What is so important about the idea of necessary suffering? Why is it necessary? The question of why is suffering necessary is probably the greatest and most problematic question in Christian theology. Why is there suffering? How is God good if there’s so much suffering on this Earth? There’s no answer that appeals to the rational mind. The answer lies elsewhere; I’m going to therefore start with the psychology. Carl Jung and many others said that suffering is the only thing strong enough to defeat the imperial ego. In other words, when you’re in control, in charge, looking good, building your tower of success — which is what you expect a young person to be doing into their 30s — you get so addicted to it that you think it’s the only game in town. When that game falls apart, it’s because it’s largely a self-constructed game, a game at which you can look good, you can succeed, you’re building your own kingdom, which is not, in Christian language, what Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, so your little kingdom usually has to fail you. It has to fall apart. It has to, or you’ll remain narcissistic, egocentric well into your later years, asking questions like what makes me feel good? What makes me look good? What makes me make money? Many people do. It might feel like success, but no spiritual teacher would agree. First half of life preoccupations won’t get you into the great picture, the big picture, which Jesus would call the Reign of God. So, necessary suffering is whatever it takes to make your small self fall apart, so you can experience your big self–maybe what Buddhists would say is your Buddha self. We would say your Christ self, your God self. It doesn’t really matter. You can tell people who have passed over from the first to the second half of life, usually you can tell it within the first ten minutes, whether someone is still building their tower of success. And that isn’t even wrong; it’s just they have something else to experience, and you pray for them and you hope that they will be able to see suffering as a doorway and not an obstacle when it happens.

Nigh on 4 months ago I thought we'd be moving soon. How misled and naive I was back then. Yet even now I am too lazy to figure out how to get the double dots over the "i" in naive.

I haven't written about one single country in Africa, as I intended. Maybe I'll start doing that now that things are crazy and we're moving to Kuala Lumpur.

Did I mention we're moving to Malaysia?

I don't think anyone reads this thing anymore but I kind of figure that if I ever do get up and writing again some day, perhaps someone will start reading it again. Or maybe it will just turn back into my kind of weekly journal type thing. Who am I kidding, right?

Its nice to be moving to a new country with Caroline, not just on my own. It sucks that I'll have to leave her there for 3 of our first 5 weeks in country, but it is what it is. At some point I'll also have to come back to Nairobi to close out things like selling the car and so forth. What with the election timing this could prove to be more difficult than I thought.

In a way I'm kind of bummed that I won't be here for the election, but better than having to travel for work and having to leave Care back here alone behind. That wouldn't have been sawa.

I'm surprised how much Kiswahili I was able to pick up. I don't have a penchant for languages and the only other white people here that speak more than me are those who do have the knack. So that's something.

Maybe I'll pick up some Mandarin whilst bouncing around Asia.

Reading: Liar's Poker, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes
Watching: Sports Night Season 2, 30 Rock Season 3
Listening: Rat Pack music / Count Basie, and The Lumineers

I'm getting a motorcycle in Malaysia. I feel like I've been good about eating better this year. We're going to the coast here one more time this weekend - malaria, this may be your last chance to finally get me for a while.

I love my friends here and will miss Kenya.

It looks like my time in Africa may be coming to a soon end, at least for the time being. I didn't realize it this past August, but the middle of that month marked 5 years from when I first came over. That was a fast 5 years.

I won't go into what's next yet because it is still in the works, but I expect the works to work relatively fast at this point.

In the meantime, it is time to start writing again. I always said, at least in my head, that the purpose of coming here was to pursue some good thing, but then to be able to write about it. The writing part of me has been sucked dry by the work and insane amounts of travel over the years, but I have seen much and should have something to say about some of it by this point. I'm not sure any of it is congealing into a cogent thought or collection thereof just yet, but basic observations are at least in order for the moment.

By my count I've been to 22 of the 56 countries on the continent (if you count the small island nations). If I can mark one more at some point - shouldn't be too hard, I can claim half, and I doubt many can claim that of this place.

