Ramadan Watercolors Project: Sharing Stories from the Uyghur Diaspora
Posted On
07/07/20
Author
Luke Hein and Kawsar Muhtar
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[post_content] => We caught up with Dragons instructors Luke Hein and Kawsar Muhtar to learn more about their art-based project to tell stories from Uyghur people around the world during Ramadan.
Every day during the month of Ramadan for the past two years, Luke Hein makes a watercolor painting and posts it on his Instagram handle, vlfhein. The paintings are renditions of photographs and stories gathered in the Tarim Basin area of western China, and they showcase vignettes of life there: Kashgari pottery, desert landscapes, clay tonur (i.e., tandoor) ovens, street scenes, mosques, and buildings decorated with intricate and colorful mosaics.
“The Boy Loves Fish”
When he launched the Ramadan watercolor project in 2019, Luke had just returned from a personal trip through the Tarim Basin, located in Xinjiang Province, China. He wondered: was there a way to publicize the challenging realities there without making explicit political comments that could compromise his ability to travel there in the future? Inspired by Chiura Obata, the renowned Japanese-American artist who painted and taught while imprisoned at the Topaz internment camp during World War II, Luke hit upon the idea of raising awareness indirectly.
I said, ‘Let me just highlight things I love, to build knowledge, to build understanding, and through that to build empathy and eventually connection and love because that’s what going to make people risk to help somebody else, that’s what’s going to make people loyal to other people.’ The project is valuable because it’s not directly critical. That’s sort of the key move.
“I had been carrying around a cakey old tray of watercolors from my days as a home schooler. I brought it all over Indonesia and China, telling myself I was going to paint something.” It wasn’t until Luke arrived back in the U.S. that he finally sat down to paint with his niece. “I just started doing it, I didn’t know much about watercolors,” explains Luke, adding that he “drew poorly” throughout high school before his interest in the visual arts waned.
“Daily routines in Kashgar’s demolished old quarter”
During the first year of the Ramadan watercolor project, most of the paintings were of photographs from Luke’s direct experiences traveling in Xinjiang Province. Luke had just moved back into his parent’s house in Alabama to help take care of his ailing father, who had been diagnosed with cancer five years prior and was now taking a sharp decline. Luke recalls his father coming out every night while he was painting at 2 or 3 in the morning. “I interrupted my paintings to give massages, talk with him, sometimes to be angry with him, sometimes to be curious, to make time to be with him.” Luke’s father passed away about a month after the completion of the first Ramadan project, on the summer solstice, surrounded by family.
“With this watercolor that you can’t control super well, not in the same way you can control a pen when you’re doing cartoons, drawing/erasing then drawing again, these details, freckles, each leaf on a tree… you can’t do that in watercolor. It takes away your ability to control that much. It ended up being a really healthy medium for me. I came to identify it a little bit with some of the ideas I was struggling with over control, two tensions I was holding very tightly to: One, the situation with my father, the other situation with a friend in China I was very worried about. Both of which I had almost no control over, both of which became fused in me and in the project. I was doing a lot of thinking by painting.”
“Like a Kind of Medicine”
Though not a Muslim, Luke fasted and observed the other tenets of Ramadan while painting. Says Luke: “It’s no accident that I was doing this during Ramadan. I don’t know a lot about Islam, my understanding is evolving. The act of submission was the idea I was repeating in my head. This isn’t necessarily going to look good. The time constraint was another element: I’m going to do one painting a day. Some of the paintings aren’t going to get done. You can see pencil on some of the places where I didn't actually get to painting because it took me so long, I had to move onto the next one.”
“Farms outside of Hotan”
The last piece of the project fell into place during a phone call with fellow Dragons instructor Kawsar Muktar—a Uyghur woman from Kashgar—during which they discussed parallels between Uyghurs and the Cajun ethnic group. Years of conversations with his bayou-born grandmother sparked an increasing interest in the history of the Cajun ethnic minority. Why, wondered Luke, when his grandmother’s first language had been French, did neither he nor his father speak a word of it?
After suffering targeted violence and forced removal from Maritime Canada beginning in 1755, the mostly Catholic, French-speaking Acadians (or ‘Cajuns’) were deported en masse to Britain, France, and various colonies. Many Cajuns later regrouped and settled in South Louisiana. Historian Shane K. Bernard explains how xenophobic policies associated with the Red Scare, World War I and II, and the Cold War pressured Cajuns to move to the city and assimilate into White Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority. It was during this time that many Cajuns, including Luke’s grandmother, stopped speaking French.
