How do you describe something for which there are no words? I’m frustrated because I can’t make you understand what the Grande Marche is like.

Madam, madam.
Over and over, I hear their shouts.
Do you need a dress? A belt?
Just a few dollars, and this mango is yours.
Why do you shake your head at us, madam?

Madam, madam.
Hands, hands, all around me.
Gentle hands help me across a ditch.
Rough hands pull me out of the street.
Be careful, madam.

Madam, madam.
The smells, so many smells.
Dead chickens swarming with flies.
Sweat and rot and dirt and fear.
Why are you so pale, madam?

Madam, madam.
Why do you close your eyes?
Why do you cover your face?
Why do you leave us so quickly?
Where are you going, madam?

]]> http://rmfo-blogs.com/brandy/2009/05/26/grande-marche/feed/ 1 http://rmfo-blogs.com/brandy/2009/05/19/27-flies/ http://rmfo-blogs.com/brandy/2009/05/19/27-flies/#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 17:16:05 +0000 Brandy http://rmfo-blogs.com/brandy/?p=666 More→]]> It was hard to breathe. We had turned off the fan in the corner so the rattling wouldn’t be on the video. The moment we switched it off, the air grew heavy and thick. Flies buzzed around our heads. The men all clutched handkerchiefs, wiping the sheen of sweat off of their faces every few minutes. Sweat formed at my temples, dripping into my eyes.

The father who sat before me quietly answered our questions. He told us about leaving their home at 5:30 in the morning to go to his job as a driver. How he spent half of his salary each month on the rent of this 10×10 concrete room. How he could only pay for food one week a month, charging the rest.

And then he told us about his wife. Visibly, he shrank before my eyes. He told us about her death five years ago. His shoulders slumped. He stared at the ground. His voice was so quiet, I had to lean forward. More flies flew in through the open door.

His heartbreak was a presence in the room. It was heavier than the heat. It settled over us. A knot the size of the limes growing on the trees in the front yard formed in my throat.

My eyes darted around the room. I so badly wanted a distraction. It was too much. So I counted the flies that crawled on our arms as he choked out memories of his wife.

1, 2, 3…

She had been walking home with their 8-year-old daughter.

4, 5, 6, 7…

Screeching tires, a spray of dust and gravel.

8, 9, 10, 11, 12…

So quickly, as only a mother can react, she shoved her child aside, a tumble of bright fabric and red dirt.

13, 14, 15, 16…

And then, she was gone. Instantly, her husband became a single father, raising four children, including a month-old son.

17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22…

He had never remarried. The grief was too much. The responsibility too great. The loss too profound.

23, 24, 25, 26, 27.

“She left me,” he whispered.

I looked up at those words. Stared into a face that had seen too much. I wanted to touch his arm. Tell him that it would be okay. But we were all frozen in place. So I simply reached out and swept my arm through the humid air, scattering the 27 flies.

They buzzed in the air, joining the heat and the grief. I waved my arm again, shooing them towards the door. A few flew out. I waved harder, trying to clear the air, but knowing the cloud that hung there was not composed of flies.

And no amount of arm waving I could do today would bring relief to the broken man sitting before me.

She walked slowly out of her classroom, her face turned towards the ground. Her shoulders hunched up around her ears, the ragged sleeves of her dress nearly reaching her elbows.

“What’s wrong with her,” I asked the group around me. They stopped the girl, and French phrases passed much too quickly for me to keep up. Finally, someone translated for me.

“She can’t pay her school fees, so they’re sending her home.”

That’s when I noticed the headmaster, moving from class to class, a list in his hands. Those were the children who hadn’t paid their fees. He was calling them to the front of their class and asking for the school’s money. And if they didn’t have it, they were sent home.

My stomach literally ached. I wanted to run up and tear the list out of his hands, ripping it up right in front of him. But I’m much too logical for that.

The little girl was still standing in the middle of our little group. She looked up finally, and I saw that her eyes were bright with tears. Every time she would blink, another one would make a muddy track down her face, dripping off of her chin and making a dark mark on her plain brown dress.

“How much?” I asked quietly. After a brief conference with the headmaster, we discovered that she owed 1,200 CFE.

Two dollars and forty cents.

One of the women in our group yanked the money out of her wallet, disgusted that this child was being sent home for less than the cost of a liter of water. Another in our group gently explained to the little girl that she could go back to class. She walked over, bowed her head, and whispered so quietly that I could barely hear it over the arithmetic lesson going on behind me.

“Merci.”

Funny how much that sounds like mercy.

I had a turkey sandwich. Some grapes. A soda.

In other words, I had more than the 300 million children who will go to bed hungry tonight.

I had more than one third of the population who are malnourished.

And I certainly had more than the 25,000 people who will die today from hunger related causes.

In the time that you read this post, 17 people died because they didn’t have enough to eat today.

That’s if you read fast.