My short term goal is to write a post about each - in ascending order of my affinity for the country. Which means we will start at the bottom, with Tchad (Ou, en anglais: Chad) where I've been working recently and have very firm and fresh opinions about.

I have enjoyed my time here, in Africa, in general. It has been my first experience of living abroad, in 2 countries (arguably more, based on the sheer amount of time I stayed in some of them). It has been my first experiences as an expat, and I say they are plural because, well, they are. I hope some of these things gain more clarity as I write about them.

I hope to make the time to include some pictures, or at least do a few photoessayical posts on their own, if not including photos with every post. We'll see.

I'd also like to do some topical posts. Things that might help people understand the context of Africa in our modern world in a bit more detail. Things like languages, and politics, and security, and corruption. Oh yes, the corruption - so very much the corruption. But also things like hope and progress. It almost sounds like I'm running for office.

Stay tuned.

This isn't going to be one of those "I'm going to start blogging again!" blog posts.

I am tired. Really tired. The past 4 out of 5 weeks I have spent away from home, 2 in Pakistan, 1 in Chad, 1 here in Los Angeles. Islamabad wasn't that bad but being in the US again, albeit briefly and pretty much only for work, is so, so damn nice.

You have everything. Everything works. Nothing is broken. Big 12 lane wide freeways with not a single pothole. Not just for miles on end - not ever. Traffic flowing smoothly in both directions, with carpool lanes. People everywhere respecting hundreds of unspoken but mutually agreed rules. No passive aggressiveness. Just niceness.

Everything is possible. If you want cheese on it, you can have it. If you don't want the egg, you can not have it. If you want 10 of them, they aren't going to run out. If you want it at 10 at night, they are as open as they are at 8 in the morning.

Everything is at your fingertips. 16 different versions and flavors of the same thing. In single serving size, or regular size, or family size, or Costco uberfatty size.

The power and water never go out. Or the internet. The internet is freaking everywhere, even on your phone, and it is fast. You can even drink the water, right out of the sink.

So, that has been nice, in all its myriad forms. But I'm still tired. I think a big part of me is tired of not writing anymore.

From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth.

By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges.

For neither do men live nor die in vain.

H.G. Wells

“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him — a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.

“It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed–out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. And even though I cannot find a Scripture for it, I believe God then puts a sign out there that says, NO FISHING ALLOWED.’

“The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.

“And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back to me with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic piles of dresses and shoes in the center of the room; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

“The place was Ravensbruck and the man who was making his way forward had been a guard — one of the most cruel guards.

“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’

“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course — how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face–to–face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying. ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.

“‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein,’ — again the hand came out — ‘will you forgive me?’

“And I stood there — I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven — and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply by asking?

“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there — hand held out — but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

“For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’

“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘Jesus, help me!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’

“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart.’

“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. But even so, I realized it was not my love. I had tried, and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Romans 5:5, ‘… because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.’”

“When we recall the distance and dissimilarity between us and God, it is easy to wonder whether we have the ability to pray and whether coming into God’s presence is a good idea anyway.

Not only does God know that prayer is daunting, but it is even a biblical doctrine that we are not in ourselves equipped for it: Romans 8:26 says, ‘We do not know what to pray for as we ought.’ That same passage goes on to say that ‘the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.’ And within a few verses, a second intercessor appears: ‘Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, indeed is interceding for us’ (Rom 8:34).

Christian prayer has double intercession built into it. The Father not only welcomes prayers, but he has provided mediation and perhaps even mediation of the mediation. Your prayer life is secure in the two hands of the Father.”

— Fred Sanders
The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything

Start with a cage containing five monkeys.

In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana.

As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey will make an attempt with the same response - all of the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Keep this up for several days.

Turn off the cold water.

If, later, another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.

Now, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.

The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Replace the third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs.

Why not?

“Because that’s the way it’s always been done around here.”

