My Review of Guapa: My favorite book of 2016

Guapa by Saleem Haddad
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was written by my good friend Saleem Haddad - I met him when we worked together at Medecins Sans Frontieres and I recognized a special guy in that crowded London office. My review: I still think about things in this novel 10 days later - something that hasn't happened to me in a while. I recognized so many things in it that called out to me: Rasa's relationship with his Teta- their morning rituals, the silence around his father's fate, the living in a type of mausoleum but also the pain he felt around his mother and the suffocating silence. I'm not Arab but I grew up in a British household and felt many of those same emotions choking inside of me which I think is what makes me so hellbent on being open and speaking about all my taboos now. It made me really thing about the burden of being closeted and what it does to your emotions.

Things I loved: I felt so frustrated and angry at the scene in the wedding. it was so realistic - the whispered drunken asides from his shallow female friend, the mess of angst and emotion and love swirling around inside Rasa as he steadily drinks and argues with the waiter over his change. I just wanted a Hollywood happy ending - run off together! Be together. But that's not life. And the chaos towards the end was necessary. His mother crying as she chopped onions. His self-centered French friend and being forced out of embarrassment to accept the homeless man as his roommate.

Like some other reviewers, I think I would have liked more life inside Guapa. His friend Maj was the most uplifting character but I also wanted more of everything - more lush descriptions of falling in love, more lazy nights tangoing in a sequestered bedroom, more driving around tense parts of town, more revolution. I guess we can't have it all.

I also felt as if I shared Rasa's fatigue at the end of the novel - and that makes me think that the author did his job. My emotions were everywhere as I read it. And to me that is what I am looking for in reading - plunging into another world.

Thanks Saleem- for a fantastic novel. Can't wait to read number 2.




View all my reviews

Happy New Year 2016.... 2015 Done and Dusted....

"South Carolina" Martin and the Temple of Doom

Happy New Year! 2015 was another crazy year of travel for me. I feel rather exhausted and my body reminded me that I"m human on December 30th as I shivered and shook with a fever on the Mekong Delta and coughed so violently I bruised my ribs. So the year in stats: 17 countries (including new ones like Israel and old favorites like South Africa) and 161, 200 miles (according to Tripit.com). I apologize to the planet for the global warming and to my body for the economy class seating. Some highlights of the year follow: 

In January, I took some time to work on my different consultancies from Qatar and to be aunty to my college roommate Ann-Michelle's little boy Alexander and try on the life of an expat Mom living in a gated compound. Not so much for me although the parties are pretty fun. I have so much more respect now for working moms. The guilt! The inability to do anything as well as you would like! Wow... but hanging out with Alexander was wonderful. He's such a sweet and funny little guy and kept me on my toes with his disciplinary ways. 

Me and Alexander

In February, I taught a course at the Red Crescent in Saudi Arabia to 30 Saudi men and 1 woman on gender in humanitarian response. This was my second, and (inshallah) last trip to the "Kingdom". I saw nothing except Subway and McDonald's as I was not allowed to wander freely. Its amazing how free and liberated Qatar feels after a week in Saudi. To rebel against the draconian clothing laws for women in Saudi, I wore as little as possible under my abbaya and delighted in going to the breakfast buffet in my skivvies. You can make me wear an abbaya but you can't make me be a decent woman!

Saudi Men and Me

In March, I had a fantastic fun trip to Luang Prabang where I learned all about German efficiency with vacation planning in the slowest country in SE Asia: Lao PDR (which stands for please don't rush). Four German men and me. Luang Prabang is probably one of my favorite places in SE Asia. So beautiful and with such great food. From Laos, I rushed off to work in Brindisi, Italy where I managed to bring back about 15 kg of Italian products in my suitcase including five bottles of wine. I'm so happy the Thai immigration usually ignores me. Focus on the ivory smugglers and men with turtles and frogs strapped to their bodies, guys! I need decently priced wine! I also went to see the Golden Triangle in Chiang Rai, Thailand on the border with Myanmar and Laos. It was nice but a bit of a let down. I expected something other than a tacky photo opp on the Mekong river.  I don't know what I expected - opium dens, pith helmets, and poppies I guess. 

Four Fabulous Germans plus me and some other guy

From April through September, I took a 3 month assignment in Jordan to work with Syrian refugees (that turned into a six month assignment).  It was a great opportunity to explore the Middle East where I had only briefly visited in 2006 during the Israel-Lebanon conflict. I also had been wanting to work on the world's largest Refugee crisis in some way so I got the opportunity to be the Senior Gender Advisor to the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan where I was hosted by UNHCR. I met some fantastic people at work and also took almost every weekend to see the sights and see friends working in the region.

Zatari Camp, Jordan

Azraq Camp, Jordan

Syrian child playing near latrines in Azraq Camp, Jordan.

