolidate my professional plans, but Mirian’s investment in my journey meant a lot to me.

Mirian also led me to see that choosing a career should never be taken lightly. While postponing a career search until our late twenties may not be the best option, in some parts of the world people don’t have the choice. Mirian reminded me to respect my good fortune in growing up where I did and attending a school like Duke. We have learned from the best, alongside the best, and we owe the world careers that will use our skills to the benefit of people who inhabit it.

Although endless careers could benefit the world, I learned that development work creates unusually strong bonds between people. A couple of years ago, Liz moved to Guatemala to work as the liaison between the adult literacy department and Safe Passage’s administrative team. On paper her job mostly outlined

managerial tasks, yet Liz made it her mission to brighten each woman’s day every day. She always greeted the women with a smile and knew each one’s name. In a wonderfully illustrative gesture, one woman named her newborn “Elizabeth” this summer, allowing Liz’s legacy to continue into the next generation.

This story is especially admirable considering Liz did not grow up with the common denominator of Guatemalan citizenship. Foreigners often comprise the driving force behind projects like Safe Passage and this summer their dedication made me conscious of how much more I need to do as a well-off Guatemalan with countless resources available to me. For years I passed the bus terminal without turning my head, but after a few weeks in Zone 3 I found no excuse for ignoring the areas where I was lucky enough not to live.

mass that seemed impossible to tackle. These women carried such heavy burdens that it often felt like my work was inconsequential.

Nevertheless, every so often I discovered hidden success stories of women who had broken out of the cycle of poverty and violence. One woman who epitomized the organization’s dream was Mirian. She was 27 and had graduated from the program a few years earlier. Shortly after meeting her, she told me about her dream of studying literature at the public university someday and asked me what career I wanted to pursue. When I responded in waves of chatter about medicine, policy, and maybe law, she seemed perplexed. At Duke I always felt that professional success must come as quickly as possible, sometimes at the expense of complete confidence in my career choice. After her initial surprise at my response, Mirian suggested looking at a career exploration website to

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The resolution

The women’s lives were plagued with violence to the extent that most of them were desensitized towards it. Akin to Cristina’s nonchalant recount of getting stabbed, I heard of people getting shot, stabbed, kidnapped, abused or run over by garbage trucks all the time. Somehow death felt a little closer – and it was not due solely to the vultures circling above the landfill. This triviality of death and violence became the hardest part to accept. How do you convince someone in a violence-stricken place that she has a right to health, equality, and life?

In reality, the public system is so broken that even well-meaning institutions pose significant threats to the women’s wellbeing. When the midwife from Duke visited, most women admitted to mistrusting the public health care system. Guatemalan law does not require the presence of a third person during gynecological check-ups and as a consequence, many of them had been mistreated or abused by their gynecologists. Some of them had gone years and given birth to multiple children without ever seeing a doctor. Before working at Sage Passage, legal caveats like this remained hidden in my own hometown. Each day the differences between my life in Guatemala and the lives of Cristina or Marian piled up like trash in the landfill, releasing an odor impossible to escape, no matter how far I drove to get home.

Contrary to what you might think, last summer deepened my confidence in Guatemala’s promise. Zone 3 exposed a side of the City that I never would have, could not have, described to my friends at Duke. Yet my friendships with the women made the Guatemalan experience under the poverty line tangible for me. The stories on the nightly news now have faces. Life in Guatemala may feel removed from world’s stage, but the country’s dynamic poverty and violence tell their own story. Using the knowledge from my years at Duke, I hope to return someday and battle the hardships most Guatemalans face daily. The perseverance and gentility I witnessed amongst the most vulnerable members of society convinced me that Guatemala deserves nothing less.