“Please speak the common language”
And yet the Cajun identity didn’t disappear. “In the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s,” says Luke, “ there was this revival of Cajun as cool. Something on the verge of disappearing seemed to gain the public eye. Most of it was through music and food, commodifying those in a way. It became cool to go to New Orleans, Mardi Gras was super cool.” Although some Cajun activists are critical of this commercialized caricature of Cajun-ness, Luke suspects that without this revival, perhaps no Cajun tradition would have survived to reevaluate today.
Hein pauses before adding: “There is a long tradition in China of talking about something that happened in a previous dynasty as an allegory, a veiled critique of something that is happening currently.”
In its second year, the Ramadan watercolor project started to change shape from an intensely personal project to a collective endeavor. Luke explains that he had been reading on critical pedagogy and became convinced of the value of what Paulo Freire describes as a dialogic relationship a teacher or researcher forms with partners in a project. He began asking himself: “How can I put more control of this project into other peoples’ hands?”
The answer came once again from Kawsar Muhtar, now living in Paris with her husband and three-year-old daughter. Kawsar recounts: “My encounter with the Ramadan watercolor project actually started with Dragons (staff) orientation in 2016 when I met Luke Hein. I remember we had discussions about what was happening in my hometown. It felt very nice and connected to talk to someone who had been to (my hometown) before and understands the situation.”
During the second year of the Ramadan watercolor project, Kawsar began collecting stories from Uyghurs from the Tarim Basin now living abroad, asking people to share old photos and the stories behind them. Stories and photos came flooding in from Germany, France, Sweden, Japan, the UK, and elsewhere.
“Waiting at the Dress Shop”
Kawsar translated the stories and Luke made paintings from the photos. Says Kawsar: “We want this project to draw people’s attention to the land currently being forgotten. Secondly, we want the diaspora community from [Tarim Basin] to share their beloved memories about their hometown and families, to let each other know that they are not alone, give each other strength and encourage each other to go through this difficult time together.”
“Just a Road Near My Home”
“Personally, it has been very difficult for me to accept the fact of not being able to contact my parents in any form at the beginning. Especially because it happened right after I gave birth to my daughter when I needed my parents so badly, I had tons of questions to ask from my parents, and tons of feelings I feel after being a mother that I need to tell my mom. I felt very angry for a long time, I cried a lot, it even led to a period of depression when my daughter was a few months old. Now I am more at peace. When I receive those stories, I know that I am not the only person who lost contact and connection to their families. I think some people need this platform to express their feelings. It is very important.”
Kawsar shares a recent message from a Uyghur girl living in Japan:
Kawsar: Do you miss your father?
The girl: If I saw his shadow, I would hug it.
“The Taste of Snow”
“For me,” adds Kawsar, “the most inspiring part of this project is that I got to talk to the Uyghur people all over the world, listen to their stories and feelings, and feel connected.
After we started to post our invitation to collect photos and stories, a lot of people sent me their photos and told me about their memories. Some of them didn’t have any photos, but they told me the stories or the feelings which they miss the most. Luke did some paintings based on just those memories, which I think was incredible. A lot of people don't have any photos or memories to share, but they still write to me and express gratitude and say that they love to follow the stories and photos I post every day. One Uyghur lady who lives in Sweden sent me a poem she wrote after she saw our invitation.”
Kawsar and Luke hope to continue the project in future years, both as a means of raising awareness about the lives of Uyghur people to an external audience, and as a way of fortifying Chinese Muslims in the diaspora through storytelling during their holiest month. Kawsar and Luke are actively enlisting help to translate the stories into multiple languages, and many of the stories have already been translated into Indonesian by friend and colleague Umi Akhdadiyah. The pair also have plans to write a children’s book in the Uyghur language using Luke’s illustrations.
Below you will find the aforementioned poem and Luke’s accompanying watercolor painting. It is the woman’s first poem.
I Most Want
A poem on which the painting was based by a Kashgar native and mother of two boys now living in Sweden @miskin.kalip. Translated from Uyghur to Chinese by Kawsar Muhtar, and from Chinese to English by Luke Hein.