Jordan is a traveler's delight. I went to the Dead Sea and Petra almost immediately but as well as these spectacular natural wonders there are also crusader castles (and defense against crusaders castles), Roman ruins like Jerash and Philadelphia (Amman's previous name), and the spectacular nature including waterfalls and thermal baths, caverns, mountain ranges, olive trees, and so many religious spots! Even though its a small country, I didn't even get to make it to Wadi Rum to live out my Lawrence of Arabia fantasy or to the Red Sea. So I want to go back.

At Artemis' temple in Jerash!

I also traveled to Lebanon, Turkey, and Israel several times. It was my first time in Israel and I was really amazed. I highly recommend doing the land crossing between Israel and Jordan so you can experience the prejudice against Palestinians up close.  Otherwise, its easy to get lost in the gorgeous mediterranean, the fantastic food (oh the food... I am in love with the food), and the good looking surfers (the food may be even better than the surfers). Luckily, I had my friends who devote their time to working in Gaza and the West Bank to keep it balanced by reminding me of what happens there and also to be friends with Israelis who could share what its like to live in a region where everyone seems hellbent on killing you (I'm sure I've offended someone with this sentence - I've given up trying not to... such is Israel and the politics around it). Israel is such a land of contrasts. For me,  on my US passport with my white skin - I was treated well. For other American friends with dark skin or those not on US passports- the experience is quite different. Its an extremely polarized and militarized society. But on the other hand, it was a huge relief to be free from the non-stop sexual harassment and stares from the men in Jordan. Jaffa, where I spent my holiday, is like a little California beach town with flea markets, great food, hip youngsters, and cute hippies and surfers all together. The only time it felt like the Middle East to me was on Eid when the Palestinian families came down to relax on the beach. Shishas and abbayas galore (along with the requisite sexual harassment too, sadly). 

Byblos, Lebanon

Enjoying Vacation in Beirut, Lebanon

Returning to my hippie roots in Jaffa, Israel

In September, my sister Alyson came out to visit me for her birthday. We went straight from the airport to Petra for a full day of Indiana Jones and shouting at rude Bedouin donkey salesmen. We relaxed for the remaining two days at a luxury resort on the Dead Sea, and she spent the next two weeks exploring Jordan while I worked.  It was great to have her with me. Then we went off to Cairo, Egypt for the tours of the pyramids. It was wonderful to see Egypt's wonders in relative solitude but also sad to see Egypt's tourism in tatters due to the violence in the region. It did make for an undisturbed visit as we didn't have to deal with huge crowds or aggressive salesmen. Alyson officially became the fourth person in our family to go to Egypt but unlike Dad and I, she was not ripped off by camel owners behind the pyramid. My hard lesson learned in 2005 saw to that. We tried to support everyone by buying the standard camel rides, perfume, papyrus, bric-a-brac and drinking as much mint tea as humanly possible. 

Martin Sisters in Petra

What you look like after a day at Petra

More Martin Sisters and Camels

Me and my new Egyptian boyfriend

Alyson and I overlooking Cairo

My graceful Camel riding in Egypt

Alyson and I looking quite adventuresome

After my assignment with UNHCR ended, I returned to Thailand via Stellenbosch, the premier wine town near Cape Town, South Africa to present some papers at the Sexual Violence Research Initiative and to see some friends. Its an amazing opportunity to be with some of the smartest and most dedicated researchers on this topic and to catch up with old friends who I've worked with. For an experienced traveler, I made a serious error in going back with all my luggage leaving me unable to bring but ONE bottle of fantastic South African wine back with me to Thailand. I then spent about 3 days at home in Bangkok and then went to Kyoto, Japan for the fantastic wedding of dear friends. Autumn in Japan is spectacular.  We ate like kings (or rather samarui) at the wedding and spent long laughter filled nights in Kyoto's pleasure quarters drinking sake, eating gyoza and okonomiyaki (famous pancakes) and making friends and singing. 

Presenting at SVRI

Good Food with Rebecca in Singapore

Photobombed by Kathy in Kyoto, Japan

Human Rights Ladies and our Token Man at Onsen in Japan

In October, a dear friend- Gus Osorio- died. He and I worked as "office neighbors" at JSI from 2000-2003 in DC. We were in a book club together and he came to visit me in Amsterdam and we went to London together. Our last conversation was about a month before he died when I was trying to entice him to come to Asia. I'll miss his big heart, beautiful blue eyes, and warm and funny ways. On the night he died, I was sitting at a bar on the Mekong in Vientiane Laos and saw a meteorite which lit up the whole sky in green. I'm sure it was Gus telling me he was hanging out with MCA from the Beastie Boys in heaven and kicking the jams out. RIP dear friend. 