So, next time you can turn the corner into unfamiliar parts of your neighborhood. You may witness sights that shock or challenge you. You may just uncover a more holistic view of the place you call home. However, you will undoubtedly discover that you have as much to gain as you have to give – or maybe even more. u

FALL 2010 SynErgy 10

KriSTen lee

BaBahoyo, eCuador

SouTh ameriCa

The casita was finished. Bags of clothing lined the walls of the new home. Music blaring could be heard miles down the road. Someone turned up stereo and the song Dale Maracas came

on. The rythmic pulsations of the music began to drown out my thoughts. The oldest girl, who was no more than seven years old, began to dance suggestively. Neighborhood children played around our truck as the cake was divided up. Sugary frosting looped out words of congratulations, felicidades. I looked around and tried to smile, to mask the growing unease I felt in the chaos. In every regard the house warming party should have been a celebration but it felt more like an empty ceremony. During my senior year of high school, a group of my high school peers and I had traveled to Ecuador through an intercambio, an exchange program. Two days before the celebration we had gotten off the main road in Babahoyo, Ecuador and visited the family we were to gift a new house to: five children and a single mother living in difficult circumstances. When we got out of the truck the oldest boy shouted La china! pointing at me. The Chinese girl. That was me, la china. The Chinese girl. I tried to shrug off the heavy racial label as I moved towards the property. Their house, situated right off of the dirt road, was, for lack of a better word, an open shack. Hammocks were tied from one side of the house to the other but there were only three walls of shelter. The dwelling was so low in height that the oldest boy would often climb onto the roof and sit atop. Worn out cardboard posters of the alphabet — probably the children’s only form of education — hung from one of the dilapidated walls. Scrap wood littered the floor and the hazard of stepping on stray nails threatened anyone brave enough to walk with sandals or barefoot on the property; just the other day the mother of the family had wounded her foot on a nail on the floor space. Her newborn had suffered from so many mosquito bites I originally thought he had pox, and the youngest boy had ringworm. The entire space had an overwhelming smell of sewage. I tried to breathe through my mouth. While my high school peers and I had come to their house to clean up the piles of items that covered their dirt floor and make the space more of a home, the clean-up seemed like a mere band-aid for a larger problem. It is said that the word charity comes from the word caritas,


meaning love. And yet, I remember most vividly the anger and frustration on my friend’s face as we ‘charitably’ cleaned the trash and debris away from the new house as the mother sat in a hammock and continued to discard debris on the ground. The mother became upset when she saw some of the items we had elected to discard. Old shoes and broken toys. The oldest girl rushed to save some of the articles. She directed us to what was salvagable and what was not, saying no vale nada when we were to throw something out. My friend in his rubber gloves was sweating in the heat. “I don’t understand. This is trash,” he said. “This should not be saved. It’s disgusting”. Despite the questionable condition of some “salvagable” items I tried to follow the girls’ directions respectfully, asking her ¿Vale algo o vale nada? Is this worth anything? As I worked I tried to avoid the resident pig, who had a posse of flies following him everywhere and seemed to squeal in protest at the activity that was occuring. Sometime during the clean up the oldest boy picked up a machete from the building materials and wielded it around like a play thing. My heart skipped a beat. It was all too much to handle. I could feel my head throbbing with anxiety. I’m not proud of it, but I resented the machete wielding child. At our going away celebration, after the housewarming

party, we returned to the casita to show the head of the charitable organization the end results. It was the first time I had returned after the house-warming party. Despite being given several bags of clothing, two of the five children were not clothed. Trash littered the floor of the new house and sewege had already begun to build again on the side of the house. To make matters worse, it was that day I found out that the mother of the house was an abusive alcoholic, though she originally denied it to our sponsor. In that moment, I remember being so angry and upset at the woman for leaving her five children in such poor conditions. Completely ignorant of all these pitfalls, the American head of the charitable organization spoke optimistically of how small changes make a difference. When he asked me about my experience, instead of speaking of the worrisome lack of prospects for the family, I, not wanting to negatively impact future high school students’ opportunity in the program, spoke of the mountain tops and Ecuadorian friendship. That experience was over two years ago and it still has a hold on me. Most of the time in conversations it is simply easier to describe my summer trip in terms of the beautiful mountains draped in clouds so white and the country’s hospitality. The poverty, women’s inequality, and questions about ethical charity that also colored my twenty-