I most want to gather the alfalfa clustering in the fields,
to return home and make mouthwatering alfalfa dumplings.
My eyebrows have become dry and rough;
I want the moisture from the Osma grass to draw them into the shape of a heart.
My hair, like my very self, withers and becomes brittle.
I most want to smear it with Persian olive, infusing a bit of nutrition,
or, even more, I wish to hang against my mother’s bosom as when I was a child
and let her to rub me with sheep oil while I absorb the sun.
I want to dress bright and beautiful, put on high heels,
stalk the Old Town’s streets and alleys.
I hope Kashgar’s rain soaks me through.
I’d open my two hands and scream,
allowing my tears to fall the way of the rain.
I most want, in the kitchen, before the holiday, to press close to my mother
while we bake dumplings, fry pancakes, and meticulously prepare the holiday table.
When I think that I was at my mother’s side and never once thanked her,
I have ten thousand regrets and want to run off to slap this mouth of mine until it shatters.
Luke Hein is a freelance writer and experiential educator working in the PRC, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the US. Luke was raised in Auburn, Alabama AL after his Louisianan parents relocated there from Seattle in 1987. Home schooled until high school, Luke left Auburn ahead of schedule to spend his senior year in China in 2005. He has been returning there since, as a student, guide, researcher, traveler, and teacher. He's passionate about rural places, regions where boundaries blur, and the ingenious strategies people invent to contend with life's challenges. He writes and makes art at Instagram @vlfhein and has a recent article out on The News Lens International. You can hear an interview between Luke and his grandmother at a StoryCorps.
Kawsar Muhtar grew up in Kashgar old city and received a Chinese language education until middle school. She worked as a language teacher, journalist, and editor in Urumqi, where she gained valuable experience with Uyghur media and literature. Kawsar continued her studies in London, where she researched the role of mass media in social construction, representation, and understanding of difference and social diversity. After her studies, she worked as a Dragons instructor in China. She now lives in Paris as a part-time editor and an almost full-time mom.
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[post_title] => Ramadan Watercolors Project: Sharing Stories from the Uyghur Diaspora
[post_excerpt] => We caught up with Dragons instructors Luke Hein and Kawsar Muhtar to learn more about their art-based project to tell stories from Uyghur people around the world during Ramadan. Every day during the month of Ramadan for the past two years, Luke Hein makes a watercolor painting and posts it on his Instagram handle, vlfhein. The paintings are renditions of photographs and stories gathered in the Tarim Basin area of western China, and they showcase vignettes of life there: Kashgari pottery, desert landscapes, clay tonur (i.e., tandoor) ovens, street scenes, mosques, and buildings decorated with intricate and colorful mosaics.
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[post_content] => This blog post is written by Claire Bennett, a Dragons Instructor who usually resides in Nepal, but who has spent the months of the pandemic hunkering down in Indonesia, after supporting the Bridge Year Program there earlier this year. Claire worked with Lutfi Handayani, Dragons Local Coordinator, to distribute a Community Relief Fund grant in Yogyakarta.
On our way into the public health office in Yogyakarta we had seen a pick-up truck, sirens blazing, full of people in hazmat suits. It was this trip that really opened my eyes to the scale of the pandemic here in Indonesia. Up until that point, the number of cases of COVID-19 in the country that I somewhat unexpectedly have called home for the last few months, seemed to be within reasonable limits. (Although my definition of “reasonable” has been warped by the comparison to other countries I hold dear which have fared much worse, like my native UK.)
Lutfi and I had applied to the Dragons Community Relief Fund for a small project here in Yogya. Part of the grant was to donate 25 sets of PPE to the local public health office. Procuring the suits had been no small feat; they are not available for general purchase, so we had needed to locate the correct material and then take it to a tailor to sew the suits to the required specification. I marveled that the government had resorted to appealing to the public to donate hand-sewn hazmat suits.
To enter the public health office it is mandatory to wash your hands and wear a facemask. We asked one of the administrators where the pick-up truck we had seen was headed. “To collect and bury the body of a seven-year-old girl who died this morning,” was the reply, and we wished we hadn’t asked. Still, she would not be counted among the case statistics as she was still on the waiting list to have the test that would have confirmed it. “Most of the people that die are in the ‘suspected’ category,” we were told. “But we still have to treat the bodies like they had the virus – that’s why we are running out of PPE.”