In a desperate attempt to defib my erstwhile blog back to some semblance of an animate entity, I uploaded a bunch of my photos taken with the blackberry, and they go back a long way (almost 2 years now). I present them in reverse chronological order, starting with this past weekend.


This is what trying to get a SIM card on a Saturday morning. In Addis Ababa.


This is what I'm hoping will be my next car. Not this exact one, but this model.


There is no happier day for the expat than that of the Care package. Especially when it has BACON!


Look what Brandon and Shannon hath wrought. Namely, Sienna, who has the bluest eyes of any baby of all time.


Pizza! In the DRC. I was just happy to have pizza there. Broke the monotony. Sometimes its kind of sad what you are resorting to for comfort in some of these places.


OK so this is from when I was back in the US, while I was up hanging out in MT with Care's family. Her sister and the younglings needed a ride to the Billings airport. Billings has a Cabela's, which is basically like a Wal-Mart sized hunting / fishing / camping store, which is basically awesome. The Billings one has a 25,000 gallon fish tank *inside the store* and this is that tank. It has all the local species of fish, and it is awesome.


My first proper meal back in the US - from an awesome Mexican joint in downtown SF. God bless Mexico.


Roadside snacks for sale in rural Malawi. They are mice, and you eat them whole. A delicacy!


This was at my hotel in Blantyre, Malawi. This guy was a solid 40 feet above the pavement, sawing off a limb on which he had the ladder leaned up against. With no rope or harness or anything. We had to leave for our meetings so I couldn't stay around to watch him die.


Kind of blurry but this is Sheila and Debbie, the latter of which has forsaken us Nairobite Americanos, and is missed.


Enough said.


OK so this one and the next one are from Accenture's ill-fated bid to bank all of their marketing on the media-elusive Tiger Woods, who I always ALWAYS knew had a dark secret waiting to burst onto the national media. Anyone that famous and that intensely private always does. Anyway, I was only able to capture a few of these in heaven-knows-which-airports when the whole scandal was blowing up, I'm sure by now Accenture's destroyed any evidence of them, but what I wouldn't pay to have one of these to hang in my garage when I some day have a garage...


Also, I think its kind of funny to play that game that people play with fortune cookies where you add the words "in bed" on the end of the Accenture tag line. Works much better post-revelation.


This one and the next two are from our massive (massive) warehouse in Harare, Zimbabwe. Used to be a tobacco warehouse. Now its a mainly food warehouse that we kind of vainly hope government officials won't show up to confiscate before we can distribute it to beneficiaries in the field.






Teton Gravity Research is one of my favorite extreme skiing video producing outfits, out of Wyoming, I believe. I saw this tire cover on the back of a car in Arusha, Tanzania. I am pretty sure I'm one of the few people in the world who's ever been to Arusha that even knows what TGR is. That group does not include the driver of this car.


Whilst in Arusha I found a nice backpackers type lodge that served a semi-American meal. It was nice to have what at least looked to be a "safe" salad. I eat a lot of "safe" salads. Its like salad roulette.


This is the motorcycle that clipped my front side panel when I was making a completely legal right turn (remember in TZ we are on the other side of the road, so that means across the oncoming lane, like a left turn in the US), with my blinker on, and this moron was buzzing down the median line taking his GF for a joyride. What ensued were accusations that he heard one of my colleagues tell me to hit him on purpose, which he apparently heard from his motorbike when all of our car windows were up. I moved my car out of the two lanes instead of leaving it blocking the busiest street in the entire town (also Arusha), which is what you're supposed to do legally while you wait for the cops to show up. I did this after photo-documenting that he moved his bike first, but to no avail - we would end up having to go to the police station, drive the cops back to the scene, be subject to endless lectures that I shouldn't have moved the car (the same one I had to bring them to the scene of the accident in), and then return the cops to the station and wait a couple of hours while they took statements for their report. I didn't insist on filing the report, they made me - I was willing to just leave with the scratch on my vehicle and pay for fixing it myself. The guy who hit me couldn't even afford proper shoe strings for his boots, and being that it was a work motorbike, he probably lost his job anyway.