three day stay in Babahoyo, Ecuador are often better suited to the deepest recesses of my mind. However since coming to Duke, in class and through service experiences, I have been pushed to examine the complicated side of charity that I observed in Ecuador. When I look at my Ecuador photographs today I see so much more. Back when I was in Ecuador, I saw most clearly the negative qualities of life there: a woman abusing her five sons and daughters from five absent fathers, children wild and unpredictable, and myself being taken advantage of and unable to articulate the discomfort I felt. Back then, I was looking but I was not really seeing. At one point my feelings were so hurt and I became so disengaged that I could only see the wretchedness, only the ugly. The more complicated parts I saw were too difficult to put into words. Now, however, looking at the photographs, I can articulate the more complicated. I see a family that was trying to make it under difficult circumstances. I see children that were bright and intelligent and needed opportunity, and a mother who had too much responsibility and worry for her twenty years of age. I also see myself struggling to make sense of the foreign context. I see people trying to make it day by day. Today, the most difficult part of looking at these photographs is realizing that I do not know the names of the people in the pictures.

While interacting with the family in Ecuador I disconnected, withdrew, and perhaps even dehumanized. I cannot put names to faces because of that disconnected script I had in my head. But now, looking back, I can see that the picture was not as simple as I had once engraved it in my mind. In class discussions on charity and outside dialogues with my peers, I have heard many of the same questioning voices that circle my head, “Would it have been better if I didn’t go? Should I have just sent money instead, think of how many more people I could have ‘helped’? Did I actually help anyone but myself?” These are difficult questions to tackle. But, charity, volunteerism, service can never be, should never be without these ethical questions. I recognize it is not always possible to know ahead of an experience all the ethical questions that will eventually arise. However, I believe that there are cultural and societal structures that we must be mindful of before entering a new charitable circumstance, and asking recurring ethical questions is a part of becoming mindful. A member of the Duke community shared with me the following quote by Lilla Watson, an indigenous Australisn activist, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work

together.” This quote has continued to come back to me because it recognizes the highest form of charity should tie people together. A professor suggested the word I was searching for was not charity, but service. Reflecting on my experience in Ecuador, I believe my interactions and my perceptions would have been different had I put service in the context of liberation, mine and theirs, instead of simply theirs. Though I can only wonder if the family we built a house for gained some agency in the process, I would like to think there was meaning to the interactions. I cannot regret the experience because even though I was not aware at the moment, it has become a part of my liberation. In the process my eyes were opened to racial categorization, women’s inequality, caritas, and humanity. It has contributed to an increasingly nuianced understanding of service. As I interact with new communities in the future, I will continue to reflect on the experience and approach all future service endeavors with my newly gathered attitude by continuing to ask ethical questions and being mindful of my context. I hope to be able to return to Ecuador one day with the thought of our liberation in mind. Me voy a volver. u

FALL 2010 SynErgy 13Uganda

Full name: Republic of Uganda Population: 32.7 million (UN, 2009) Capital: Kampala Area: 241,038 sq km (93,072 sq miles) Major languages: English (official), Swahili (official), Luganda, various Bantu and Nilotic languages Major religions: Christianity, Islam Life expectancy: 52 years (men), 53 years (women) (UN) GNI per capita: US $460 (World Bank, 2009)

Haiti

Full name: Republic of Haiti Population: 10 million (UN, 2009)

Capital: Port-au-Prince Area: 27,750 sq km (10,714 sq miles)

Major languages: Creole, French Major religion: Christianity

Life expectancy: 59 years (men), 63 years (women) (UN) GNI per capita: Estimated to be low income: $995 or less

(World Bank, 2009)

Ethiopia

Full name: Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Population: 84.9 million (UN, 2010) Capital: Addis Ababa Area: 1.13 million sq km (437,794 sq miles) Major languages: Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, Somali Major religions: Christianity, Islam Life expectancy: 56 years (men), 59 years (women) (UN) GNI per capita: US $330 (World Bank, 2009)

guatamala

Full name: Republic of Guatemala Population: 14 million (UN, 2009)

Capital: Guatemala City Major languages: Spanish, more than 20 indigenous

languages Major religion: Christianity, indigenous Mayan beliefs

Life expectancy: 67 years (men), 74 years (women) (UN) GNI per capita: US $2,620 (World Bank, 2009)

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Full name: Republic of Sierra Leone

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Graphic credits to bbc.co.uk

