Exiting Empires

Las Cruces, NM


Border Fence


Dusk at the border - Juarez is at the
base of the mountains



The time has come for me to go. The phase in which you start receiving odd and slightly offensive comments from anonymous readers is a sign that you are ready for round two... the next blog.

I spent seven months of this year preparing to move from Columbia to Colombia. As the "ring before spring" phenomenon hit my graduating class, I watched as women planned their summer weddings. While some dated to find and finalize their fiancés, I speed-dated Colombians. I asked Colombians to coffee, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Applying for the Fulbright in Colombia justified any and every excuse for time within the Colombian community. I thought that by September 2011 I would be writing from a witty new URL that somehow referenced Colombia. However, I am proud to now write from the US Mexico border.

For every anonymous comment, I had a community of bloggers that continued to offer support to a student desperately trying to articulate her experiences in the Global South. Unfortunately, I have to leave this network because I am moving from Blogspot to Tumblr. I would have remained loyal to Blogspot for another three years, but a nice man has the URL I want. I would wait him out, but he has been MIA since the 2008 election.

I am certain that I would have loved living in Colombia if I had been chosen for the Fulbright. I would have been swiftly inducted into the expat community and eventually adopted into the Colombian one. However, it would not have been a perfect vocational fit. My application was strong, but not balanced. I demonstrated a profound interest in Latin American politics and a certain knack for paramilitary activity, but lacked in classroom experience. It was no coincidence that I applied to work in a country that just demobilized over 30, 000 paramilitary troops. Ultimately, it is appropriate that the applicant with no teaching experience was passed over for the English Teaching Assistant. Others are far more qualified to teach in the public schools of Bogotá or Bucaramanga.

However, I have never been more certain of a right decision. The Border Servant Corps is where I belong. The Border Servant Corps is an opportunity for me to work at the margins of the margins. I have been given the chance to live with a view of "exiting empires." Each day I am in between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, I am a witness to the empire of violence, greed, and oppression. However, each day that I go to work, I bear witness as these empires are replaced by communities who defy the femicide in Juarez, the violence less than a mile away, and the fence itself.

My hope is that my new blog, Exiting Empires, will be permanent - that my life and work will always have a view of "exiting empires." I had a strict policy with Ali is Now Abroad that I would try not to regurgitate my daily activities. Instead, I tried to offer a concise and analytical narrative of what I was experiencing in the Global South. Consequently, this blog cataloged not only trips to four continents, but my maturation as I grew to articulate my political consciousness. However, Exiting Empires will be a reflection of my daily life. When you have a front row view of a city saturated with conflict, you have a responsibility to echo the voices who "say no those who invite us to wash our hands of the crucifixions we witness daily" (Eduardo Galeano).


A view from my neighborhood. To my right is Juarez,
Mexico and the border fence.

The URL for my new blog is: http://exitingempire.tumblr.com/

I Believe in the Streets

I was quite shocked at how busy my schedule remained my last year at Furman. The time I anticipated spending in "Traveler's Rest" involved little travel and no rest. Therefore, I sought out other spaces to use for reflection. They were not frequent, but the few times I had available, I spent with the Lilly Center. The Lilly Center for Vocational Reflection led two retreats I was able to attend. One at Mepkin Abbey to a monastery in Charleston, and the other in North Carolina modeled after NPR's series, "This I Believe."

The following is the essay written one weekend with Lilly:


I believe in the streets. I believe in their power, their healing, and their sanctification. I believe in the holy act of civil disobedience.
Yes, the streets are a political platform to advocate for the oppressed. But, I am an echo, not their voice. Just as I fight against public injustice, I am fighting for my own self-preservation.

I have to fight for peace of mind – the right to use the streets for political change and a private peace. It is only in the streets that I can translate this anger and this sadness into a prophetic witness. Into joy. Into hope. The streets save me from being lost in translation.

Just as I believe in the transformative power of the streets, I believe in one date in particular – November 21. You will find me at the gates of Fort Benning. I am holding a cross that bears the name of a woman killed in the massacre of El Mozote.
November 3, three weeks before the School of the Americas protest, I am touring the work of their graduates. 800 civilians dead. Our group is walking now. We carry our books for class and our cameras. To our left is the new church. The old one was used to burn children alive. We turn.

We walk to the house where the women were held before being lined up and shot. This? This is the tree that the only survivor of the massacre hid behind. And that? That is the riverbed she laid in before she could escape the 26 soldiers of the Actlatal Battalion.

November21. What am I doing here?
I am looking for other believers.


I am being photographed. I am being watched by soldiers stationed at even intervals around us. While they line the streets, a helicopters hovers over us.
How did I get here? I am a kid from the suburbs. While I stay on the streets for three days, my beautiful family waits nicely behind in our gated community appropriately named … The Enclave. In the Enclave, there is only room for whispers of social justice. I can drink fair trade coffee and try to buy clothes not made in a sweatshop. But, I have read the sign, NO soliciting! Dissent will not be tolerated. There will be no call to arms within gated communities.

With three years in the streets on November 21, this I have learned. I am called to exile. To leave the gated community and suburbs and head to the streets. There, we will find room for truth and justice. Not whispers, but shouts. There I can lay my cross alongside thousands of others at the gates.

Why am I here? Because 19 of the 26 soldiers of the Atlactal Battalion were trained at the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia. Because my country sent billions of dollars to a tiny country in Central America to fight a dirty war against civilians. Because in the streets, my life has integrity.

This I believe. There is truth to be found behind barricades and between police officers.