October 27, 2015 was also a big day as this is the day I became a British Citizen as well (I am retaining my US citizenship - its dual nationality for me now!). My mother was born and raised in Wiltshire in the United Kingdom and when I was born, British women weren't allowed to pass on their citizenship to their children (not until 1981... the whole citizenship game is super sexist world-wide). After years of randomly asking whether or not I qualified for citizenship, I got a definitive answer in 2014 from an immigration lawyer and applied. I was granted and sworn in at a lovely private ceremony in the UK embassy in Bangkok with two of my close British friends, Ross and Vanessa Self in attendance. They wanted to take me out to the pub for a beer but it was a Thai Buddhist holiday so none of the sketchy pubs that cater to British sexpats would serve us beer. So in despair we headed to the Harrod's in the fancy mall for a cup of tea. Vanessa decided to ask for a glass of bubbly and they either didn't realize or didn't care about the alcohol ban so we celebrated with a luncheon of roasts and some pints and bubbles and Victoria sponge. Ross and Vanessa told me that "This is your new British super power, the ability to drink in any place in the world." In all seriousness, I was surprised at how emotional I felt and I really missed my mother but felt she was there with me.  

In November, I accepted a new job as Regional Emergency GBV Advisor for the global Gender-based violence in emergencies working group. I'm trying on the job as they have only offered me a contract through February and I"m not sure if I want to stay in Asia that long or commit to a job (consultant life gets under your skin even if I did complain about it the whole time). I'm working in SouthEast Asia and the Pacific helping build capacity to respond to gender-based violence in emergencies. This region is mostly natural disasters and after working in Syria, I feel anxious to go back to working on conflict and displacements. I hope to do some good though while i"m in the position. I had to go to Geneva for meetings and to pick up a visa so I got to spend most of the first two weeks on the job in Europe.

 

Me and Simon

It was good to be back in Europe and I saw lots of familiar faces and packed in a trip to Hamburg and Berlin in Germany. In Berlin, I got to have Thanksgiving dinner with my bestie from Sumter, Mike Dumiak. He opened up his home to me (even though in the middle of writing a book!) and we invited a Syrian refugee, O, to join us. O and I met in Amman on a blind date and became friends after I realized that as a humanitarian aid worker I am not allowed to date refugees! O was working as a logistics officer in freight forwarded in Damascus for several years after his mandatory army service. He loves politics and hates Assad so got heavily involved in the political uprising in 2011. He was arrested and kept in prison and fled to Jordan when he was released in 2012. He stayed in Jordan for three years trying to work legally or illegally (its illegal for Syrian refugees to work in Jordan). He was a registered refugee living with three other young single men and waiting to be resettled in a third country. His family had escaped later to Egypt but the borders were closed so he couldn't join them. They were a middle class family but money was running out for them. He found out that his claim to be resettled was rejected so he had to take the extreme step of going to Europe with the traffickers in August of this year. I followed him as he texted me from Turkey where he flew on his Syrian passport to Greece where he went on one of those boats you see on the news, up through Macedonia where they were beaten by border guards, to Serbia on to Austria and finally to Germany. He's now living in a refugee settlement sharing a house with about 9 other Syrian men about a hour outside of Berlin where he's enrolled in some free college courses for refugees, is learning German, and trying to settle in. Its not easy. While I was in Germany, the attack in Paris happened and the attitude towards Syrians has hardened. It's maddening to listen to the news of Donald Trump and others in the US and listen to the idiots on the internet go on about how Syrian men should be "fighting for their country" (on what side? Against who? And with what training? That war is so complex... I've asked him to explain it to me several times and get confused each time). O says he'll never return to the Middle East as Europe has opened its arms to him and he wants to repay it. He's a hardworking and smart guy (who does a great Michael Jackson impersonation) so I'm hoping the new year will bring him more peace and stability. It was good to be reminded of the traditions of America in Mike's little German apartment as I made turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce for the two of them. 

So now its the new year and I'm tired!  What an exhausting but fulfilling year. New and old friends, being with family, travel, meaningful work, new countries, and exciting new food (Israel was a revelation!). What more could anyone wish for? Thanks to all the friends - old and new- that I saw or chatted with in 2015. You are the best! 2016 will have a hard time topping it but I sense positive change is in the air. Stay tuned for news. I enclose some photos and a great recipe for my favorite hot sauce of the year.  

Me by the end of 2015 - feeling a little tired and worn out.

Wishing you all a lovely and exciting New Year! May 2016 bring you adventure and passion!

Love, 

Sarah

Live to Fight Another Day: A roundup of what I've been up to.

So I had quite an intensive June work-wise. I traveled from Bangkok to New York City for 10 days to attend an annual global retreat for GBV professionals, then I headed to London to attend the star-studded Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict Summit hosted by Angelina Jolie and William Hague, the Foreign Minister for the UK, and then I sat around Qatar for 10 days writing a manual while waiting for a visa from Saudi Arabia. Finally, I went to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for 3 whole days to lead a training. Then I was back to Qatar to hang out with my college roommate Ann-Michelle on her birthday and finally, home in Bangkok 32 days later.

That was quite an airplane ride... 

