Back in Africa

It’s been too long! I know this because I almost cried in the jetway when I got off the plane and smelled “Africa.” This is a smell that is at once so familiar and impossible to describe…burning fires and lush vegetation mingling together? Something like that.

Even though I was in Kenya, it still felt good to be back on the Continent. We drove out to Naivasha on my second day…a romantic and historic journey through the Rift Valley. There is a pass that we came over and looked out from the escarpment as far as the eye could see. For some reason, I did manage to see a herd of zebras, who were just chilling on the side of the road. The roads in Africa are full of life. In Nairobi, traffic is ensnared with cars and bikes and people and goats. There are sign posts like “God Saves Hair Salon” riddled everywhere, and in Nairobi for some reason, there are notices plastered every few feet for doctors promising love potions and anxiety relief. Hmmm. In the country, or “bush” as they say, there are vehicles piled two stories with god knows what: mattresses, sugar cane, you name it. Trucks going 14 miles per hour. Motorcycles, or bodas, going 114 miles per hour. It all passes by as I look out across the valley and dream.

The hotel in Naivasha was a classic safari lodge. It was pretty nice with stunning grounds of acacia trees and tropical plants. The rooms are vast, although a little worn. I love these places and they are truly a unique experience of East Africa: colonial décor mixed with safari animal motifs. We were greeted after our journey with hot towels soaked in peppermint oil and cold fruit cocktail juice – likely pineapple, papaya and passion juice. Passion juice! Why the US cannot import passion juice is beyond me. It is so delicious and I, not a juice person, cannot get enough when I’m here.

We had speeches at our opening event that went on for hours. I’m not kidding. HOURS. My patience for such things was practiced when I lived in Uganda, but it had atrophied in my absence and I found myself looking around after about two hours wondering, “isn’t anyone else hungry?!”

As usual with my jobs over the years, in Naivasha I met brave and amazing people who were fighting tirelessly for human rights. Unlike the international development world, human rights activists, whose lives are regularly on the line, have a different take on international assistance. They have to be talked into it in most cases and are uncompromising in their convictions. That is perhaps a blog for another time.

I find myself returned to Africa after several years overwhelmed in every sense. Many of the stories and myths I have carried back to life in DC have been confirmed. Other memories have not done justice to this place. And I haven’t even gotten to Uganda yet!

#MeToo

Tarana Burke, Rose McGowan, Asia Argento and many more women have ridden the year long rebuke of gender inequality in the US and razed one of the most vile, cancerous cores of it: sexual harassment and sexual assault. These brave women and so many others are felling titans of various industries left and right. In a year that everyone wishes we could forget, but likely will remember for the ages, the Metoo movement is a silver lining. It is a concrete, albeit harsh, step towards justice that women (and our allies) promised ourselves at last year’s Women’s March.

I have been fortunate to have escaped sexual harassment mostly unscathed and am not a survivor of sexual assault. I note that from my teenage years, I have, like most girls, constantly navigated through incidents. These have ranged from head down scurries through catcalls on the street, which, although common, still feel TERRIBLE to just knowing to get out of or preempt certain situations. I am not a survivor, but have felt the ever-present threat, which is palpable and scary.

While working at the UN, I used to tell interns that came to work in my office each year, “Listen, there’s a lot of dirty old men here at the UN. Most have diplomatic immunity. If you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation let me know and we’ll figure out how to handle it.” This advice served me well too. However, there was the time I was delivering a statement about child soldiers in northern Uganda to members of the UN Security Council and one member (of the UN SECURITY COUNCIL) caught my eye, smiled broadly, held up his hand like a phone and mouthed “call me”. My instincts told me that he didn’t want me to give him the latest statistics on child mothers…I always say that I became a feminist when I turned 30 and found myself on the frontlines of sexism for the first time in my life at the UN.

Alas, I am irked by the growing pushback on the MeToo movement. There are valid criticisms, like why did Taylor Swift and not Tarana Burke make it on to the cover of Time magazine? Indeed, the sensitivity around intersectional feminism, while difficult, is a welcome struggle that women are facing. But I’m also seeing articles in my social media feed about the “inevitable blowback”, the need for a clear direction, the need to crown an infallible leader, and the failure to recognize victims who are not celebrities or in some other position of power. I know these questions are part of the struggle, but some of them unfairly eclipse the burgeoning movement.