Memorial to the victims of the El Mozote massacre, El Salvador



The new school beside where the old school once was


The names of the children are listed below the mural



The destroyed home where the women of El Mozote were kept still shows bullet holes

School of the Americas Protest, November 19-21, hosted by School of the Americas Watch:




"presente"


Gates of Fort Benning after the November 21 Memorial Service


Rufina Amaya, the only survivor of El Mozote


Father Jon Sobrino, the only survivor of the Jesuit Massacre in El Salvador at the UCA carries a cross for Ignacio Ellacuria at Fort Benning. This was the first time Father Sobrino attended the vigil since his brothers were killed on November 21, 1989.

For more information, please see Mark Danner's "The Massacre at El Mozote"

8 a.m. War Call

As part of the Vista House community, we all share our narratives during the year. In the process of attempting to articulate my story & theology, I wrote the following prayer:

I am deliberately writing this out - pen to paper, heart to soul. As a daughter of privilege, seeking to follow my Father to His crucified people - this is my only connection - the contact point inside my head. My people, my fragile and beautiful friend group - my tribe cannot handle this. I can barely handle this.

God, give me peace of mind. Peace of Spirit. Trust.
Let me trust my community.
Let me be confidant in my story of faith, in my testimony. - that I have found You in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. that you did not find me in Bible studies and white suburban churches. I don't want to look for you there, because if there - you would be the predictability I was resisting. You did not fit nicely in between the American dream of 3 kids, a Volvo and a gated community.

Lord, give me peace. Give me righteous anger, but take away this rage.

I have more peace of mind abroad, in the face of extremes, than here. There, I can exhale and trust you. I know I am in the Kingdom of God. But, here - am I strong enough to fight my own head? Take this morning- I woke alone a little before 7 to shower and prepare to lead Morning Prayer. I turned on Al Jazeera for the morning news. Listening from afar, I heard news of a sniper and immediately thought Sarajevo. I looked to see if I recognized the buildings, the neighborhood - kinda. Sure enough, and to my dismay, it was BiH. At least abroad, I am braced, ready for the 2 extreme worlds. But, here, it is the subtlety that is alarming - I am not just a 22-year-old getting ready one Tuesday morning. I am shocked when I complete my outfit with a scarf, and realize, I have put on Sarajevo. I am wearing her. This is intimate. This is a lifestyle.

I am trying to process the thoughts and feelings of seeing Sniper Alley, people running for water - for their life. Srebrenica. These violent thoughts follow me down the stairs and into the kitchen. As I make coffee, I think - you don't know me. You cannot possibly want in my head. It's barely 8 am, and I've already been to war.

Tomfoolery at the Vista House

Traveler's Rest

I flirted with a gap-year before college, but ultimately never took one. I knew I would not come back. Instead, I promised myself that I would be a commuter - traveling between the Global South and Global North whenever possible. Ultimately, Furman allowed me to visit more countries as a full-time student than I could have ever imagined. I was not only politicized around issues of social justice, politics, and the Global South, but became addicted and consequently chased what has been named the "third world glow."

This blog was never supposed to mature into just that, a full-functioning/developed blog. What started as the now standard college blog to largely communicate with parents and friends, was quickly catalyzed into something entirely different with my introduction to Latin American politics. I became fascinated with narrating what I was witnessing, not what landmarks I had hit in country X. Yet, in an attempt not to regurgitate my daily travel schedule via posts chronicling my every move, I have failed to fill in some gaps - mainly in communicating when I returned Stateside.


I was so eager to disassociate myself with the formulaic suburban lifestyle, I was convinced the urgency and intensity found abroad simply could not exist in the United States. In reality, this blog title applies more to my time spent Stateside. The culture shock hits here, where the beautiful Latin American people who have so generously invited me into their struggle are now the faces I see as landscaping crews or janitorial staff. I literally went from one extreme to another - leaving the Americas Social Forum in Paraguay for a home state now threatening a version of Arizona's SB 1070. It is nothing less than shocking to leave a culture saturated with discussions of human rights, social movements, and progressive government policies to enter into a sanitized political environment devoid of Latino support networks.

Now back in the Unites States for an entire academic year, finishing up the credits needed to graduate, I am slowly learning to negotiate the tension of life in South Carolina, and effectively advocate here. It is a constant battle to convince myself to stay. At the time of the attempted coup in Ecuador, I was stunned to realize I had to bring up the breaking news if the class was to discuss it. I have no interest in playing with ideas, parading around a manicured campus in the shadow of the ivory tower, while Latin America was on on fire - escalating threats against human rights activists in Guatemala, massive mining protests in Bolivia, and the election in Brazil expected to replace the popular Lula with female presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff.



So, where do I call home? A tiny town outside of Furman named .... Traveler's Rest. I am hoping that my mother can now take a break from sending me polite emails reminding me to come home.

After previewing life abroad, I could not live on campus where my entire world would be behind the university gates. Furman is fortunate enough to have a progressive campus ministry known as the Mere Christianity Forum. All my experience and travel can now be expressed as a lifestyle I believe in - living as part of a community offering a different version of faith. I live at the Vista House, an intentional Christian community dedicated to hospitality, community and the arts. Six residents live at the house with the hope that our home can be a sanctuary for students. The bottom floor of our home is always open to the Furman community as provide meals twice a week. Each Sunday we gear up for $4 dinners, where we serve between 20-50 students vegetarian meals. Wednesday nights are reserved for our ongoing dinner serious known as "Evening With...". The Vista House invites Furman faculty or community members to our dinner table to engage in "sharp dialogue and intentional conversation". Our presence on campus is expressed through the Mere Christianity Forum - a Christian ministry that compliments others at Furman by creating a space for dialogue. Taking the lead of our namesake, CS Lewis, we try to advance a framework of faith, reason and tomfoolery by hosting weekly theological forums.


So, if you are ever in the neighborhood, I finally have a guest room to offer!