Globally, food prices are rising. And when you’re living in poverty, a few extra cents for a handful of rice is the difference between life and death. It’s the difference between feeding your family and having to choose who to feed.

The problem feels big. Too big. Nothing I can do. But you can. Today, Compassion is hosting its first Global Food Crisis Day. Please, go to compassion.com/please and give. No amount is too small.

Your donation will enable a mother to feed all of her children.

It will mean a child will go to bed tonight, with his stomach full.

Life and death.

What did you have for lunch today?

I hesitate to post this blog. One moment I think this grief should be private. The next I feel like suppressing it is impossible.

Most of you never knew Dennis. You never got watch his fingers strum a guitar. You never got to listen to him sing silly songs in the car. You never went on walks with him deep in the woods.

I havent’ done those things for seven years. And this week, in moments of quiet, I found myself whispering three words over and over.

I miss him.

Those words seem to echo in my footsteps. I drum them on the table during meetings. Repeat them as I doze off to sleep each night.

People often tell me that it will get easier. I maintain that each year the grief is different. But I would never call this pain easy.

Some years it throbs.

Some years it stabs.

But it’s always there. I will always miss him.

In the days that followed Dennis’ death, I received an email from someone who barely knew me. His email was sentence, a line from a song that he had written.

The aching may remain, but the breaking will not.

Such truth in those words. Such freedom in allowing myself to grieve. To remember the good times. To search for the joy.

But not feeling guilty for the ache. Not asking myself “hasn’t it been long enough?”

Today, I ache. Today I feel fragile.

But today, I will not break.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Leave it to Ghandi to challenge and inspire in just ten words.

In the work that I do, I see lots of things that I wish were different. I wish that children weren’t starving. I wish that little girls weren’t abused. I wish that little boys didn’t have to work 12-hour days. I wish that governments weren’t corrupt. I wish that families always loved.

I wish.

But it’s not just people in far-flung villages. I desire change in my very own community. I wish I knew my neighbors. I wish my friends didn’t hurt. I wish people loved more than they judged.

I wish.

But what am I doing? What am I doing to be that change I want to see?

What are you doing?

I give to a ministry that helps the poor. But am I influencing others to do the same? Am I living out my desire to serve the poor in my daily life?

I write articles about child abandonment. But am I praying for the hundreds of thousands of children who have nobody to care for their most basic needs?

I am even more convicted about those hurting around me. When was the last time I talked to one of my neighbors? Why do I let my fear of rejection stop me from smiling, saying hello, introducing myself?

I believe God has called me to help the poor. To give to the needy. But what am I doing in my own zip code? Is serving a meal at a church once a year enough? What about the other 364 days?

I wish to see more love. Am I loving more?

I wish to see less hurt. Am I praying for healing?

I wish for change. Am I changing?

I can’t stop at the wishing.

I must be.

The Currency of Friendship
(Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)

But seriously? I have nothing today. So I’m going to make you work. I’ve decided that one of my life goals is to be on the Ellen Degeneres show. Yes, you heard me. I have very lofty goals in my life.

The only issue is, I have absolutely nothing that would warrant my appearance on a talk show. So that’s where you come in. How can I get on the Ellen show? I want your brilliant ideas since I apparently have none! Thanks

Well, not really. But Compassion just started a corporate blog, and I just had my first entries posted. They aren’t my typical blogs (nothing about me maiming myself, and no passive aggressive letters) but it was fun to sit down with some of our execs and find out their dreams for the ministry. So, you should go read parts one and two of a series I wrote. And you should comment. Than maybe they’ll let me write some more

Have you ever tried to shop for a child in poverty. It’s an odd feeling. Knowing the money I was spending on trinkets was a month’s salary for their parents. But also reflecting on the fact that these kids don’t get gifts. Their parents don’t pick up a toy on the way home from work.

As I walked the aisles of the local Stuff-Mart, fingering stuffed animals and colorful packs of crayons, my heart felt very full. And I just started to pray over the stuff filling up my cart. And please, don’t think I’m this overly spiritual person. I’m not. At all. Which is what made this moment in the crowded aisles that much more special. That holy. My normally worldly mind was filled with heavenly thoughts.

I prayed that the teddy bear with the soft fur would bring comfort to little Nardos. That she would hug it close when there were shouts in the alleyway outside her house.

I prayed that Baheru would use his imagination as he peered through his new binoculars. That he would point the lenses to something beautiful–to a green tree, or an ant crawling in the dirt.

I prayed that Nardos’ new t-shirt and necklace would remind her that someone thousands of miles away loved her.

I prayed that each time Baheru turned on his flashlight, it would chase away the darkness and fears.

And on they went. As I packed the items carefully into small backpacks later that night, I had a hard time perceiving the fact that, in a few days, these gifts would be opened on the dusty floors of mud huts. I can only pray that these tokens will bring a bit of joy to children surrounded by despair.