Somewhere in TZ. "Mustle bound."


This was from Dagoretti School for Boys, which is outside of Nairobi. Jen and I were kind of investigating if it was "outside enough" that if we brought some of the street kids we were working with there, they might actually stay in the school instead of returning to the streets to sniff glue and beg. This is one of those glue bottles that the school kept on a shelf to remind the boys in the school where they had been, and encourage them to stay. I saw one of the boys that we were struggling to keep in a school back on the street the other day. I asked him if he'd let me take him back to the school, and he asked me for money.


This was right in front of my house in NBO. The dogs of war.


From a restaurant I had lunch at in Santo Domingo, D.R. when I got there for a weekend when I was working in Haiti. I took a lot of pictures of that weekend's explorations and have no idea where I put them. Maybe on a backup drive that caught a virus and ate all the data.


Pretty sure this is the airport in Port Au Prince.


This is the High Line Park in NYC, post-redevelopment. So in this case, I was exploring it legally, unlike the previous case. This must have been roughly August of last year when I was around for Dave's wedding.


Sometimes I look at you and wonder whether I miss friends and family more, or you. This makes me feel bad.


This was from right here in Addis, but from July-ish of last year when I was first here. The hotel we stayed in had a floor "-1." I never went to that floor for fear of ending up in a John Malkovich movie.


My first work trip after moving to Nairobi was to Uganda, where I met Ben, at a hotel restaurant where he was having lunch with some of the Save The Children folks he was working with. Why can't my organization work with Ben? Hmph.

Its now April and I am still finding less time than ever to blog. Right now, however, I am trapped in a car for the next 4 hours, and I have my blackberry. Not the most ideal way to type but it gets the job done.

We - my Congolese driver and I - are shooting along a ridge-line road, half an hour outside of Kigali on our way north to Ruhengeri, then from there west to Goma, a large border town on the easten edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo (more commonly referred to by its acronym DRC). No commercial international flights to Goma exist, hence the brief visit to Rwanda.

Kigali seems about the same - warm and safe and green and sad. The two things I noticed as we zipped through that I had not noted previously: there is slum dwelling literally across the street from the shiny US embassy, and a few miles down the same road there's yet another huge dark church on the side of a hill where death once held court.

Damas the driver doesn't speak a word of English but his French is fluent and his Congolese version of Kiswahili is conversant. He knows a few basic phrases of Kinyarwanda - the Rwandan mother tongue, and that's it. I of course speak enough French only to apologize for not speaking it at all, but I have been suerprised how well I can get on with swahili when in a bind. So far, I have been.able to:

- determine what languages he does and doesn't speak, and how well
- exchange names and other pleasantries
- ask about which roads we are taking and how good they are right now
- thankfully accept his offer to stop to pick up a bottle of water
- explain that I am from the USA (and California, and Sacramento upon further inquiries), but that I live in Nairobi and hence the swahili
- point out the hotel I stayed in when I was last here and explain how many times I have been here before
- ask how long the drive is going to take (I had been advised 3 but Damas doesn't share such optimism)

I am still not nearly conversant but I suppose I am at least a tiny bit past the basics by now.

Rural Rwanda hasn't changed a bit - green and densely populated - sustenance farms clinging onto impossibly steep hillsides, one butted up against the next. Kids walking down the side of the road with farming tools or empty water containers, mothers carrying bags and buckets and whatnot heavy on their heads. Young men sharing a bicycle, another one carrying an entire bedframe upside down on his head. Brown rivers carrying mud away to places unknown. Trucks (lorries) and buses belching black smoke as they struggle up the next hill, us breathing it in until the next opporunity to try and pass (overtake). And did I mention the endless farms? Every inch of this hill-covered country appears populated.

Ruhungeri is the town from whence travellers set out to track the gorillas - as such I passed through there one day this past January. I suppose that's one of the many things I have failed to blog about recently, but it was a very cool experience and I made some new friends out of it to boot - pity I won't get a chance to see them while passing through this time.