Julie rivo

haiTi

PhoTo eSSay



I worked with fellow Duke undergraduate students, Shilpa Agrawal and Julia Chapman, for Family Health Ministries, a Durham-based non-governmental organization that supports two clinics and an orphanage in Haiti. We used the verbal autopsy questionnaire developed by the World Health Organization to understand the factors that cause the high rate of maternal

mortality in Haiti. Based in Leogane, a city devastated by the recent earthquake, we spent each morning interviewing members of the Leogane community who had a family member or friend who had died during or as a result of pregnancy, and fifty interviews were collected in total. In addition, we did a GPS mapping of health care resources in the post-earthquake city. u


Braveen ragunanThan eThioPia

PhoTo eSSay

I spent six weeks in Ethiopia working through an independent DukeEngage project with fellow student Dennis George. We worked together on a deworming project organized by the internationally renowned Dr. Zvi Bentwich of the Nala Foundation. We traveled to

Addis Ababa, Mekele, and Zeway to help the campaign’s work through collecting/analyzing stool samples, conducting KAP (Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice) surveys, and transporting medicine. Additionally, the two of us conducted physical therapy with disabled children for one week at Mother Teresa’s orphanage; on a ten day excursion up to the north in Mekele, we assisted transporting several patients while riding along with a Red Cross ambulance. Dennis and I were able to shadow physicians in two public hospitals (Ayder and Mekele Hospitals) as well as spending some time observing community-based health care at small-scale level through the Kassech Asfaw Health Clinic. We finished our time in Ethiopia by successfully delivering 20,000 tablets of Praziquantal from the Mekele to Zeway. u


St. Monica Girls’ Tailoring School in Gulu, Uganda is a place where the lives of many young Ugandan women are changed and/or enhanced. The

school aims to give young women the skills necessary to live productive lives and care for their current and/or future families. Students of St. Monica’s study to earn certificates in tailoring, catering, or secretarial. In addition to St. Monica Girls’ Tailoring school being a place for young women to receive vocational skills, the students also partake in activities aimed to build self-esteem, provide psycho-social support, and increase communication skills. St. Monica’s holds weekly parliamentary styled debates aimed at achieving these additional goals. This photo was taken of the audience during one of the regularly held weekly debates. The debates occur on Friday afternoons and are one of the highlights of the week for students. Students are given the opportunity to stand before their classmates and teachers to voice their argument for or against topics relevant to their experiences. The debates often turn comical as students make witty remarks and tell vivid stories that express their points of view. As the students debate, and the audience listens to their classmates and pupils express themselves in new ways, bursts of laughter often fill the air. Ironically, the debates are both the most serious and the most playful period of the week. Laughter abounds, but the debates are taken very seriously. Formal rules for parliamentary procedures are expected and upheld. The student’s points are often well crafted and orderly. To bring emphasis, and make their points memorable, witty remarks are often included in their points. When such a remark is made, the audience responds with smiles and laughter that illustrates the pride and dignity of themselves and the debaters, an outcome that St. Monica Girls’ Tailoring School aims to accomplish. u

darriel harriS

uganda

PhoTo eSSay


A clean glass of water is often the best vaccine.

In many areas around the world, morbidity and mortality from water-borne diseases is a real and ever-present problem. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated total of one billion people live without clean water. More often than not, water in these areas is contaminated with livestock excrements and disease-causing bacteria, many of which cause diarrhea, cholera, typhoid fever and much more. Even more harrowing, 2.2 million people die from diarrhea each year. There is no denying that lack of clean water is a deadly health risk.

Solar water disinfection (SODIS) is a recently developed water purification technology. A low cost point-of-interest purification system, SODIS harnesses the power of the sun’s solar energy and UV rays to kill microscopic organisms in unpurified water. How does SODIS accomplish this? Contaminated water is filtered into transparent PET plastic bottles and exposed to full sunlight for six hours. Exposure to the sun’s UV-A radiation and increase in water temperature during this time kill microorganisms present in the water; in fact, SODIS, combined with improved hygiene behavior, has been shown to reduce the incidence of diarrhea by up to 70%. Due to its effectiveness in purifying contaminated water, low monetary and material cost, ease of use and sustainability, SODIS is now used in more than 20 countries, providing more than 2 million people with clean water.

nanCy yang

uganda

PhoTo eSSay

In summer 2010, a group of Duke University students implemented a SODIS project at Naama Millennium Primary School in Naama, Uganda. Naama is an underdeveloped village where clean water is a limited resource. Most houses had insufficient or no electricity and running water. Community members often had to walk at least one mile to the communal well to fill one jerry can (20 liters) of unpurified water for everyday use. Even at the school, majority of the 370 students went the entire school day without drinking water.

