Logic Games

So. Tell my why you left Somalia.

That is how we begin the hardest part of the interviews. Asking people to recount the horrible tales of what brought that to Kenya, what pushed them over the edge and made them decide that they simply could not take it anymore. I always brace myself for this part of the interview. You never know what is going to come next.

It's easy here to feel like a wall has been erected around your feelings and emotions as you listen to similar stories of the hardships people are facing in the camp. I find myself mechanically writing things down, not allowing myself to think about what is actually being said.

And then BAM. The story suddenly changes.

Suddenly you are sitting, leaning in closely in an act of comfort and familiarity, listening to a woman tell her story of watching her parents die and her sisters being raped. Watching this woman who is the caretaker of her family, guardian of her siblings, struggle to hold her composure, to speak about an event in her life that is better left in the cobwebs of one's memories. Listening as the translator relays the words, feeling myself slowly start to slide from my comfortable and well removed perch as simply "the interviewer".

The were all attacked, and the only sister who refused, forcibly refused, had her leg smashed by the weight of one of the men repeatedly jumping on it as a result of her refusal. There is nothing that prepares you to sit next to a complete stranger and listen to the most intimate and horrific details of the darkest part of her life recounted. And to feel the need to lean in and rest your hand on her shoulder to try and effect some sort of human contact, as if doing so would suddenly make the prying questions, pleads for as much details as possible, seem all the more humane.

It was the first time during an interview that I almost had to excuse myself to gain composure and collect my emotions before they flooded down the front of my face.

Everyone here believes in something, most of them believe in Allah. I wonder where their faith comes from in the face of all that they have endured. I wonder, often, how we can argue that a just God exists, standing at the mouth of one of these camps. I wonder why there is a population that has been so forsaken listening to some of these stories. I feel a mixture of awe and disdain for the devout in Dadaab--awe because it is so sustaining, disdain because it's hard to not feel that it is such a farce.

I talked to Jay about all of this first, as I do about everything that I experience here. I need a fresh view, a view that is a little removed, in order for me to gain any sort of perspective on it. I talked to him about the three sisters, and he commented about how we need to be grateful for growing up how we all did. But it made me wonder--why is rape worse here? I mean, really, it happens every day in the US--brutal and angry, just as it does in Somalia and in the bush outside Dadaab. What is the difference HERE? I don't know if there is an answer to that question or really any of the questions that roll around in my head every day--but it is something that has made me question--is it worse here? Or is it a way of life? what kind of people are we if we conceed to that? Is it worse here because you cannot pick up the phone and call 911 comforted deep inside knowing that there is a system of response and care set up.

The emotional stories are not all bad, of course. There are some that fill my heart with such hope that I feel like I am going to overflow. It's interesting to feel what it is, exactly, that is allowing emotions to be triggered, how we are able to walk through most days fairly anesthisized to the entire operation until you least expect your feelings to sneak up and force you to catch your breath before moving on to the next question.

The husband was blind and walked with a stick. Theirs was a solid nuclear family--no extraneous people, no one hanging on with that look of desperation of being left behind. They shuffled in--3 young boys, a mother and their blind head of household. Normal. Routine. Let's begin.

And then it was like this surge of peace filled the room--a feeling that is not common here. Most of the time the air is palpable with frustration, desperation, deceit. But not this time. The man was most definitely blind, but he spoke more softly without the air of defensiveness that you feel in a lot of the interviews. We went through the first few housekeeping questions, and then we got ot the part where we talk about any problems the family might be having. Typical responses in this section of the interview are things such as: We hate sorghum (valid); We don't have enough food (valid); Um, we're refugees and have no economic stability, any way to become economically stable, and have been living here for 15 years (again. valid).

But those are the responses that don't tell us anything. Unfortunately, we know that the above mentioned are issues, and we know that there is no perfect solution. But we want to know about other problems that might be specific to the family. Instead of ranting and raving, the man I was interviewing smiled and said that he knows of all the problems that people have in the camp, and they too have problems, but he is overwhelmed with gratitude for the fact that there are even organization like UNHCR who are here trying to help. Huh. had not heard that one before.

We talked about his blindness. Something to note is the way people with disabilities are treated here in general. They are depsised. Seriously. People beat them up, throw rocks at them, abuse them mentally, target their entire families. It's sad. And it's sick, and it makes you wonder if there is any humanity here or if it was sucked up in the soil with the rain after the rains ended here. A lot of times if one member of the family has a disability everyone has problems--and you see kids who are caring for a family member and in school who have no friends a lots of battle wounds in the form of scars and marks.

This family had all the same problems. Their kids don't have friends, they are made fun of, beat up. They, with their mother, have had to take on too much resposibility caring for their dad and making sure that he is getting around ok. When I asked them how they react when kids are mean to them, what they do, the father paused and said this:

My kids have been taught to turn around and walk away. Fighting gets us no where, and it ends up complicating things in the end. We are not taught, in the Koran, to fight. I want my kids to be able to find peace even here. I feel badly for them, my heart aches, because I cannot defend them and protect them because of my bliondness. But believe me, they are good kids and they know that it is not worth fighting. I think Allah and pray to him every day that they are safe and they are ok, because I know that I am not able to be there to protect them. But Allah is good and he will hear us.

For the second time this week, I almost had to excuse myself to leave and collect myself.

I think we try to keep ourselves from feeling too much--it's too hard and there are too many stories that eek into your head that will keep you wrapped up wrestling with them for days. But we're all human, we're all the same, we're all struggling for the same basic things in life. I would be scared and sad if I felt nothing, if the stories did not stick with me, if I could walk away and at the end of the day not think about the people I saw or the things that I heard. And we are teetering, trying to find that find balance, not wanting to cross the line on either side.

We are lucky. Every one of us. We are lucky that we are not living in these camps. That we are not struggling for every single thing we have. Different problems, and different issues. Absolutely. That's true anywhere you go with any population. But I think what is more important that the recognition of good luck that we have all been blessed with are the common ties that connect everyone as a species. We cannot be devoid of emotion in this job because at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, when you let yourself visualize what these people are saying and what has happened to them, when you allow yourself to step for a nanosecond into their shoes, the emotions are released. When I start to think of my family and neighbors, the people I know and love, in the same situations I am hearing over and over, you finally feel the gravity of the words that are being relayed.

These are the experiences in my life that matter, this is why I keep coming back to places like this. The world that slips and spins out of control in our own sphere is suddenly cut down to its true size, stripped of extraneous bullshit. Every thing is distilled into what truly matters, and that brings me some sort of peace, I think. And I don't think I can pick a one word description of what matters, I think that's impossible. Compassion? Maybe. It's hard to walk away from, that is certainly the truth.