One thing I have never quite figured out here that seems unique to Rwanda is the massive groups of farm workers - long lines down the side of the road, as many as 200 long - all walking who knows where.

Rain clouds ahead, so much for driving with the windows down.

Life so far this year has been spent bouncing back from home and the office in LA to Nairobi, but already this year I have been spending much less time in Kenya on average than I did last year. Rwanda, Malawi, Tanzania, now DRC and probably Mali soon too.

The road gets progressively worse in quality with each kilometer we put between us and Kigali. Beyonce's song from the Charlie's Angels soundtrack has now replaced the local music. Life goes on. Maybe I will nap a bit.

Blogger tells me I haven't been on this thing since January 20th. Some start this year is off to.

I suppose in my last post I wrote my update up to the point of something that's a bit difficult to write about, in that I don't really feel I could do it justice.

My grandfather, Dr. J. Paul Schweinfurth, died January 7th, 2010. I'm posting the obit text here under the passing thought that perhaps my blog will survive online longer than the newspaper's archives:

Dr. J. Paul Schweinfurth of Nevada City died Thursday, January 7, in Grass Valley. He was 87.

A service will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, at Calvary Bible Church, Grass Valley.

He was born Dec. 17, 1922, in Sandusky, Ohio, to William and Hazel Schweinfurth.

He attended Wheaton College, Northwestern University Medical School and the Mayo Clinic. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

He married Marjorie “Marge” Brouwer on Sept. 25, 1947, in Chicago.

Dr. Schweinfurth was a neurologic surgeon in private practice in Loichita, Kansas and Santa Barbara. He was a certified board member of Neurologic Surgery, Harvey Cushing Society and the Mayo Clinic Alumni. He enjoyed reading, bird watching and cooking.

He is survived by his wife, Marge Schweinfurth of Nevada City; children, Susie Culkin of Reno, Nev., Annie Knowles of Sacramento, and Jim Schweinfurth of Portland, Ore., brother, Joe Schweinfurth of Portland, Or.; 10 grandchildren and one great-grandson.

Dr. Schweinfurth was preceded in death by his parents, William and Hazel Schweinfurth; and brother, Henry Schweinfurth.

I loved my grandfather very much, he was kind man, and when I recall my lifetime of experiences with him, I have not a bad memory that I can access in his regard. He was not a perfect man, but he was the best grandfather I could have ever asked for. He read his Bible complete every year, and read voraciously outside of that as well. He was a good man, the type that I can only hope to imitate some day. I am thankful for the days I was able to be with him before he left us here, behind.

We called him "Grandie."

Been over a month since I last wrote on this thing.

Since then, I've gone from Kigali to Nairobi to Dubai to London to Paris to Munich to Vienna to Geneva to Paris to London to Los Angeles to Sacramento to Los Angeles to Sacramento to Los Angeles to Sacramento to Los Angeles to London to Dubai and that is where I am right now. And if all goes well I will be home in Nairobi this afternoon for the first time in over a month. And then I'll go right back to Kigali.

Let's see if I can semi-recap.

Europe was a lot of fun, other than the parts where EuroStar shut down the trains between London and Paris and I spent a nightmare day (after flying from NBO and DXB overnight) trying to find another way to Paris. I made it there late that night, but my bag didn't, and I wouldn't see it again for a full 11 days. Air France graciously provides a whopping 150 Euro should they have lost your bags for your entire vacation. And Caroline unfortunately spent a night in the airport when we weren't able to meet up there.

But Munich was nice and we stayed with some GCC pals there who gave us all the insider tips - had a great time at the Christmas markets, saw Dachau - the model for all of the other concentration camps, and then on our last night we went back to the Christmas markets and almost made it there before I slammed my hand in the car door and sent us to the emergency room for the evening instead.