For the SODIS project, seven racks to help expose the bottles to the sun and one large storage shelf were built, teachers and students were trained in SODIS implementation and most importantly every Naama Millennium student was provided with two personal plastic water bottles. In the photo, students at Naama Millennium eagerly show off their new water bottles for SODIS. However, the student’s excitement to receive and fascination with these plastic water bottles made clear the necessity, yet relative scarcity of portable clean drinking water in Naama village. However, through SODIS we hope that every student will be able to have access to clean drinking water. Follow-up monitoring sessions at the school and potential expansion of SODIS to the entire Naama village will be conducted in the future. u


Bhumi PurohiT

newTon, Sierra leone

weST aFriCa


Forgive and forget. Forgive and Forget. Forgive and Forget. A saying. An expectation. An unquestionable virtue of the good.“When someone does something wrong towards you, you forgive and forget,”

Sister Shiela had said. “Repeat after me: forgive and forget.” As a second-grader, my biggest worry was avoiding the corporal punishment-loving, from the virtue-toting, habit-wearing nun and teacher, Sister Shiela. However, I figured her advice was simple enough to enact. So I forgive her when she whacked me in the hand for acting out and forget about it too, I figured. It was so simple that it was almost silly. Over the years, Sister Shiela’s fierce voice would pop up in my head during times of anger, rage, or frustration. It became meditative. Peaceful. Soothing. Yet, it was a virtue that went unquestioned. I must forgive and forget because my Catholic school teacher had told me to. Ten years later, after meeting Mr. Andrew Ali among the pristine hills and untainted fields of Newton, Sierra

Leone, I no longer remember Sister Shiela’s voice. She has been replaced by Mr. Andrew’s unexpectedly jovial and West African-inflected words, which I first heard in July this past summer, while I was producing documentaries for a beekeeping social enterprise, BeeFreed. “I must forgive, but I will never forget,” he repeatedly told me with a smile on his face. How could he forget? He had lain in a field with three-fourths of his left leg blown off from a landmine, knowing his life would change forever. A former university administrator, he had looked down at his limbs, wondering what he would lose amidst the continent’s bloodiest civil war. Now lucky enough to find employment as a farmer though BeeFreed, which actively employs amputees, he works laboriously to keep the Newton farm in shape while rearing a handful of chickens, a few pigs, and a couple of ducks. With every step, his ten-year-old prosthetic limb reminds him of the day he lost his leg. Yet, he has forgiven. But the lesson in forgiveness didn’t come easy, he told me as I interviewed him for a documentary on amputees’ lives since Sierra Leone’s civil war. He had lost his leg from thigh down, his relatively well-paying job, and a home. A few years


ago, tragedy struck again when his eldest son, who offered much promise to provide for the family by gaining a university education, was intentionally poisoned for wanting to marry a girl without her family’s approval. “Have you forgiven those who poisoned your son?” I asked him as he took me to his son’s gravestone to erect a tombstone.

FALL 2010 SynErgy 23 “At first, I wanted revenge,” he said. “But I have learned to let god take revenge for me. All I can do is forgive them.” Forgiveness. The big word again. I grappled to understand how a man whose misfortunes had constantly resurfaced like the ocean waves only to crash into cliffs could let go of all the vengeance in his heart. “Oh, I would be much happier if I had my left leg. I would have a nicer home, more food for my family, and a better job at the university,” he said. “But I am still lucky.” Though his words struck me, I realized he was much luckier than most amputees. For one, he hadn’t been forced to look into another man’s eyes and hear the question, “long sleeve or short sleeve?” followed by a blow of a machete. Though he didn’t earn as much as he would have with both his legs, he hadn’t been forced to beg to feed his family. Most of his family members were alive, and though in his mid- to late-fifties in a country where males on average only live to be 53, Mr. Andrew was healthy and fit enough to work. With all the goodness he had been granted, he had learned to let go of the misfortunes and find solace in his heart for himself and for others. The mark of the past and the reason for the present still exist each time he takes off his prosthetic leg, filling his mind with memories, but Mr. Andrew’s heart remains restful. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. A mantra. A pathway to peace. A philosophy of the strong. u


