"And I saw what Art can do"

(Excerpt of Eve speaking about V-Day's work in the Congo and collaboration with the UN/UNICEF)

"[...]we did these public tribunals, when I was there. In Goma and Bukavu, where ten women in each city came forward and told their stories before government officials, before UN officials, before hundreds of people in their community. It has never happened in the Congo that women have broken silence.

These women were so fierce. We worked with them for a week everyday, practicing their stories, telling their stories, doing trauma exercises, releasing… And then they got up, and they were so strong, they were so fierce, they were so powerful. And both events were filled with men who were weeping, literally. Kleenexes were being passed out. Governors were there, high officials were there. We would never have have gotten [...]the high officials... the – UN brought all those people. They are able to bring in all kinds of players and actors in the story that V-Day would never have access to. And we’re able to do these radical moments of breakingthe silence, and telling their story, and spreading pink, and spreading red, and spreading a whole different kind of energy [...]

I’ll tell you another example of our collaboration that sums it up. Last year we did huge demonstrations in the streets of Bukavu and Goma, and 8,000 women marched in the streets of Bukavu to stop the violence. And it was beautiful. And in the end, there was this huge stadium, and there was speeches and we did this whole performance [...] she [Justine, famous Congolese actress] had organized a theater piece which was about rape. And they were doing this whole community-based piece, where women were being raped, and they were calling on the cell phone- and this was in front of all the U.N. officials, and the first lady, who had come [...] All decked out, in this pink outfit! No kidding, she looked like Princess Diana, in pink [...] during the piece, Justine got dragged away, by a rapist, and when she came back, she had a little baby in her arms, who was a product of rape.

And she started to scream, “I have been raped, by so many men, that I don’t know the name of my baby!” And then she took the baby, and she threw the baby onto the first lady's lap. Threw the baby! Just like that [mimics motion] And said, “You. Name my baby!” I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. The first lady just went, [mimics total shock] scoops up the baby- all the guards were like [mimics sound of loading guns] but they couldn’t shoot the baby, right? And there was just like this moment, 5,000 women watching, and everyone just gasped.

And then the first lady sort of scooped up the baby, held the baby, and the first lady changed all her plans. She stayed at Bukavu three days. She came and danced with the rape women. She fed the rape women, she joined our campaign. And I saw what art can do, but I also saw UNICEF and V-Day. And the UNICEF people were like, ‘Did you plan that? Why didn’t you tell us about that?’ And I was like, ‘I dunno, it just happened!’ [laughter] And that’s what we are able to do together. And that’s what, at our meeting in Goma, the UNICEF people said, we need you to be who you are. You need to go and push the edge as far as it can go, and we need to do what we do."

Cassie

I thought of Cassie today. I do occasionally, only once a month or so now. But for awhile what was done to her haunted me. Its not that I had ever been so close to her. Katie was. I remember her as being golden and rosy. Very kind. Overly bubbly for me, who has been called overly bubbly; she was that warm. I remember how her gruesome murder shocked us, it was incomprehensible. And I was also obscenely curious. I'm not proud of that. I was on a plane when I finally read the article about exactly how he had killed her, a total nightmare of dismemberment and death at the hands of the boy she had maybe loved. I thought I wanted to know. But I still haven't forgotten the sickly strawberry smell of my vomit as I heaved, my body out of control as it reacted with utter horror.

Its years later now, and when Cassie crosses my mind she individualizes statistics for me. Having just compulsively re-read articles and looked through her memorial site, I'm struck as well by my sorrow for him. What happened to this boy? What do we do to our boys so that they do this to our girls? Sad too by some of her family's assertions that Cassie would never have been a victim of domestic violence. That means nothing. Do any of us know what we would really do in these profoundly sick situations? Haven't we all realized with fear how deeply in love we were, and wondered what extremes that love would put up with? More to the point, the power dynamics that color nearly all of our desicions.

I remember her memorial at EMS, sitting in a circle singing hippie songs that were at once beautiful/fitting/tawdry/obscene. How the teachers seemed so much older with grief. Thinking we were too young to know how to do her justice. That she was too young to die. I think now that this will never get easier, but only harder. How nearly all of my close friends have been raped or assaulted. When asked to step in the circle if I've known anyone who has been a survivor of assault I don't even know who to picture anymore- its a blur of faces. Does that get easier? No. Each time I am more angry, more convinced that I have to find someway to make this better.

Re-reading Cassie's words for her own eulogy moved me, and I hope they touch you. I can only imagine what a sweet life she would probably be living now. If I were her, if I were dead, if I could be, I'd be pissed off, 'oh good, my death helps remind you to live more fully. Nice.' But I can't imagine Cassie being so bitter.