Then on to Salzburg and then Vienna, which were both nice and relatively uneventful (comparatively speaking), then Geneva, which I really enjoyed but was also stupid expensive. Thankfully, though, Anna was gracious enough to have us stay at her stupidly awesome waterfront apartment on the lake. I managed to get a day of skiing Chamonix in, so now I can finally say I've lived that dream, albeit briefly.

Then on to Paris for New Years. It was nice to explore but next time I'd like to see it at a non-holiday time. Also relatively uneventful. I liked Paris enough that I think I could live there - and that's saying something.

Then on to London and Los Angeles for my meetings. And now it strikes me that the next part really deserves its own post with a little more thought put into it. How's that for a hook?

Well. This year went fast.

I think I've worked in something like 15 or more countries this year. I've definitely traveled to at least that many, most for work. Many of them multiple times - Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania - certainly in and out of Kenya a countless number of times. At some point you start to lose track. Its like that opening scene from Fight Club, except the airports are all the African codes, not the US ones. Anyway.

I just got back from Rwanda this past weekend and will have to be back there in January. A few days of trying unsuccessfully to catch up with work and life here, and then tomorrow I am somehow, impossibly, on a flight thru Dubai for London. Cue 2 weeks in Europe - Paris, Munich, Vienna, Geneva, back to Paris for NYE (figures after a year like this, I would plan a vacation to go to 4-5 new countries). Then in early January, off to Los Angeles for meetings, then a few days with the fam in Nor Cal. Another flight I've forgotten to book as of yet.

Then back to Rwanda, then here, hopefully re-starting with a new team, and then we disperse across the diaspora to begin our futile attempt to implement 12 countries in the coming year.

I was supposed to implement 6 this year, and worked in 15 or so. Next year I am supposed to implement 12, and it is not possible for me to work in 30 countries in 1 year. At this point I don't think its possible that I remain standing should I have to be in 15 again.

I'm not complaining. I don't like complaining in others and I abhor it in myself. I'm just...reaching the end of me. I've never had so little gas in the tank. But at the same time I still believe in the work and know I am doing what it is I was made to do. I just wish it didn't feel so...drop-in-the-bucket.

Next year should go approximately twice as fast. I wonder how long I'll be able to hold on.

This past Saturday I went to see 2 of the genocide memorial sites about 25k outside of Kigali. I took Kaarli - one of my friends from Nairobi who's also here for work for a couple weeks, and Leonard - one of my colleagues from work here with me for this project. This post will not be easy to read.

The guide books gave some warning before hand but nothing could have really prepared me for the experience.

As we walked into the church compound, there was a father and son (mzungus) who were apparently just wrapping up their tour of the church. They were standing in a kind of awkward silence and soon took our arrival as their cue to leave.

After introductions, our guide, Mugabe Charles (he would later enthusiastically deny any relation to the man of the same name in Zim) began showing us around the small church.

Everything was pretty much exactly as it had been following the massacre in April of 1994, excepting that the bodies had been removed and most of what had to have been simply massive amounts of blood had been cleaned. The church benches remained, each of them covered with piles of the victims' clothes - the endless piles were a sobering reminder, everywhere you looked.

The ceilings, walls, and floors were all pocked where grenade shrapnel had hit them - apparently the amount of bodies was so staggering that at the time it had been hard to be sure that all were dead, so grenades were used to try to seal the bloody deal. The blood flew up to the ceiling, 25 feet above.

Some of the victims had been barricaded in a room, and when forced out were tortured in front of the others. They cut off their arms and then used the arms to "wave goodbye" to the other "cockroaches," before they were killed. The interhamwe had no guns, although the soldiers outside did, and those with money had the option to pay the soldiers to shoot them, giving them a quick death. Those who tried to escape met their end at the soldiers' bayonets. With no guns, the killers instead used crude tools and machetes. And hammers. So many of the skulls in the mass grave evidenced blunt trauma to the side of the head - the victims were pressed against a wall and then the hammer was used to the side of the skull.