Ching-Ching Chen

guaTemala

CenTral ameriCa

Our program started off in Antigua, Guatemala in which we stayed with Latino families

that lived in surrounding villages. From my very first night there, my conversations and TV sessions with my host-siblings often revolved around discussions of Hannah Montana and viewings of High School Musical. At the age of 11, my host-sister was like any typical pre-teen from America. She absolutely adored Disney. This at first made me feel as if I had never left America; yet, as the weeks passed, the fundamental differences I noticed started to have

a profound impact on me. For the first time, I finally understood the phrase, “material wealth does not bring happiness.” On the very first night of my homestay, I experienced my first bucket bath, my first time cooking on a wood-burning stove, and my first night sleeping under a tin roof. All I could think of was how I wanted to bring my wonderful host-family to America, how I wanted to “save” them from poverty. Yet, I soon realized that I was the one that needed to be “saved.” To the Guatemalans, the root of happiness stemmed from the pursuit of familial

Ching-Ching participated in a DukeEngage project in the summer of 2010, and had the chance to work with some of the most passionate local entrepreneurs and regional coordinators in Guatemala. She says she not only gained professional knowledge via her consulting, entrepreneurial and marketing experiences, but also gained invaluable cultural insight through sharing language, cuisine and culture with her local home-stay family.


love rather than material wealth. Whereas I have grown up with the concept of “more is better,” my Guatemalan family understood that “more is not necessarily better or happier.” Their appreciation of the simple things in life made me realize how muddled my perspective often is in my mad pursuit for success and wealth. I then continued my journey to Nebaj, where I stayed with an indigenous Mayan family. My second home-stay experience also widened my perspective greatly. With three boys in the house, the abundance of indoor soccer games and noise was a given. On the surface, there were no barriers to culture as I played soccer, watched the world cup, did homework, and watched Toy Story 2 with my host brothers. Yet, a deeper perspective revealed differences that made it difficult for me to truly empathize and reach-out. They appeared a beautiful,

happy middle class Guatemalan family and their constant smiles made it even more difficult to comprehend that they had lived through the hub for quintessential brutality during Guatemala’s long Civil War. I found it hard to believe that Nebaj had been non-existent on Guatemala’s map for a 30-year stretch until the Civil War ended in 1996. As I looked at the beautiful mountain surrounding Nebaj, all I could think of was how serene and beautiful the mountains were and how amazing the nearby La Pista (airplane runway) looked. To me, it was simply another picturesque sight; yet, to my host family, the mountains were a memory of hideout locations for Guerilla warriors. The La Pista runway was a reminder of the many air forces that landed and the people that were slaughtered by these air forces. As we sat around a circle on the mountain, all I could think of was

how little I truly understood about the gravity and pain that my Guatemalan friends had felt. Nonetheless, they lived not for the past but for the future, and their optimism and hope influenced me immensely. My homestay experiences were therefore extremely humbling and grounding as they taught me to remember the simple things in life. Even with poverty and brutal past, both my host-families led such positive lives; I couldn’t help but be inspired. From the influential Guatemalan natives to the amazing co-workers and directors I shared my experience with, and from development work to cultural immersion, my experience in Guatemala will forever be a huge part of who I am as it will always hold an important spot in mi corazon. u


FeaTured STudenT organizaTion

dPS

The Duke Partnership for Service aims to represent and support student-led service initiatives through advocacy, programming,

funding, and advising, and to increase the breadth and depth of student engagement in social action through campus-wide events. We value innovation, impact, collaboration, and sustainability.

dPS has three primary goals. First, we aim to support the myriad of service initiatives on campus, and to promote our values of impact, innovation, collaboration, and sustainability. Second, dPS hopes to involve non-traditional members of the service community, such as Greek bodies, selective living groups, faith based communities, scholars programs, and cultural organizations. Third, dPS aims to be a hub of information and resources for the entire community. All of our goals work toward our overarching mission of uniting social action at Duke, and making it easier for the whole community to create change in the area about which they feel passionately.


Lara FunkDuke 2014

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Synergy Magazine Fall 2010