Our donation was to protect public health workers overwhelmed by the rising death tolls here. It felt like a good use of a very small amount of funds.
[caption id="attachment_157207" align="aligncenter" width="715"]
Photo by Claire Bennett, Instructor.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_157205" align="aligncenter" width="715"]
Photo by Claire Bennett, Instructor.[/caption]
The other thing we planned to do with the community grant was something we knew would provide immediate relief; giving small amounts of essential food and supplies to those hit hardest by the crisis.
Indonesia is in an unusual situation in that there has been no nationwide lockdown, and no shelter-in-place instructions have been given except for in areas of exceptionally high transmission such as the capital.
The government has declared that a lockdown would be too hard on the country’s daily wage earners, who make up a significant proportion of the population. Despite this, the economic impact of the crisis has hit Indonesia hard, as tourism ceased, restaurants reluctantly shut their doors due to declining demand, construction work has stopped, and markets have closed. A large number of families have lost their only source of income.
In my work with Learning Service I have often spoken out against “handouts” as a form of charity, as it leads to dependency instead of systemic change. However in the face of an immediate need such as a natural disaster or, as we have found, economic fallout from a pandemic, there is a need for a stopgap, and when people are struggling to feed their families there isn’t time to make longer-term plans.
We decided to focus on the two areas of town that host our Dragons students – Tamansiswa, where the semester program house is located, and Kotagede, the community that hosts the Princeton Bridge Year groups. In both communities, we worked with local leaders to identify families most in need, which ended up being 20 families around Tamansiswa and 19 in Kotagede. The community chief in Tamansiswa also requested us to install a small public hand-washing station to promote good hygiene practices for the duration of the pandemic.
The food packages were comprised of bare essentials, to ensure that we were not giving anything that would be wasted. 5kg of rice (of course, we are in Indonesia), cooking oil, salt, sugar, tea, eggs, hand soap, and naturally the ubiquitous “Indomie” instant noodles. The packages were delivered to the community leaders who distributed them anonymously in order to avoid questions or jealousy.
[caption id="attachment_157136" align="alignnone" width="2560"]
Photo by Aaron Slosberg, Instructor.[/caption]
In lots of ways, the support that we offered with this community fund was minimal: a token of support and solidarity in troubled times. But I also like to think it had a modest impact.
For the relatively tiny amount of just US $525, we were able to make 25 hazmat suits for public health workers, support 39 struggling families with a couple of weeks’ groceries, and set up a public hand-washing station. Along with boxes of food and soap, the Dragons community also offered our community in Yogyakarta a sense of hope in these dark times. A huge thank you to all who have donated so far!
Dragons Fund is a program of the COMMON Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
All donations are tax-deductible as permitted by U.S. tax law.
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[post_title] => INDONESIA (YOGYAKARTA)—DRAGONS COMMUNITY RELIEF FUND IN ACTION
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INDONESIA (YOGYAKARTA)—DRAGONS COMMUNITY RELIEF FUND IN ACTION
Posted On
06/27/20
Author
Claire Bennett, Dragons Instructor
Description
Lutfi and I had applied to the Dragons Community Relief Fund for a small project here in Yogya. Part of the grant was to donate 25 sets of PPE to… Read MoreWP_Post Object
(
[ID] => 157103
[post_author] => 1530
[post_date] => 2020-06-12 10:18:08
[post_date_gmt] => 2020-06-12 16:18:08
[post_content] => Julianne Chandler, Dragons Latin America Program Director, shares how a community is undeterred in their endless commitment to each other...