BKK-DOH-JFK-DOH-AUH-LHR-AUH-DOH-RUH-DOH-BKK. 

The jet lag never seemed to end. I had no idea what time it was. I couldn't find my "deep vein thrombosis" stockings for one leg of my journey and any leg cramp sent me cowering in fear that I was going to die from "economy class syndrome". Jet Lag is why black out curtains were invented and god bless the person who did that. On the way to NYC, I worked maniacally on a paper that was only read by one person but on the other legs, I watched movies, tv shows, and played endless addictive rounds of tetris. Playing tetris is maddeningly addictive on long flights. I find myself in a zone where the little part of my mouse brain just wants to hit that bar and to receive a pellet. Very good for turning off the incessantly negative critic. Although I am pretty sure my therapist would say that its just numbing it out.  I DO NOT talk to my seatmates. Except for when I get trapped. My Bose noise-cancelling headphones are my savior. I've worn them so hard that the stuffing is falling out of the pads. 

This trip seemed to be a maddening whirlwind of happiness, exhaustion, and irritation. I got to see old friends, I connected with colleagues from work, and saw family. I saw people I hadn't seen in years. My emotions were heightened due to the jet lag and I had to keep reminding myself that the desire to slap the ambassador from South Sudan was just the jet lag talking. I had to remember that the feeling of being on the verge of tears was also just the jet lag talking. But the combination of jet lag, mindless meetings and disillusioning conference ennui made me wonder what happened to June? It's all a blur. Here's some snapshots as they whirled by...

Positives: 

Meeting up with my sister in NYC and spending some quality time with her. Being in Asia makes me feel so far away...but when I'm with her she never judges if I'm feeling lame and just want to lie on the hotel bed for another hour. Thanks for that, Alyson! 

Meeting up with my colleagues Lina and Devanna who I co-authored a presentation with... they were tired and exhausted from their work but the camaraderie, laughing, and quick creative thought never gets old. They inspire me and help me get through dull meetings. I also got to catch up with other favorite people like Beth, Sophie, Joan, Nicole, Jeanne, and Lauren. And meet new people as well. The GBV AoR meeting might have been dull but the after hours  (or bar module as we called them in MSF) were great. 

Fancy NYC restaurant with smart crazy Alec and Susanne in a funky haze of report writing and jet lag which culminated in sparkling Sake! Delicious! Then Brunch with the Esser-O'Leary boys and Alec's sister in Park Slope. 

Mexican food in NYC! And mixed drinks in the early summer sunshine. And walking through Manhattan in the warm summer night without sweating. I've been in Bangkok so long, I had forgotten what it felt like not to sweat. 

My tuberculosis/ smallpox/ mental asylum/ writer's bar/ high line tour of Roosevelt Island with my sister and friend Eoghan. It was hard to imagine Charles Dickens' words about Roosevelt Island that "everything had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful" as we sat drinking beers in the sunshine and being marched in a quickstep by the intrepid Eoghan around NYC. I think we walked 15 miles that day according to my pedometer. But it was wonderful.  

Meeting Angelina Jolie in person and getting quoted in US Weekly about my "Brad Pitt" spotting! That's right- others aim for the New York Times, Huffington Post, or even the Guardian. But I know that all aid workers read US Weekly and this will bring me more recognition than those publications ever will... ;)

The positive benefit of being an unwanted visa applicant to Saudi Arabia - spending a week with my college roomie, Ann-Michelle and her family. Doha is not really the most exciting place in the world but their house is like an oasis of family in the middle of the desert. Always warm and welcoming and home made Dosas from Reema for breakfast! I also got a highly exciting tour of the underbelly of immigrant Doha as my Indian driver and I went on a mission to find travel agents, iPhone repair men, and other services provided by the mostly Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi men of Doha. I didn't see a woman that whole day. 

An unexpected dinner at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, the Narrows, in London with my favorite person at MSF, Meggy. We met for dinner on the banks of the river Thames on a lovely warm summer evening and she gave me her lovely warmth to help me cope with remaining bad memories from those difficult 2008-2010 years. She was always the best hug to help me during those dark days.

Finally dropping off my documents to pursue my British citizenship. Let's hope I didn't leave it too long! I understand there is a huge queue at the UK passport authority! 

Negatives: 

The Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict Summit - while it was good to be in the presence of many activists, it ended up feeling like a huge waste of time and energy. Now that William Hague has resigned his position, I wonder even more what that was all about. There was an international protocol for documenting sexual violence in emergencies that to me, looks like it will never be used by service providers in emergencies as it doesn't allow any confidentiality. Check out the link above for my thoughts about the summit.

Running into former colleagues from those aforementioned unpleasant 2008-2010 years. While time has passed, I hadn't confronted my feelings about that time face-to-face and I needed to. As my therapist says "a growth opportunity". But I guess a positive too. 