"There are those who lived longer, and those who lived better for the world, but she made a difference that mattered, even on a small scale. She was protector to her family, and to women who thought themselves weak. She taught them, as best she could, to find confidence and inner power Ÿ She decided she was going to adopt as many female children as she could support; she brought up those girls to be strong women Ÿ She wrote books that didn't reach mainstream bookstores, but the content mattered Ÿ She loved dogs. The world's not drastically different because of her, but there are signs that she lived. The women she raised grew up to be powerful, and took those values into the world with them. Dogs led happier lives, and her books touched the lives of few, but loyal, readers." (Cassie Brown)

Belgrade bars are way too cool for me

Sipping beers in a bar with pianos as tables, I was struck by how open communication can be with strangers. I miss being around people who know me so well. Yet there is also something liberating when you can have genuine conversation with someone completely new; just jumping in, getting glimpses of their history but never having the whole story (which you couldn't have even if you'd known them their whole life).

I was struck by this, and also a little saddened by how quickly apparent so many of our scars are, even when shared as something already passed. So transparent, as old heartbreaks bubble to the surface three hours in. Are my own sorrows and insecurities so apparent as well? It makes me wish I could meet myself in a bar, chat objectively, just to know how blatantly these hurts show. Then again, maybe I don't want to know.

I've been gone almost 100 days. How startling. How urgent. Having my ticket to Barcelona somehow makes my time here feel more real and fleeting. While very aware of the complexity of this statement: I am learning to be happy here.

Excerpt from the European V-Day Workshop that moved me

(my morning walk along the waterfront)

I love this, how sometimes its about not asking- about resisting and perservering...

"Sarah: Hi I’m Sarah. I’m actually from Memphis, Tennessee [...] I’ve been involved in V-Day for about six years [...] in Memphis, and then I brought it to my university, Mississippi University for Women [...] It’s a very small school, about 2,500 people, and a really conservative area, so I had- I asked my junior year, and was shot down by the president. She said I could quietly show the movie. So I showed it.

Eve: QUIETLY show the movie [laughter]

Sarah: It wasn’t very quiet, I don’t think she liked that much. And my last year, I just didn’t ask. [laughter, “yeah!”] And we had it in a room about this size, we had a hundred people crammed in, so it was a small presentation-

Eve Go girl!

Sarah: - but it got a lot of awareness out, and we gave the money to the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Hurricane Katrina Fund, Which helped with shelters that had been torn down from the hurricane.

Eve: I want to just say, you all don’t know Mississippi. But to do the Vagina Monologues in Mississippi, is like doing it in Islamabad, Pakistan. [appreciative laughter] Its about the same, it’s about the same. So I just want to say, kudos for your bravery! You go!"

Book recommendation!

Please please read Eve's book, a collection of pieces by notable men and women poets and authors about ending violence. It is now being used as a tool in community and university productions just as the Vagina Monologues is. I'm just starting it, but found Eve's first words in the introduction moving. I share them with you below, and hope they inspire you to seek out the book.

"Words. Words. This book is indeed about words. Speaking the unspoken. Speaking the spoken in a new and viable way, speaking the pain, speaking the hunger. Speaking. Speaking about violence against women not because it is the only issue, but because it is an issue that lives smack in the middle of the world and is still not spoken, not seen, not given weight or significance. So that words crack open numbness and denial and disassociation and distance and deception. Speaking so that we are in community, in conscience, in concern. " (Ensler, 13)

Quarterly Report

3 Months done :(
See mushy report below:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967513/Quarterly%20Report%20

Susana challenges Bill Gates

(Excerpt form interview with Susana Moscatel: co-translator/adaptor of Mexico's VM script)

"[...] I have this column for the newspaper, and every year, EVERY YEAR, I update my software...and it keeps telling me the word vagina is misspelled. And I keep on laughing so hard, and ... A year ago I wrote to Bill Gates, and I told him that vagina is the right word in Spanish. It is not misspelled. It doesn’t mean anything else. And he still hasn’t corrected it! So every year- I’ve been doing it for seven years...So every year, I think, ‘Okay, time for the vagina thing again!’ And I check and its still a mistake! ... And I find it unbelievable, you know?! So I think that’s the kind of thing this play, the Vagina Monologues, can change. Because somebody somewhere programmed that to be a mistake, or didn’t program that in... The way that if you write a curse word, it marks it.
JM: As though it doesn’t exist…
SM: But you write penis, and there’s nothing wrong with it.
JM: Oh, pene goes through?
SM: Yeah, pene’s right, it doesn’t correct it [...] It might just be someone’s mistake, but its been so long. And I DID write to Bill Gates!