Richmond safari park

 

The sky is intense blue. The sun is warm on my back. I spin along on my bike, gulping freedom in draughts. The rutted dirt track snakes away from me, grasses high and dry on either side. A fellow cyclist passes, smiling, the Médecin Sans Frontières logo, so familiar in Bunia, bold across his T-shirt. In the corner of my eye, an antelope emerges from the undergrowth...

My stoney skid brings me up short. Where have I been? Where am I now? For a moment, my worlds have merged and Richmond Park is African savannah. Too often the worlds are sharply separate, no danger of merger. But strong sun and rutted roads evoke a myriad African associations. My mind conjures up a whole context, half a life, to fit them. For a moment, I am back on a kinder continent. Then my vision adjusts and the deer comes into focus. I breathe deep and remember: sometimes the sun blesses England, too, and Richmond Park had my heart before Africa ever stole it.

visit to Feltham Young Offenders'

You may have seen the negative news story a couple of weeks ago about Feltham Young Offenders Institute after a report came out that said it is an “unacceptably violent place”. The story was fresh in my mind as I visited Feltham myself last week. It’s a couple of miles down the road from me, and a good friend of mine volunteers there at the chaplaincy. For several years they have been running a restorative justice course called “Sycamore Tree”, which is based on the story of Zak and Jesus in the Bible (Luke 19). Some inmates have the option of doing the course. Their families plus members of the local community are invited to the last session, so I went along. Families and the community are recognised as key to supporting young people who return to their communities after ‘doing time’ in prison.  The basic idea of the course is that justice should not be only offender-focused, as our retributive system is, but also consider the victim and the harm caused by the crime, and how to make amends.  Among the issues discussed are taking responsibility for wrong actions, restoration, and reconciliation. 

Physically, Feltham is not a welcoming place. Why would it be? But everyone we met gave us a warm welcome, from the staff at the various checks to the young men taking the course. Warm was certainly the word as fifty or so of us were ushered into the windowless prison chapel on one of the hottest days of the year. What I wasn’t expecting was the warmth of enthusiasm shown by the young men. And I wasn’t prepared for how moved I would be by their stories.

Most of the course participants had written something explaining what they had learnt from the course, which they read out to us. I was impressed by their brutal honesty. It can’t be easy to talk about your life, emotions, remorse and intentions for the future in front of thirty or so strangers. But eleven out of thirteen of them chose to do so.

One boy from Essex explained how his life had taken a nose dive when he was fourteen. He came home one day to find his brother dead. After this it was an easy slide into gang culture and crime. But the course had helped him to think about the direction of his life, about the hurt caused to his victims, about taking responsibility for his actions. I spoke to him afterwards, as we wolfed down my friend’s first class cake baked specially for the occasion. He told me that his Mum had wanted to come for the presentation but instead had gone to the funeral of a friend of his who had just been shot dead. Under 21, he’s lost several other friends in the past, too.  Sycamore Tree had made him think about his life, and why he was still here. It was a wake up call for him. 

Another young man had had the chance to meet his victims. He explained that this was a decisive and liberating moment for him. They asked him plenty of questions, but told him they forgave him and challenged him to think carefully about consequences before jumping into a course of action.

A key element of the course is always the session when someone who has been the victim of a crime comes in to describe his or her experience and feelings. A few years ago I went in and described my experience of the armed robbery my housemate and I had experienced in Nairobi. This time a father, Dylan*, had shared with the participants how his son had been murdered, but he had chosen to forgive the offenders almost immediately  in order to break the cycle of violence and revenge: if he hadn’t forgiven and urged his family to follow his example, there would have been other killings in revenge. Listening to the course participants relay back what Dylan had shared with them, it was obvious that his example had had a profound effect on them. It had helped them understand that the victim of a crime is a flesh and blood person with feelings, fears, anger, grief, vulnerability, a life that can be blighted. But it had also shown them that forgiveness is always possible and that it liberates people from a cycle of destruction. It gave them hope that their victims might also forgive them. And it challenged them about the possibility that they might need to forgive others who had ohurt them. Several participants wrote letters of thanks to Dylan for sharing his story with them. Their respect, admiration even, was obvious. He was a role model seared in their memory, holding out hope.