Eating in restaurants for 25 of those 32 days. No wonder I can't lose weight or stay on a diet.  No exercise aside from the quickstep around Manhattan. But delicious food... lovely delicious food.. :)

Non-stop jet lag. It gets harder and harder and harder to recover. I feel like I"m taking 15 years off of my life everytime I step onto an airplane. That there is no plus side too. 


Yet to be seen: 
My 3 days in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia...

Old email: 2006 Lebanon

One of the things that I miss the most about my old job at Refugees International was how much freedom and creativity I had there. As I sit here now working at the UN and stewing under "travel authorization" forms and formal ccing of people and slaving over my email's tone - I miss my "cowboy" days. MSF for all its "cowboy" attitude had nothing on Refugees International. When you are picked up from the airport, shepherded around, and have a place to live, you are not free to meet the crazy and the wild and the wonderful from the world.

Here is an email I wrote to my friend Alec about getting my hair cut and colored in Beirut during the war there. I spent 6 weeks in Beirut during the Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah. While it was intense and scary, there were these weird moments of normality - I got my hair cut, I bought sunglasses, I went out for drinks. Here's one of them:

August 7, 2006
Beirut, Lebanon


Let me relate my latest scare. Was it a bomb? No. A terrorist? No. An anti-western demonstrator? No.

I got my hair cut in Lebanon and my roots touched up. Since my hair is fried out and platinum blonde right now from the Sudan/Beach/Mexico and I never had time to get it cut before I came, I decided to take Kristele up on her offer to find a hair dresser.

I am traumatized. The hairdresser, a very dapper very hip looking gorgeous (straight!) Lebanese man asked
me through my translator if I wanted to make my hair match the lighter or darker part of my hair. I said, I don't want it the same color as my ends and launched into an explanation of how it had become quite a bit blonder than I normally had it because it had been ages since it had been cut. He offered to put highlights in it and tone down the color a bit. Sounds good. I then explained how I wanted it cut so it's more curly and that I always just scrunch it with some product and he knodded.

Imagine my shock and horror when they took the bits of foil off and my hair was dark brown with white stripes in it. I started to panic but he tutted me. "It will look very natural." Then I started to remember what Lebanese women look like. They are all a size 2 with dark tans and they have severely highlighted hair that is either dark brown with chunky blonde highlights or red blond with white highlights. They wear designer jeans, stiletto heels, off the shoulder dresses and carry Fendi purses.

I had just spent three exceedingly hot hours in a parking garage interviewing refugees and was wearing a very wrinkled linen shirt, my RI vest, those orange shoes, and was sweaty, shiny, and feeling very bloated and fat. And nothing makes you feel worse than sitting in the chair, facing the mirror with your scagged back wet dark brown with white striped hair reflection looking back at you. I just stared at my lap. "I can wear a bandana until I get to Paris. Noone knows me here." I reassured myself.

Then he washed it and low and behold, it blended in. Then we sat at the chair and he cut the first piece of hair at my chin length. "I still want  it long!" i shrieked at my translator. He just chopped away without talking. I was scrutinizing the color and watching to see where the white parts were peaking out. I could still see them, I thought.

Then he turned me away from the mirror and made me bend over while he blow dried my hair. He turned me around to the mirror. 

It's ash blonde. It matches my roots and eyebrows. It's...... my natural color. And the longest part barely reaches my shoulders.

I don't know how I feel.  

I just came out of the shower after scrubbing myself clean. Put on fresh clothes. Put on some makeup and my earrings. I'm drinking a beer and preparing myself to go look back in the mirror again.

I don't know how I feel about being my natural color.

I'm going to be 39 tomorrow. I suppose after 15 years, it's about time.

Rape in Iraq

I am so angry. I don't know when I've been this angry - maybe when I first learned about sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers. I suspected there was a problem in Iraq that was not being addressed. In the past two days, I've read two extremely disturbing reports.

The first article, a new report by Madre, a group like RI for women's issues: entitled "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq" - talks about the extreme problem of rape of Iraqi women (by Iraqi men). To me, it smacks of Darfur - get back at your enemy and humiliate them by raping their women. It's shocking and horrifying and I hope it gets the attention it deserves. According to my friend Sayre, who attended the briefing about it, "Even a quick look at it shows how much information we’re missing in US media about the war in Iraq. Gender-based violence is a top priority of Iraq’s Islamists. The U.S. plan to support the Iraqi death squads is called the “Salvador Option,” from 1980s US policy in Central America, to train militias. The military isn’t even ashamed to use that term?!? I also didn’t know about the most popular TV show in Iraq, “Terrorists in the Hands of Justice.” (See Part VI: Gender-Based Violence Against Men.) This report argues that this show is like Radio Mille Collines.” (The notorious radio station that encouraged the genocidaires to kill the Tutsis during the Genocide in Rwanda). I for one, will be forwarding it to all the people on the hill that I have met through my work at Refugees International.

