STK, 1

Greetings o Faithful Readers,

Before i go into everything else which follows, BIG SHOUT-OUT to my sister Eileen who comes to visit me for a week at the end of May, her first time in California. On the agenda: at least one night's camping in redwood forests, and the Benbow Summer Arts Festival (first weekend of June), and lots of chillin' at the 'wood, woo-hoo!

Almost a week late to post, sorry. It’s been a very stressful time here at Heartwood. But before i get all wrapped up in Story, let me first point out that something infinitely more important has happened than the story of my stressful last week or month. Darfur has arrived in my heart, and i want you to share it with me. But i’ll back up first, and tell you how i got here.

A lot of the stress which has been in the air lately has revolved around the changing scene at Heartwood. New owners took over in November, and they got around to offering us a new salary and benefits package mid-April. It was abysmal, and all of us were shocked, angry and disappointed by the stingy package we were offered, for starters: 5 days vacation (after the 2nd year of work), instead of the 4 weeks (annual) vacation we currently enjoy.

Heartwood staff has never been very well paid, but some of us had dared to hope that, with billionaire owners, perhaps a small raise would not be out of the question. So imagine how stunned we were to be given a 20% pay cut. The devil’s in the details and i won’t bore you with them. i’ll simply conclude this chapter by saying that, we are now in negotiations with the owners, who have apologized for not checking their numbers more carefully. They had intended, they say, to offer us a bit more. Oops! We staff are waiting for them to make another offer. In the meantime, our pay and benefits remain as they were when they took over.

This is where (i hope) it gets a bit more interesting. Almost a month ago, the evening of Friday, Apr. 13, i had returned from Garberville with a DVD i’d borrowed from the library, and went after dinner to a vacant classroom to watch it with one of the students. A few minutes before popping it in, i realized that this film was just what i needed to put my employment-related woes back into perspective. The movie was Hotel Rwanda.

i don’t know if you’ve seen this movie, or know the story that the movie is based on. In April of 1994, a genocide on the part of the majority Hutus aimed at their Tutsi countrymen began, and when it was over three months later, eight hundred-thousand (some say one MILLION) Rwandans would be dead: some shot, the vast majority hacked to death, by machetes wielded, in many cases, by people they knew: neighbors, co-workers, etc.

There's an amazingly informative overview here, if you're interested in a deeper analysis.

In the movie, Don Cheadle stars as the manager of a hotel in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, who managed to save from the slaughter that was happening all around them the lives of about 1200 men, women and children.

i had always avoided seeing this movie. i knew the story of the Rwandan genocide, and knew that its depiction would be difficult, if not impossible, to watch. But for even the most sensitive among you, i recommend this film, highly.

The director employs certain techniques that make the learning about this Hell a little more bearable. Hotel Rwanda is not a graphic depiction of the blood-bath that one might expect. The director i think understood very well that to drag viewers down into that pit of horrors – to make a portrayal of those events too realistic – would probably frighten away potential viewers. So he did tone it down for us in ways that i will not go into here.

So why see this? Why should you expose yourself to more evidence of the world’s horrors, when you are perfectly aware of them already? Why give yourself more of what you already know too well? Listen to Don Cheadle:

In 2004 I had a life-changing experience. I starred in a film called Hotel Rwanda, about the courageous story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who saved 1,200 refugees in the face of a savage genocide that gripped his country and claimed 800,000 lives. Not since the Rwanda genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement as is happening right now in Darfur.

After hearing Cheadle remind me of what i already knew (that masses of people are being just as brutally slaughtered now as they were in Rwanda), and then after watching his amazing performance in the film, i realized that i could no longer do nothing; that i could at least help to spread the word, and hope that my own actions in doing so might inspire others to get involved, to help stop the killing first in Darfur, then elsewhere.

i realized what a luxury it was to be able to pop in a DVD of my own choosing. And what a blessing, to have been spared the terrors and horrors which victims of mass-murder endure. And that writing the occasional email to someone with influence, making the occasional speech about Darfur, etc. was not too much for me to do. i hope you'll be willing to play some role, too. Simply out of gratitude that you've been spared. And that if you weren't, you'd want someone else to be doing something on your behalf.

Every blog update will have a new suggestion for an action that you can take to help bring attention to the Killing that is going on. And maybe together, we can bring enough pressure, we can shame the powers that be, into doing something to Stop the Killing.

i'll educate myself more on the topic, and share here with you what i learn. For starters, check out Amnesty International's website, and what it has to say about Darfur.