Elin Henrysson - November 2011 Journal Letter

Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC)

Dear Friends,

We are in the peak of rainy season here in Burundi, enjoying tropical downpours - one of my favorite parts of living in Africa - enduring the less pleasant muddy roads and welcoming the sun back again. As I sit down to write this letter the sun is peeking through thick grey clouds for the first time in a week. A refreshing time for some reflection.

One of the highlights of the months since my last letter has been the opportunity to facilitate a trauma-healing workshop. The workshop took place just outside Bujumbura, on the plains bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group of twenty participants were drawn from a nearby government-sponsored settlement and the surrounding community. Many were repatriated refugees who had spent most of their lives in camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo, others were former rebel combatants or demobilized soldiers and still others simply members of their communities who have endured waves of violence for decades.

We all gathered together in a cool, dark Friends church, light streaming through the open windows and the gaps in the bricks at the back and front of the church, carved in the shape of a cross. After my colleague Florence skillfully opened the workshop, I lead the group through an understanding of Johari’s window. Johari’s window is a tool developed by Megha Bhalla and Harry Ingham. It uses the four panes of a window to represent ours and others’ knowledge of ourselves. It is used in the HROC workshop to gently introduce the idea of sharing our hidden selves with others. I began by asking participants the purpose of a window. Looking around the room at the open windows participants said “to let the air in”, “to let the light in”, “so you can see outside.” We then went through each pane, giving examples of things everybody knows about us, things we know but others don’t know about us, things others know about us but we don’t know, and things we don’t know about ourselves and others also don’t know. As it was early in the workshop I expected that the things shared would stay at a more superficial level. I was blown away by the way people opened up, telling their stories of loss, violence, and abandonment. At the end of the session, it occurred to me, and I shared with the group, that this is what the HROC workshop is all about– opening up the windows to ourselves and allowing the air and the light to enter, allowing ourselves to be seen and to see others. Even though it was difficult to be confronted with the reality of so many wounded lives, it was a joy to facilitate the workshop, to share with participants some of their stories and allow them to open me up to new insight.

This workshop was part of a larger three-year project focused on four government-sponsored settlements and their surrounding communities. To measure our impact on these communities, I worked with my colleagues Adrien and Florence to develop a baseline trauma survey that we conducted with 20% of the planned participants for the first year. One part of the survey provides a list of 17 possible traumatic events and asks the respondent whether they have personal experiences of them. Some examples include “combat situation”, “lack of shelter”, “forced to hide among the dead” and “sexual abuse/humiliation.” Most of the respondents had personally faced and endured at least ten of the events.

Since coming to Burundi, there have been times when I’ve wondered whether the trauma-healing workshop remains relevant to communities that have enjoyed relative peace since 2005 and whose lives are occupied by the challenges of crippling poverty. The results of this survey however confirm the urgent need for spaces of healing, especially in a context that requires all efforts to be directed toward immediate concerns like providing enough food and clothing for the family, ensuring that children can go to school or finding the money for medical treatment. It is my hope that my time at HROC has, and will continue to enhance the organizations ability to communicate this need and the essential service the HROC model provides to wounded hearts and communities.

During the last week, Sapphire Williams and I welcomed Laura Shipler Chico from QPSW. She was in Bujumbura for a week and it was a wonderful time to share our life in Burundi with her, to reflect on the year so far and what lies ahead. It was especially important to think about mine and HROC’s priorities for the placement this year, and to have a space to express my gratitude to HROC and QPSW for the enriching experience I have enjoyed so far. I am conscious that this sense of being exactly where I should be is rare and I am gratefully determined to keep living it this year.

Amahoro,
Elin