The second article, an article on Salon.com, entitled "The Private War of Women Soldiers " that chronicles the stories of US women soldiers who have been raped and sexually assaulted by their comrades-in-arms. It's outrageous. To read it, click on the link. My login is dmartin, my password is alysonhowell (I don't mind sharing because although Salon.com used to be my favorite online magazine, they have recently become quite lazy. It appears they have fired all their editors and they consistently try to sex up article by giving them salacious illustrations or using the word sex in the title. Just check out the 'debate' they are allowing in the letters section. You would think you were on an IMDB.com chat room with a bunch of imbeciles rather than on a prominent liberal journal like The Nation or Mother Jones.).

Anyway, I'm certainly not suprised to hear that this is happening. As I wrote in my report on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the UN Peacekeeping system - this happens in all militaries. I don't know what it is but something about the military correlates with higher rates of rape. Is it that learning how to kill someone when ordered that completely violates the internal human moral code so that it degrades the soldiers to the point where they stop seeing women as human beings? I don't think its a natural state of being. Men are not naturally rapists. Or if they are, all the men I know are doing a good job of hiding it from me.

My father is a retired air force sergeant who served from the 50's through the 70's and he would be horrified to hear about this. He and I have talked about violence against women in the 'good ole days'. he told me stories of seeing men he served with hauling off and punching their wives when they got a few too many drinks under their belts. He was horrified, noting it almost always seemed to be big tough guys with small petite wives. But - he noted - it was seen as a family problem, a personal problem - something you didn't get involved with.
Rapists don't belong in the military. they belong in prisons. The fact is that nothing will happen to fix this until women scream out and threaten to vote out all the politicians who don't demand that the military deal with this.

A colleague of mine that I respect immensely once said "Do you think it was the US government that decided one day to make it illegal to beat your wife until she died? No, it was the feminist women's movement screaming out until the US government took notice." And we still aren't there.

Today, in honor of tomorrow's International Women's Day, I spoke at the DC Bar Association about Justice for Rape Survivors in Darfur. Afterwards, the debate (amongst all women, of course) was lively. I spoke with two women who were in their fifties who told me about the 'bad old days'. We need another s trong women's movement. We need to support the women in the US military who are there because feminists in the 70s fought to get us equality. They are choosing to risk their lives in Iraq (for a war I DO NOT agree with - but still, I support their rights to fight there if they choose). We must now keep up with the work that got them there and fight to make sure that they have full protection of the law and the military code of justice to keep them from being harmed by their fellow soldiers.

So - if you are as outraged as I am - pick up the phone and call your congressional representatives and ask them to call a hearing on this. Or, if you live in DC, call your parents and ask them to do it!

Something in Iraq works at least

Today, I walked down 18th street through the icy remnants of last nights ice storm. Although almost every business had not yet gotten around to shoveling their sidewalks at 9am, the Iraqi embassy on 18th and P Street was busy! Not only were their maintenance crew out there shoveling away, so were several men in ties. So - shut up, Republican naysayers that say the Iraqis can't do anything without the US help! Today, they were actually doing better than most US organizations.

DC Film Premiere, Part II

I remembered the man's name from the DC Film Premiere of "The Situation" - it was Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institute - author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq".

To quote from the New York Times op-ed today entitled: "What W.B. Yeats 'the Second Coming' really says about the Iraq war" by Adam Cohen who was inspired by the title of Kenneth Pollack's latest offering on the war in Iraq "Things Fall Apart."

" The confident predictors of who have been wrong in the past do not hesistate
to keep offering up plans...The co-author of "Things Fall Apart", the Brookings
Institute guide to going forward on Iraq is Kenneth Pollack, who is -
incredibly- best known for his 2002 book "The Threatening Storm: the Case for
Invading Iraq." "

You gotta love DC pundits - when you make a huge misjudgement and promote a war that displaces millions of people and kills thousands, just write a new book telling everyone what they should do now...accountability? Not in this city.

Anyway - shout out to my colleague at Refugees International who is heading out to Iraq to look at internal displacement there. Be careful. We need you to come back and hold all these assholes in DC accountable for their sins against the people of Iraq.

Hurricane Katrina and Lebanon

I have been back from Lebanon for a week now (with a side trip to Paris and Geneva). This weekend, I watched Spike Lee's documentary on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. It was so disturbing. I don't understand why it took so long to help the people in the Superdome. Having watched the 1 million displaced in Lebanon receive help and assistance and then watching the government fumble about in New Orleans was shocking. I want to write more about this but I'm tired and my brain is foggy.

Beirut Mon Amour, redux

Ahhh. I took down the last post because I inadvertently wrote about my new friends in ways they didn't appreciate.. Sorry y'all! So, here's a re-creation of that post.