The young men expressed their hope and determination to put into practice what they’d learnt in their lives, both in prison and beyond prison. There was honesty, of course, about how tough this would be. The statistics are stark: two thirds of those who are in Feltham will end up offending again within two years. More encouragingly, those who participate in a restorative justice course are only half as likely to offend again. But out of a prison population of 700, only thirteen had taken part this time. Finding funding for the course is a challenge; this time it had come through donations to the Prison Fellowship. 

The encounter of Zak and Jesus is a powerful story of hope: every moment is a chance for any one of us to make a fresh start, to take responsibility for what we’ve done wrong, to be restored and reconciled, and make amends. I went into Feltham with a negative news story reverberating in my mind; I left with lots of food for thought and prayer, and a heartful of hope for restoration.

*not his real name

more about sycamore (you need to scroll down to "Salvation Has Come to this House Today") 

St. Swithin's Day, 2013

Anne Hathaway's cottage, Straford-upon-Avon

I've resurfaced on a different continent, persuaded out to play by the sun...

I am soaking up the summer heat, savouring every cloudless day. I’d forgotten the delights of summer: soft whispers of a breeze on a balmy evening, cherries, languid lounging on lawns, lying on my back, hypnotised by a pale ocean of blue, barbecues on the common, Test Match special trivialities and trifle, Pimms and Wimbledon, grown up children spinning like sycamore keys, handstands and outdoor concerts.

Priorities melt in the warmth. We just want to sit, and gaze and savour. The amiable sun coaxes us out of our hidey holes, away from our goals, out of insulated isolation, briefly we’re a gregarious nation. We are children, given to the present. Perhaps climate really does shape national character?

I wish for as many days over 25 degrees as we’ve had days under 5 this year.

piccies

watch this space for more pictures from my time up north.... and if you've got any tips on how to control jumping photos, please comment!

Deborah's day

I've just got back from up north. I had a wonderful time there. The quietness of the place and simplicity of life was therapeutic after the noise and stress of Bunia. As well as working with the translators, I had the luxury of time to observe people's lives. Here's something I wrote while I was there.

Deborah (not her real name) is in her early twenties. She’s got a chubby two month old baby called Alice. She finished primary school, but didn’t go to secondary school. Deborah has been working for the O. language project for about a year as cook and cleaner. While I’ve been here for the last ten days, she’s been working full-time, from the crack of dawn at 5.30 a.m. till bedtime at 9 p.m., taking care of ‘hospitality’ for us. There is no running water here, no stove, no electricity, no water heater, no washing machine.

Deborah and Alice

Deborah’s day starts with lighting an open fire (three large rocks form the fireplace, with branches of firewood pushed in between) so that she can heat water. Then, with Alice tied securely to her back, she sweeps the ground all around the mud hut that I’m staying in, with a broom made of a bundle of sticks, leaving neat circles traced in the fine dust. She carries hot water in a metal pail to the outside bathroom and calls me to tell me it’s time to get washed. Meanwhile she takes water off the fire to make tea, and fries sweet potatoes for breakfast. She sets the tea and potatoes out carefully in my hut, brings water for me to wash my hands before eating (this is an essential ritual that can’t be skipped however recently I’ve washed), and prays for the food, as we say here.

fetching firewood

outside my house

Once breakfast is over and I’ve made my way to the translation office, Deborah does the washing up, leaving the plastic plates and cups to dry in the sun. Next it’s time to fetch water from the spring about 300m away. She carries the water in plastic jerry cans on her head, Alice still on her back. She has to fetch firewood, too, from further away, which is likewise balanced on her head. The morning’s activities also include scrubbing and wringing clothes and spreading them out to dry on the grass, going to market, preparing tea for our mid-morning break, and cooking lunch, which might be rice and beans, or soft cassava meal with beef cooked in palm oil, or, as a special treat, chicken. She feeds Alice as the need arises as she prepares vegetables or waits for water to boil. 

washing hands before lunch

Lunch is served at the office after hand-washing and grace. Deborah waits in the wings to clear things away, and bring anything extra that’s needed. I’m told that in the culture here the person serving must not eat with those she or he is serving; to do so would be embarrassing, out of place, unheard of. When I try to help clear away the plates they are quickly taken away from me, and I get the feeling that I might be suggesting that Deborah is not doing her job properly, or not coping.