Charles had been in the church those 2 evil days. He was 8 years old. His brother at one point had left him hiding in a corner, smeared with blood and covered with the bodies of others. He went looking for the father, but never returned, and Charles later found him, dead. His father was still alive after having his head hammered, and as he was dying he begged Charles to hide. Charles lost his composure but some other survivors were able to quiet him.

There had been pregnant women. One was a Hutu who had been married to a Tutsi man and carried his baby. The killers put her on the church alter (still to this day with the blood-stained covering on it), and cut out the child to "remove the sin," before killing her. They did this with a number of the pregnant Tutsi women as well. There was a lot of raping, and after raping, a typical means of execution was a spear through the genitals and out through the upper back. There had been one woman with her child on her back that was killed in this way, and the spear went through both her and the child. Her remains had been kept in this state in a viewing chamber below the floor of church, but after too much trauma for the viewers, it was put inside a coffin, that remains there to this day.

The same chamber included about 150 or so skulls and various bones on display, as well as some of the ID cards of the victims.

After this, Charles took us back behind the church to the mass grave there. We descended into a dark, dry hall that contained rows of shelves, 4-5 high, 15 feet above us, each 10 feet wide and deep. All covered with endless, countless skulls of the victims. The lower shelves were filled with other bones - mostly limbs from the look of it. The remains of thousands. It was there that Charles told us that some 6,800 people died in those 2 days at the church, another 4,000+ in the surrounding areas of the village. 7 survived, Charles being the youngest of them. 6,800 people, systematically, brutally dispatched - all in a church smaller than the house I grew up in. No wonder they couldn't find all the survivors among the mountains of the dead.

I have seen dead bodies in my life, in the typical medical and funeral settings, and even in the naked, bloody aftermath of rape and murder, but I have never been so utterly surrounded - engulfed - by the presence of death. And for me, it was 15 years later. Charles had been there on that day, and had been there every year since. The village was his home. His family's killers still lived there, those who had escaped conviction and justice, and who had threatened Charles in the aftermath to not speak out against them again.

It was little wonder that he still could not forgive.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best. Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789. President George Washington

The nice thing about the way our founding fathers wrote and spoke is that their words almost always seem as relevant to our modern era as they were to the era in which they lived. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the sniper attacks that left 10 dead, was executed Tuesday.

On CNN both last night - before his execution, and this morning - after, the reporter told us both that he would, and then did, pay for the lives he took, with his own. She used almost the exact same words both times, in the future tense and then in the past. It struck me both times: how is that possible?

If he had taken one life, perhaps, and then been caught - perhaps one could argue that this was justice, that a full restitution had been made. But how can his one life pay the sum of ten other lives? How can his one death assuage the grief of 10 families? How can he pay for all ten, and the literally hundreds of lives he permanently damaged in the wake of the ones he took to the grave? Is it even possible?

Someone outside Washington has been shooting men and women without concern for race or age. The attacks have been both methodical and random….

We are always looking to make some sort of sense out of murder in order to keep it safely at bay: I don’t fit that description; I don’t live in that town; I would never have gone to that place, known that person. But what happens when we can’t say that—when there is no description, no place, nobody? Where do we go to get our peace of mind?....

The fact is, staving off our own death is one of our favorite national pastimes. Whether it is exercise, checking cholesterol, or having a mammogram—we are always trying to find out what the profile is—and then make sure we do not fit it. But a sniper taking a single clean shot, not into a crowd but through the sight, reminds us horribly of death itself. Despite our best intentions, it is still, for the most part, random. And it is absolutely coming. – Ann Patchett, New York Times Magazine

I'm in Korogwe, which is here.

I'm pretty sure I've found the only internet shack in this tiny no-stoplight town. We're about 4 hours east of Arusha, on our way to Dar Es Salaam in the morning. In Tanzania, for those keeping score. I drove my truck from Nairobi to Arusha for about 4 weeks of work with our National Office here, which is based in Arusha. After 2 weeks at the NO, we're now headed out for field visits, which started today here, continue on our way to Dar, a day in Dar, and then I'm likely flying to Kigoma - north western Tanz where our last remaining refugee camp is still running for refugees from the Congo (formerly refugees from Burundi, formerly refugees from Rwanda, etc.). After a day or two there its back to Arusha for hopefully a little less than a week, because I need time to get back to Nairobi and change bags before I'm off to Zimbabwe for a week. (Doesn't look like I'll end up getting to Zanzibar while I'm here, durn it.)