Our 'last supper' in Beirut was strangely anti-climatic. We were all so tired and worn down. It hadn't been so obvious durint our birthday parties but it just felt harder at this dinner. Maybe because there were more of us. Maybe because it was three weeks later. It just felt like we were all drained and exhausted. I think many of us had just seen too much or were at the edge of burnout. the usually lively political discussions were not as carefree. We ate too much and barely drank any wine. Everyone wanted to go home early. No Malcolm Lowry's were consumed.

SO I got home, had indigestion from trying to out eat Nir with the hummous. Fell asleep and woke up at 2:30 am where I then sat and watched the sun slowly come up over Lebanon before i left. I felt very sad. I felt like I made intense attachments in that short period of time. Maybe it was due to the fact that I was fully engaged in this misison , unlike others where I was teetering on burnout myself. I'm feeling obsessed with the injustices in this part of the world. I"m reading Robert Fisk's "Pity the Nation" and I'm so angry - at Israel, at the Palestinians, at the many different factions of Lebanon. Its' probably good that I didn't read it before I came. I had almost a naive, innocent appreciation of everyone.

Now, I feel rather helpless and hopeless. How does one act as a humanitarian in such a context? I push forward my pathetic points about what the international community should be doing, knowing now, that its just the latest installment of a long, bloody, pathetic history.

Okay. That's it. Happy One year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Listen to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Listen to Tom Waits. Listen to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Sidney Bechet. Remember the people and the beauty of the music, and mourn the passing of this beautiful, dirty, awful, American city.

Conversations with My father about the war

While the Israelis and Hezbollah cannot come to an agreement on how to end this war, my retired military father and I found mutual ground today...

DAD: Dear Sarah, Passing this on, I received it from Marty this morning. Love, Dad

ME: For some reason, it didn't come through. Was it a picture?

DAD: It was a couple of paragraphs about the good work some are doing in Lebanon. I am sorry you could not get it, but whatever? Lazy day, did not have breakfast (?) until noon and only had microwave panckes and sausage that you only cook for 5 or 6 minutes. Not gourmet, but edible, and easy to fix on those mornings that you do not want to get dressed and go out to eat, nor do you want to go to much bother and clean up. Lovely weather today, but may only go out to buy a small plant. Love, Dad

ME: How did you like my UN diatribe? (I responded to some email that he forwarded me from his Republican, retired military friends about how all the Arab countries vote against the US at the UN and that proves that the UN is arab supporters (??!!))

DAD: Dear Sarah, I think that diatribe is exactly the right work to describe for that email. While I think that when the UN was set up it was a noble effort. It has now gone completely astray, and is useless. Besides their diplomatic privelege, high pay, to say nothing of their corruption, it has turned into a paradise for third world countries. You must remember that most people here and I suppose elsewhere, know practically nothing about the organization of the UN. In fact, I doubt if young Americans even know where it is located. Love, Dad

ME: I agree with you about the UN. In fact, I think I'm about to be put on their personna non grata list after this trip. It's ridiculous that they are even in Lebanon. They are staying at a $300 a night hotel, they don't ever leave it. They have meetings with each other and in the meantime, Hezbollah is rebuilidng the country with huge chunks of cash from Iran. The people see the international community and the government of Lebanon doing nothing and Hezbollah supplying everything for them - they are all so brainwashed - no wonder they support Hezbollah. They are the only ones who DO anything in this country. Where is all the money from the UN going??? Hotel bills and restaurant bills. While I dislike them immensely, I refuse to allow the crazy Republican rhetoric be the reason why I dislike them. I dislike them for the reasons that you just wrote - which is something I see with my own eyes almost every day, not because its a forum where other countries can express their disgust at the US. That's the only good thing that happens at the UN. Did you get any feedback from that email? I only cc'd everyone because I want to give you guys something to talk about besides the local gossip. I went to the beach today and it was really nice until the Israeli drone flew overhead. I'm still scared after Baalbek that the stupid Hezbollahs will respond. And I'm outraged that Israel broke the ceasefire so blatantly.

DAD: Good Heavens!!! You agree with me!

Thanks UN for uniting generations across the oceans!

Tense Times in Baalbek

I’m still in Lebanon. Beirutis a cool city. I'm learning how to curse in Arabic... Our driver is insane (Nadim) and he curses rather fluently according to Kristele so I've asked him to teach me.

Today's adventure was being threatened by Hezbollah. We went to Baalbek (home of a gorgeous Roman temple to Jupiter) and when we were interviewing the Hezbollah relief movement, our driver ratted me out as an American. He was trying to be helpful but it made it all kind of scary and tense. I told him if he was annoyed with me, he could tell me - there was no need to have me kidnapped.

It's very insulting there - the men won't touch us because we're women so no hand shaking and they just radiated hostility throughout the entire interview. They made a big show of writing down our 'identificiation' cards. Well my identification card is some mocked up thing that they made me at RI. My "number" is my phone extension. Copy that down, jerks, see if I care.