bathing Alice

coffee on fire

Straight after lunch it’s time for Alice’s bath, in the sunshine in a plastic bowl. She revels in it, and howls when she’s hauled out. Then there’s more washing up, more water heating, feeding Alice when she’s hungry, and maybe time to sit and chat briefly with passing neighbours before she has to think about what to prepare for supper, and checks that the paraffin lanterns are clean ready for nightfall. At about 4.30p.m. she starts thinking about heating water for evening baths and calls me around 5.30p.m. to tell me the water’s ready. When I get back to my darkening hut I find a paraffin lamp lit ready to welcome me. By 6.30p.m. she’s brought me supper, accompanied, of course, by water for hand-washing. She brings more tea, too. After the day’s final washing up, she may find time to sit around a paraffin lamp, tell stories, and laugh with friends.

washing up

I can barely communicate with Deborah beyond a few basic phrases in her language. She does not speak French, Swahili or Lugbarati and I can’t speak Bangala, the regional language here. I would like to tell her how much I appreciate her hard work and her tireless, cheerful, unselfish service. I’d like to hear her hopes and dreams for the future. I want to understand better what it’s like to be an ordinary Congolese woman, for whom serving without complaint is an expectation, indeed, often a part of her identity. My life is so very different, but here in a village in north-eastern Congo our lives touch for a week, and her life has profoundly touched mine. She challenges me to think more deeply about what Jesus meant when he said that he didn’t come to be served, but to serve, and that we should follow his example.

off up north

Off up north tomorrow, just over the border from where I used to live in Uganda. I'm looking forward to nights with nothing to do but sit by the fire, look at the stars and try to decipher conversation in omiti. More when I get back...

Sunday encounters

Sunday mornings can bring unexpected visitors. In the quiet vacuum created by mass attendance at church, opportunists often try their hand. One Sunday I was reading in my bedroom when I caught a boy peering in at me through the mosquito netting, checking out who was at home. Another week as I was cooking Sunday lunch, I heard the front door open and found a young man in my sitting room. He wasn’t able to tell me why he was there or how he knew me, so I asked him to leave. Yesterday I confronted an enterprising boy who was lobbing stones at my avocado trees to help with the harvesting (remembering the apple scrumping my friends and I used to indulge in as kids, I couldn’t be too hard on him!).  

I was just settling down to some Sunday music making when a knock came at the door. It was a middle-aged man wearing a small, worn out shoulder bag and a weary expression. In a mixture of French and Swahili, he started explaining how he was a displaced person who’d fled Dungu, nearly 300km away, where he’d working, because of attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Apparently he’d walked many miles, hitched a lift from others and was now here in Bunia, but he was trying to get back to Goma hundreds of kilometres south, where his family was. He needed $20 for transport. He’d asked for help at various humanitarian organisations, and at my local church, which is where he saw me and followed me home. I was suspicious. I’ve had conmen pretending to be refugees asking me for money on Sunday mornings before now, and I don’t have much time for them. My colleagues have advised me never to give money to people I don’t know who turn up at my door. Somehow, though, this story had something genuine about it. I decided to stall. I asked him to come back on Monday morning, when I could talk to him with one of my colleagues who comes from Goma.

 I’m glad I did. He duly returned at the time we’d fixed. My colleague questioned him a bit about Goma, about what his name means in his language, which is very similar to my colleague’s, about his church community, and found that his story rang true. From his frayed shoulder bag he produced a precious piece of soap he’d been given by someone on the road. As for food, there wasn’t much opportunity for it. We realised that this was a case where help was needed. My colleague accompanied him to the bus park and helped him onto a lorry which would take him down south. It was a lesson to me that I need to be shrewd and vigilant on a Sunday morning, but open, too, to the good that God is wanting to do, whatever I might have experienced in the past. Blanket rules just don’t work.

wounds

The other day, one of my students came to see me during class break. He’s usually very punctual but this particular day he’d arrived late and distracted, and he wanted to explain why. His fifteen year old daughter had just given birth by Caesarean, so he’d been to visit her and his wife who is looking after her at the hospital. He explained further that his daughter had become pregnant after being raped by her school teacher. This is an all-too-common occurrence here. According to statistics, since the end of the war in 2003, rape committed by civilians has increased seventeen fold in DRC. A culture of impunity has developed: during the war traditional social structures and sanctions broke down in many communities, and people became accustomed to violence.