And then its either Rwanda or Malawi. I simply can't be in both at the same time, as much as some people might like that idea.

I've got a big blog about my trip to China in the works. All the pictures are on flickr but I'm having a hard time uploading them here, and I won't have any half-decent internet until I'm in Dar, at least. So maybe then.

I just wanted to get in a quick update before I went a whole nother shameful month without blogging once. Too busy to blog is becoming the story of my life.

My church has been working through a series on relationships lately, the past few weeks have been focused on things like attraction and dating, courtship and intimacy (missed that week when I was out at Naivasha), sex, and today they were due to move into marriage, but they threw a curveball.

When it came time for the sermon, the same pastor and wife who last week talked on sex (a talk in which, the pastor admitted to pre-marital sex - there's been a lot of people getting really brutally honest over the past few weeks), got up on stage but the worship band / singers stayed on stage.

After pointing out that the church was 70% young singles (it is), and reviewing the past topics that had been focused on the single people issues, he said that it would be callous to jump into marriage without pausing to come to grips with all that we had been talking about. And then he made the very important point that the church, the pastors and leaders are there, not with the answers, but to pray with us and point us to the One who does have the answers.

And then, instead of a sermon, all of the pastors and leaders came to the front and the worship band lead 20 or so minutes of songs to pray with whoever had been touched by the raw topics we had been talking about - those struggling with relationships, those struggling with sex outside of marriage, those struggling with whatever. 20 or so minutes moving between songs in english and songs in Swahili, and people getting about as real as it can get and being prayed over. It was pretty powerful.

But what I really liked was the way he closed the time - asking all of the single people to stand while he prayed for them. One part in particular struck me - he prayed for the healing of those who had been growing older while still single, and that God would forgive the church for any ways in which it had stigmatized singleness as a sin, for any ways in which it had repelled single people in that particular way. I'm paraphrasing and not getting it quite right, but it was damn nice to have the church praying for my singleness for just what it is, rather than turning it into something it isn't. I left encouraged.

Lazy Sunday afternoon for a change and I'm finally writing...also for a change. Only really 2 things...

1. A while back I wrote about Don Dawson, the guy who left his life in the US to go search for his brother who had gone missing in action in Vietnam. I turned up a good deal more than I originally thought I would, including having a commenter offer to send me an original copy of the actual Life magazine article from 1965 (!) that she and her husband had found whilst cleaning out their attic. She sent it to me in exchange for the cost of postage, and it was a cool thing to read when I was back home for a couple weeks in August. I didn't have time to transcribe the article, but was still planning to at some point in the future, until today, when I noticed yet another recent comment on the original post I made. Turns out Google Print now has back copies of Life online. Here's the one about Don Dawson. I love the internet.

2. Today I got the following email, from "Gmail Customer Care":

Gmail! Customer Care Satisfaction Survey

Dear Valued Member,

Due to the congestion in all Gmail users accounts, Gmail would be
shutting down all unused accounts. In order to avoid the deactivation of
your account, you will have to confirm your e-mail by filling out your
Login Info below by clicking the reply button. The personal information
requested are for the safety of your Gmail account. Please leave all
information requested.

Name: ............................................
User name: ............................................
Password: .............................................
Date Of Birth: ........................................
Country Of Residence: ...........................


After you must have followed the instructions in the sheet, your Gmail
account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thank you
for your usual co-operation. We apologize for any inconvinience.


Gmail Customer Care

Case number: 8941624
Property: Account Security
Contact date: 26-29-2009

Take the survey
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Kind of scary and evil that some people might fall for this stuff.