Underscoring all of these questions is my frustration with our culture in general: why do we need to know the end at the beginning? Our addiction to instant gratification is selling progress short. An example from another recent movement: when the Occupy Wall Street Movement happened, similar questions were asked and it was condemned as a failure when the actual occupation ended. And yet, two years later “the 1%” is an established and damning criticism in our lexicon and I would even say some of the current resistance began to get “woke” during this time.

As for the celebrity figurehead, of course this is problematic, but these women truly suffered and since our culture worships celebrity, this is likely the best way to finally name this thing that happens or could happen to every woman I know. Rose McGowan is far from perfect. Some of her tweets make me cringe. But we don’t need perfect leaders; they don’t exist. I also disagree profusely with the idea that we’re only dealing with famous peoples’ experiences. They grab the headlines, sure, but I bet there’s a whole lot of decision-making by men in power outside of Hollywood that has changed profoundly. Whether it’s the rot of Hollywood and politics that EVERYONE knows about or the office park in suburban Dallas or the pizza joint on the Jersey shore or the hospital in Boston, women know two things: they are not alone and people FINALLY believe them.

The tide is turning and the impact is being felt. “Feminism” has gone from a badge of the militant fringe to a rallying cry for all women. Well, except for the seemingly impenetrable block of white conservative women – come on sisters! Danica Roem and the Virginia elections show us that the movement is real and the resistance to inequality is not going quietly into the night. The brave women who continue to come forward have changed the workplace forever. They have torn down one of its largest, most invisible but viciously tangible obstacles. The restoration of workplace order and women’s ascension to power is happening.

“Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power - not because they don't see it, but because they see it and they don't want it to exist.” – bell hooks

Peru, for a moment

I just wrapped up a quick jaunt to Lima. I was there to participate in a flagship activity of one of my grantees: a global expert workshop on hate crime against LGBTI people. The gathering was impressive. From Lithuania to Argentina to India to South Africa and in between, we brought together civil society, police and prosecutors to discuss possible common approaches and best practices.

Much of my time in Lima was in a typical conference room at the Melia Lima Hotel. “72 and fluorescent” one of my taxi drivers called it. But I did have a moment or two in Lima.

Lima, I was warned, isn’t great. The traffic is truly maddening and limits one to just one or two excursions in a day. Knowing that I had only the day I arrived off of the red eye for tourism, I didn’t dally but headed straight to a 5-star lunch at Astrid & Gaston, as one does. It was a lovely entry point, had all the fanfare of fine Peruvian dining and was, indeed, an oasis in the hectic city. I ubered there “all by myself” as Austin says, and then ubered to the historic city center. I meandered without agenda through what I imagined was the typical South American architecture streets. Many of the old buildings were yellow, which of course I loved. I stumbled upon a man singing earnest Peruvian love ballads (while I cannot confirm this due to the Spanish, I could tell by his passionate expressions and the appreciative crowd around him). This spontaneous concert took place in the courtyard of the cathedral along the banks of the river whose name I don’t know.

I decide to walk a long distance to the Incan market, because with one day free I had to hit the shops. It was a brutal walk. There was a pedestrian walkway for a while, but that gave wat to a deadly, decidedly un-pedestrian highway where one played “Frogger” to cross the street. Adding insult to injury, somehow TripAdvisor got it really wrong – the Incan Market was not where it was supposed to be! Dejected and dusty, I ubered back to the hotel to re-group.

The next evening the group attending the workshop headed up the street to a mall for dinner – Lima loves malls! As chance would have it, this turned into a great night of Pisco Sours and soccer. Peru qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 36 years! The town went bananas!! Motorcyclists were riding on their handlebars (true!) and cars honked with jubilation into the wee hours. In the morning a sweet young waiter in the hotel restaurant served my eggs and couldn’t hold back another second:

“You know,” he said, “Peru had a soccer game last night.”

“Yes, I know,” I said.

His smile was a mile wide.

I made it to the seaside cliffs of Miraflores on the second night. We were invited to the Swedish Ambassador’s residence for a reception. It was delightful and the views were breathtaking as the sun went down over the water.

Hardly enough time to judge a place, but Lima (save the traffic) is lovely. The people and culture are warm and vibrant. Next time, the Andes, Macchu Piccu and the Amazon call…