I have now officially been out of the United States for 2.5 months, and during this time I have been witness to a major shift in the world’s perception of me and where I come from. There is more to see, and I need to keep on… The voice continues to name victims with no repeat. I know it may not be rational to feel guilt for empathy, but it’s where I am right now. I want to hide my reaction, feeling as if I don’t have the right to be this upset in front of survivors. Guilt that I am trying to feel better, when I wasn’t the one who went through it. Guilt that I feel so much anger towards the people who didn’t come, knowing it was going to happen, and those that made this happen. Guilt that the world didn’t come to help. I am also filled with this feeling of guilt that weighs heavely on me. Those moments of love in the face of cruelty. Those are the stories that move my heart the most. Final meals, parent’s sacrifices, kindness from strangers - that on many occasions led to their own deaths. While listening to the stories, the hardest parts were the memories of the kind moments that were experienced before losing everything. I’m rotating between feelings of sadness, despair, anger, disgust, empathy, vengeance, motivation… I could go on all day with the changing faces of my emotional state. It’s hard not to feel this with every part of my being. My first thought was that I must be getting sick, out of habit really, but realized quickly that my body was reacting to this moment, to this tragedy. Standing in front of the bones, I felt my bones and my muscles begin to ache. The lights are dim, almost too dark to write this, but I cant risk forgetting this moment.
#SHAHRZAD SERIES PART 13 FULL#
I’m in a room full of bones and skulls collected from mass graves, with the names of victims being read in a thick French accent over the speaker above. Afterwards my coworkers and I all headed out to get tea together, and say goodbye without really saying goodbye. The ideas were abundant and the hopes are high. We reflected on our successes and our challenges, and talked about achieving our goals in 2009.
In the final hours, I sat down with Kenny, who is now going to be working on the Jamii ya Kibera project with one less partner, and we wrote out the plan for the coming year. The hardest part of leaving was saying my goodbye’s to Kibera and the people I worked with. My journal has gaping holes that I hope my memory of the day to day experience will fill, and I hope will be shared through conversation and story as the years go on. The longer I lived in Kenya, the more the daily events just became part of life, and it became harder and harder for me to write. I also want to apologize that the posts became less frequent as time went on. I hope to post this personal and eternally incomplete list soon. I am working on compiling these lessons into a list, as I never want to forget, and I want to share the experience with all of you who helped me get there, with donations, kind words, and late night pep talks. From the frustrations of inefficiency and corruption to the beautiful children and loving friends, I have been given life lessons that have shaped my understanding for the world, myself and others. My experience in Kenya was full of ups and downs. In this relatively small amount of time I have been taught, moved, changed, and feel more prepared for the work I plan to do in my life. I have been so fortunate to have this experience, and I am so grateful to you all. I still cant believe that 4 months have passed. On Friday night, I landed in Dubai, temporarily saying goodbye to Kenya and Africa.
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