Oh yeah, and I conducted an interview with the mayor of a town sitting over an un-detonated cluster bomb. They told us after the interview and then took us down to take a picture of it. Ha ha! What fun! The mayor just laughed and laughed and laughed. I was too nervous to go stand in the hole with it to photograph it. However, that's just stupid because I'd be as dead standing 30 feet away on the street as I would have been standing right over it.



Adventures in post-conflict

Return to Dahiyeh

More than 15,000 homes were destroyed during the bombing campaign in Lebanon. The Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut , a stronghold for the Hezbollah party, suffered a lot of damage during the bombing campaign. Many of the people who lived in it sought shelter in other parts of Beirut or outside of the city completely. Three days after the ceasefire, many have returned home to see what is left of their apartments. The bulk of people in Beirut live in high-rise buildings, either renting or owning apartments. While many buildings are destroyed completely, some of the apartments that were adjacent to targets are partially habitable. RI interviewed several families on the third day of the ceasefire as they returned to see what was left of their homes.



This woman shows us the view from her kitchen door on the fifth floor that used to open onto a balcony; it now opens onto a pile of rubble from the building next door. Dust, broken glass, and noxious fumes fill their apartment. “I was here during the bombings – I hid in the bathroom and shook. I was terrified. Finally I fled and I am glad since they bombed the building next door the next day. There was a man who owned four shops in that building and now they are all gone” she told RI.

Many of the buildings had huge holes blown into the walls – either as a result of the bomb blast or from flammable tanks of gas stored on their balconies that ignited when the buildings next door were hit. While it is the dry season in Lebanon, they worry about the coming rains and about the fumes coming into their houses. As people return home to clean up their apartments, they are relying on generators for electricity and bringing in water by hand as many of the reservoirs were destroyed by the bombing



Mohammed, a businessman who owns a factory in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, showed us his apartment in a building adjacent to one destroyed by the bombing. “We were living in a hotel in the Hamra part of town,” he tells RI, “but we are running out of money. We may come back here to sleep tonight with my mother and my four children.” While they are cleaning up the piles of broken glass from the explosions, there is also a thick layer of dust and ash covering everything. “I think there may still be people who were in that building,” his wife tells us, “There are terrible smells that come in here.”

Many people are reluctant to leave their apartments since they have no other place to go. While the Hezbollah political party has offered them help in rebuilding, there are fears that the poor – who do not have the means to rebuild and wait to be reimbursed will take the chance to live in structurally unsound places while waiting to be assisted. There are also concerns about who will assist the people who are not living in Hezbollah areas. Hezbollah has said that they will assist them but to date there is little word from the government of Lebanon on plans to assist people and the population has little confidence in the government.

Look out, Iran, you're next

According to Seymour Hersch, one of my heros, the US not only knew that Israel was planning this attack on Lebanon, but they are all geared up for Iran. His latest article in the New Yorker lies out this theory. I believe him. The signs of the US war machine gearing up for Iran have been there all along. This time, they are going to the UN on the nuclear issue a few months before they did with Iraq but as soon as they started focusing on this, I knew we were planning it. Whenever I pointed out this - people shake their heads and say "But there's no way the US can carry on a third war - they are already over their heads in Iraq and Afghanistan." That's a fine theory if you are talking about RATIONAL people. It's obvious that the senile old men over at the Department of Defense and the State Department are not rational. The entire government is populated by the old cold warriors from the 80s (John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams) - the same guys that brought you the Iran-Contra war. Sure they were all punished for their crimes but then immediately pardoned! And has our defenders of democracy, congress, said anything about this? No! I'm sick and tired of this. And I'm tired of watching my country, which is supposed to be a democracy, be run into the ground by this Administration. Out with all those assholes in our do nothing congress! I'm sick of defending the US to the rest of the world.

The hunkier face of the H Word

Here's what Hezbollah looks like when its helping refugees instead of lobbing rockets into Israel.

Down in the Beqaa valley

Today we went down into the Beqaa valley. Lebanon is truly lovely but its eerie to travel over the highway passing brave truck drivers toting watermelons with big white flags tied to their trucks to alert Israeli planes that they are benign.

We interviewed a woman who had been displaced four times. She was originally from the southern suburbs of Beirut but had gone down to live with her mother in the south for the summer to get out of the city with her three children. On the second day of the war, her house was hit and her mother and brother killed. "It was a miracle that we survived," she told us. She and her sons fled to Tyre (also known here as Sur). When that city was bombed, her husband came to get her and brought her to Dahiyeh - the suburbs that have been targeted repeatedly. There, they stayed with her sister until the night before last when they coldn't take the bombing and near misses anymore. THey came to Zahle, a town in the Beqaa valley where they are now living with 100 other people in a secondary school.

"There's only three toilets here and you have to wait three hours for the bathroom," she said "but we have everything we need. They have brought us food, water, and soap. They took our clothing sizes and will bring us some clothes tomorrow, they said." "I just want to go back to what life was like before the war," she said.