December 15, 2009
The evening before leaving Uganda I got to meet with Val Kalende, the “out” lesbian activist in Uganda (the only one, I think) and her friends at the Freedom and Roam Center. This center is supported by a lesbian group in NY which pays for the rent of the space and the Director's stipend. Val and others work totally without salary (sometimes international trips are funded to various human rights gatherings and other events) which is really hard since Val's “out” status and commitment to the work she is doing makes it very difficult for her to obtain and maintain employment.
When I arrived I saw 5 white women and 8 black women in a circle. Seeing one white person in Uganda is a rarity for me, much less five. What were these women doing here? It turns out that they were visiting from Sweden (a lesbian group, of course), having just hosted a few of the Ugandan women in their country. Collectively, the groups were planning the events of the 2-week visit by the Swedes which had just begun. It sounded like an interesting mixture of conversations, home visits, politically-oriented events and tourist attractions.
After a while we had some snacks and Val invited me to facilitate a circle or conversation only with the Ugandan women that might be supportive to them. I chose to invite each woman to speak of whatever was painful or challenging for her personally and to be an empathic listener, adding some coaching about ways she might think about or address her situation differently, if warranted. The first woman who spoke talked of the immense pain and anger towards God that she felt about the death of her mother whom she viewed as accepting and loving of her in an environment where very few people were. Mostly, I just listened, being present with her in her grief. However, I also encouraged her to view the magnitude of her grief as a reflection and reminder of the intensity of the love and support she had received from her mother. She came to see that her valuing of this love and support was within her and was something that she could always appreciate and connect to.
Another woman spoke of the rejection she feels from her extended family except insofar as their desire for money from her goes. Her mother, in particular, uses a lot of violence in her language to her in an effort to have her daughter increase what she gives to her, e.g. “You have the money I want to go to Mecca again and if you won't give it to me you are just selfish. Why did I ever give birth to you? You are no daughter of mine to treat me like this! You treat other people better than your own mother. Why would you want to give money to someone else and not to me?”
Because there is so much emphasis on people in a family helping one another, when one member of the family is successful financially or has a “good” job, the number of requests for support coming from the extended family and the feelings of obligation can be quite overwhelming. This pattern is not just limited to families with gay members, but is quite common in all families with strong collectivist traditions. Many individuals who earn a very good salary by community standards are never able to save any money or build what we in the West would think of as financial security or independence because they are supporting so many relatives, literally as many as 50 in some cases. This may include supporting a number of children who are orphans because of the AIDS pandemic and other diseases - paying school fees so that they can attend school, fees for books, uniforms and exams and the expense of food.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Nonviolent Communication Changes Lives in Rural Kenya!
Nonviolent Communication Changes Lives in Rural Kenya
December 15, 2009
I am spending most of a week on an island in Lake Victoria in Kenya, the second largest fresh water lake in the world, I am told. The area is beautiful – green and blue and totally undeveloped. My host is the family of the local NVC organizer, who has co-ordinated my visit and escorted me from Nairobi, 10 bumpy bus hours plus a ferry trip and motorcycle ride. The patriarch of the family was telling me, in what seemed like an open and genuine way, what a happy, satisfied man he is. With his cows, chickens, land and family he has everything he needs. As he was taking milk from the cow this morning, he seemed delighted to let me know that this cow provided sufficient milk for the tea all day. (Note: by American standards this is very little milk. These are the skinniest cows every because of a shortage of grass, due to little rain? I am not sure. I hope to figure out how to get photos up once I have faster internet access.)
I am writing this blog entry at the office of a non-profit organization on the island called Badilisha (www.badilisha.org), which means change in Swahili. This organization was founded two years ago with the financial assistance of some NVC trainers from Holland and Germany. Its goal is to support harmonious, low-impact living in the area and it has projects such as sharing information about permaculture, woman's empowerment, a scholarship fund for children (especially orphans), a support group for the caregivers of orphans, a woman's empowerment group (including microcredit groups) and NVC trainings and practice groups. Evans, the head of the permaculture project told me his work includes trainings in seed bed preparation, crop rotation, water preservation and renewable energy (the facility runs exclusively on solar polar and has some income from charging people's cell phones.)
I asked Evans whether there was a relationship between the commitment to permaculture and the one to NVC. He said that since the goal of the organization is to support ecologically sensitive, low impact lifestyle this usually involves collective and/or co-operative living and NVC is a vital link in making this type of living more comfortable for everyone.
I am here to support the NVC groups and am intrigued that they have about 100 people in these groups, which meet weekly. I know that in the USA it is not easy to build such a large community so quickly, despite the availability of many more resources and I am very curious about the success of this venture here. My trainings begin tomorrow, but today I am delighted to have had a conversation today with the organizer of one of the NVC practice groups, an older woman named Ruth.
Ruth told me in general terms that she valued the NVC practice group because it helped her to understand more about people. I was curious just how this has played out in her life and asked her to be more specific, to give me an example of how NVC had helped her. She told me that her husband has had a habit of drinking a lot of alcohol and then coming home in the evening and being very difficult including beating her if he was unhappy with something she did or did not do. (I have heard this particular story a lot in East Africa.) She said that after studying NVC she sat down with him one day when he had not been drinking and served the both of them tea saying she had something she wanted to say to him. She said she wanted to have a loving relationship with him. “Don't you think I love you?”, he asked. “When you argue with me and talk to me unpleasantly and beat me after you have been drinking this doesn't feel loving.” she said. Shortly after this conversation he came back and accused of talking about him and his drinking to people at the church. She said that she hadn't talked about him at the church, but that she was taking this NVC class and learning about people and how to understand them and communicate better. She invited him to attend the NVC class which he did. She said from that point on he stopped drinking, stopped beating her and that they have a really good relationship.