 Later that day, I rode with my student on the back of his motorbike to visit his daughter in hospital. She looked so small and fragile, withdrawn, subdued, just a child herself. But the baby is healthy, and her Caesarean wound is healing well. We’re praying that God will heal the deeper emotional wounds she bears and set her free from any sense of shame because of what happened to her. And we’re praying, too, that she’ll be able to continue with her schooling, and know hope and joy in the future.

bandits on the road

Bunia feels a less tense place than it did a couple of years ago when I first arrived. It's rare to hear gunshots at night nowadays. Sheltered as I am on the university campus, it can be easy to forget that insecurity is still an issue in and near Bunia. But on Friday at university staff prayers we got news that was a sharp reminder otherwise. The afternoon before, one of the university drivers, B., had dropped off the principal about 50km out of town for a church meeting. On his way back night was falling as he reached a spot on the main road about 15km from Bunia. He found the road ahead of him barred by sticks driven into the ground. As he tried to reverse the vehicle, he was attacked by a group of around ten armed bandits. The dragged him out of the minibus, and beat him severely with sticks. They were looking for money, and took his mobile phone and the $20 he had. They had expected to find the minibus full of traders flush with cash coming back from Beni, a trading centre south of Bunia. The bandits discussed whether they should kill B, but in the end left him in a ditch and disappeared into the night. They didn't touch the vehicle. B tried to get back into the minibus, but his ribs were broken and he didn't have the strength. Miraculously a few minutes later a motorbike came by. The motorbike driver was a mechanic who knew B. He was able to drive B. and the university vehicle into Bunia and take B. to the hospital. Thankfully he was not badly injured, although he was very shaken up. We're thankful too, that the principal wasn't attacked.

 

People are saying that this main road south is not safe before 8 in the morning, nor after 4 in the evening. It's a road that friends and colleagues need to use regularly. It's been announced just recently that there are plans for the Chinese to tarmac this road, which is very good news, since it is deeply rutted and potholed. We're praying that its security can be improved, as well as its surface. And we're praying for B., and others like him whose job as a driver can involve big risks.

visits

Visiting people is a very important part of life in DRC. It’s one of the prime ways you show you respect them, care about them and are in a good relationship with them. You can drop in on people at any time, unannounced, and they will welcome you warmly, because visitors are considered a blessing. And you need to be ready to receive visitors unexpectedly, too. I find this challenging sometimes, because I can be pretty work-orientated and my home is my office. (Cultural values clashing again!) Visitors announce their presence at the door with the expression ‘Hodi!’ It can be hard to leave my computer, lose my train of thought as it wends its way through academic French, and open the door with a smile and a ‘Karibu!’, (meaning ‘Welcome’). But I’m trying to learn to look at things the way Henri Nouwen did when he said, “My interruptions are my work.” And, of course, lots of the visitors I receive are an unexpected pleasure that help to warm my house up, as we say here. Being stuck at home under piles of lesson plans and academic assignments can be rather lonely at times and visitors bring laughter and connectedness.

Last year I realised that I didn’t take nearly enough time to visit the students who live on my doorstep. That was partly because I was in survival mode, and barely keeping my head above water as I struggled to prepare lessons in French at degree level for the first time, as well as adapting to Congolese life. But this academic year life seems a little less ‘on the edge’, so I’m trying to make a little bit of time every week to go visiting. It’s amazing what I find. A couple of days ago I visited one of my students, T. a young, bright guy who is excited about translating the Bible into his language, who regularly accosts me with difficult questions in class. He is living in one room with his wife, two small children, and his sister, a schoolgirl. This weekend his sister-in-law is arriving from their home in the Kivu region to help look after the children. That will make six people in one room, three of whom are studying. They make do by partitioning off parts of the room with curtains. His wife gave birth to their second daughter about a month ago, and is doing her second degree in development studies. She has to nip out of lectures to feed the baby. In the future she’s hoping to apply what she’s learning by encouraging literacy in their home community. T. asked me to pray for his sister-in-law’s journey from Goma, because security on the road is sometimes bad, and that they will find somewhere less cramped to live. In general there’s great pressure on student housing on the campus. Another student is waiting for his wife and six children to arrive to move into their tiny two-roomed house. My spacious two-bedroomed house is truly palatial here. One again I’m challenged by the contrasts between my own life and those I live and work with here.