I was really stunned so hear such a moving story of hope and change. Shortly thereafter I spoke Evans again and asked him if he was in an NVC practice group. He said that he was but that because of travel he doesn't attend as consistently as others. I asked him about the impact of NVC on his life. He said that before NVC he really wasn't enjoying coming home to his wife very much and would often avoid doing so. He would ask her to do things for him in the morning and when he came home and they were not all done he would be upset and they would argue a lot. After studying NVC he said that he learned to express the needs behind is requests for her support and to listen to her and understand why she didn't do what he had asked. He came to understand just how much she was doing and why she was unable to get everything done. He said that now he doesn't really ask her to do many things much for him; he takes care of many of his needs himself. And there is much more harmony at home and he enjoys being there.
These stories were so moving and powerful to me. I feel really motivated to support this community as much as possible this week. And I wonder if there is something about African society which makes it more receptive to NVC than American society. Clearly, African society is more collective than individualistic American society, but I am not exactly sure why this would make a big difference in terms of NVC receptivity. In any event, these stories certainly lay to waste any concerns I have had about NVC being “too Western” or “too individualistic” to be of use to African people.
December 15, 2009
I am spending most of a week on an island in Lake Victoria in Kenya, the second largest fresh water lake in the world, I am told. The area is beautiful – green and blue and totally undeveloped. My host is the family of the local NVC organizer, who has co-ordinated my visit and escorted me from Nairobi, 10 bumpy bus hours plus a ferry trip and motorcycle ride. The patriarch of the family was telling me, in what seemed like an open and genuine way, what a happy, satisfied man he is. With his cows, chickens, land and family he has everything he needs. As he was taking milk from the cow this morning, he seemed delighted to let me know that this cow provided sufficient milk for the tea all day. (Note: by American standards this is very little milk. These are the skinniest cows every because of a shortage of grass, due to little rain? I am not sure. I hope to figure out how to get photos up once I have faster internet access.)
I am writing this blog entry at the office of a non-profit organization on the island called Badilisha (www.badilisha.org), which means change in Swahili. This organization was founded two years ago with the financial assistance of some NVC trainers from Holland and Germany. Its goal is to support harmonious, low-impact living in the area and it has projects such as sharing information about permaculture, woman's empowerment, a scholarship fund for children (especially orphans), a support group for the caregivers of orphans, a woman's empowerment group (including microcredit groups) and NVC trainings and practice groups. Evans, the head of the permaculture project told me his work includes trainings in seed bed preparation, crop rotation, water preservation and renewable energy (the facility runs exclusively on solar polar and has some income from charging people's cell phones.)
I asked Evans whether there was a relationship between the commitment to permaculture and the one to NVC. He said that since the goal of the organization is to support ecologically sensitive, low impact lifestyle this usually involves collective and/or co-operative living and NVC is a vital link in making this type of living more comfortable for everyone.
I am here to support the NVC groups and am intrigued that they have about 100 people in these groups, which meet weekly. I know that in the USA it is not easy to build such a large community so quickly, despite the availability of many more resources and I am very curious about the success of this venture here. My trainings begin tomorrow, but today I am delighted to have had a conversation today with the organizer of one of the NVC practice groups, an older woman named Ruth.
Ruth told me in general terms that she valued the NVC practice group because it helped her to understand more about people. I was curious just how this has played out in her life and asked her to be more specific, to give me an example of how NVC had helped her. She told me that her husband has had a habit of drinking a lot of alcohol and then coming home in the evening and being very difficult including beating her if he was unhappy with something she did or did not do. (I have heard this particular story a lot in East Africa.) She said that after studying NVC she sat down with him one day when he had not been drinking and served the both of them tea saying she had something she wanted to say to him. She said she wanted to have a loving relationship with him. “Don't you think I love you?”, he asked. “When you argue with me and talk to me unpleasantly and beat me after you have been drinking this doesn't feel loving.” she said. Shortly after this conversation he came back and accused of talking about him and his drinking to people at the church. She said that she hadn't talked about him at the church, but that she was taking this NVC class and learning about people and how to understand them and communicate better. She invited him to attend the NVC class which he did. She said from that point on he stopped drinking, stopped beating her and that they have a really good relationship.
I was really stunned so hear such a moving story of hope and change. Shortly thereafter I spoke Evans again and asked him if he was in an NVC practice group. He said that he was but that because of travel he doesn't attend as consistently as others. I asked him about the impact of NVC on his life. He said that before NVC he really wasn't enjoying coming home to his wife very much and would often avoid doing so. He would ask her to do things for him in the morning and when he came home and they were not all done he would be upset and they would argue a lot. After studying NVC he said that he learned to express the needs behind is requests for her support and to listen to her and understand why she didn't do what he had asked. He came to understand just how much she was doing and why she was unable to get everything done. He said that now he doesn't really ask her to do many things much for him; he takes care of many of his needs himself. And there is much more harmony at home and he enjoys being there.
These stories were so moving and powerful to me. I feel really motivated to support this community as much as possible this week. And I wonder if there is something about African society which makes it more receptive to NVC than American society. Clearly, African society is more collective than individualistic American society, but I am not exactly sure why this would make a big difference in terms of NVC receptivity. In any event, these stories certainly lay to waste any concerns I have had about NVC being “too Western” or “too individualistic” to be of use to African people.
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