It’s Friday morning and I’m up early, the crisp early winter cold biting through the mountain air. Only in the Andes can you awake to frost on the grass and find yourself battling blistering rays of sunlight by 11 am, with temperatures jumping over 40 degrees F in a few hours. I sneak out of my gate before the kids are awake, stuffing my hand-sewn mask into a pocket as I roll my rusted old cruiser onto the dirt road. I’m still taken by the striking calm that fills the air in the absence of motor vehicles, and our little road is deserted save for a flock of sheep as I head towards the main avenue. When I reach the corner I pause to take in the morning stillness, and my gaze stretches into a horizon that is crisper than ever before: Tiquipayaya lays spread out below, a patchwork of urban sprawl interspersed by large expanses of agricultural fields that predominate farther to the west. To the southeast the city of Cochabamba takes shape, crowned by Cristo de la Concordia, allegedly the largest christ statue in the world. In the far distance I can even make out the lomas of the Zona Sur, Cochabamba’s sprawling working class sector, where trouble is brewing. Bumping down the Montecillo hillside I pass neighbors and families making their way home by foot, their weekly provisions in tow. Technically only one adult member of each family is permitted to leave the house each week, for a 4-hour window designated according to your national ID number, but I see couples and mothers toting children on their backs, stopping to eat a salteña or sip a glass of mocochinchi on the side of the road.
I am reassured by these simple acts of normalcy in the midst of pandemic, by small gestures of disobedience in our little Bolivian town.
I find it uncomfortable to ride with my mask, but slip it over my face as the cobblestone gives way to potholes and clouds of dirt, the abandoned remnants of a paving project that was paused way back in September, just before national elections threw the country into its last crisis. In Bolivia, there are layers to our state of emergency, one overshadowing the next until you can't tell where one was left off and the other begins. As I roll into downtown Tiquipaya I find the streets lively but also eerily quiet. Lines snake their way out of shops with some semblance of social distancing, and a truckload of military men look serious but a bit aimless on the corner of Pablo Jaimes and Avenida Reducto. I know that in some communities thought to be “undisciplined,” such as the Zona Sur, the security presence is not so passive. They stare down the loan gringa as my bike squeaks past, but fortunately don’t ask to see my ID; it’s not my designated day and I’m breaking quarantine regulations by being out of the house. In some pockets of the country protests are stirring as we head into month three of draconian quarantine measures, and images on the news show violent repression by members of the armed forces in K’ara K’ara, El Alto, Yapacaní. In a country with the largest informal economy in the world, people are starting to go hungry and need to work to survive.
On Avenida Cochabamba I slip into the ATM amidst a line that stretches three city blocks all the way to the central plaza. People are seated on lawn chairs and perched on the curb at a scattered distance from one another, peering out over masked faces as they wait to collect a measly government bonus of 500 Bs. (less than $75). In El Alto there are reports of people spending all night in line to retrieve their bonus, wrapped in blankets to protect against the biting cold at 13,000 feet. These are our elderly, our sick, our most vulnerable. Our transition president Jeanine Añez, who increasingly governs as if she has actually been elected for office, likes to group these people in with the “undisciplined” protesters, as if reprimanding children for staying up past their bedtime. Lately language of “obedience” and “discipline” are pervasive in the news and incessant TV propaganda, revealing coming from a regime that has no legitimate claim to office. Under Añez’s newest decree, you can be imprisoned for spreading “disinformation” - even in the form of art - as a threat against public health. If only the same enthusiasm were being directed to testing and medical supplies.
Coming out of the ATM I recognize the eyes of a friend on the corner donning a colorful mask, and we both light up in recognition. Facing each other we pause and hesitate under the watchful stare of the police, and then both decide in the same moment to embrace each other because we haven’t been able to properly greet a friend in weeks. Our kids are in the same class at Kusi, and we lament the fact that they haven’t been out of the house in more than 60 days. Caro gives me a squeeze on the shoulder as I jump back on the cruiser, and my heart shines a bit brighter as I head for the countryside.
I reach the shaded bench across from Hotel Regina 10 minutes early but see that Valentina and two of our homestay mamas are already there. I embrace Doña Leti instantly because she’s like family, but Doña Pilar is nervous about being out of the house and we greet each other at a distance.
Instantly we are laughing and exchanging community gossip, and we are all wrapped up in the absolute joy and simplicity of sitting on a bench with women friends.
Doña Pilar tells us about the recent loss of her corn crop, her primary source of income this time of year, which collapsed after the abrupt end of the rainy season. Soon Paola and her mother Doña Elsa join us as well, with stories about the grandchildren and farm animals and how they’re faring without the essential weekly income they bring in selling chicharrón in the cancha every weekend. Leti is the last to join us, who came from Villa Oruro by foot with the news that her uncle passed away the day before, leaving 9 young children orphaned on the altiplano outside of La Paz (his death was not COVID-related). Her parents, Doña Carlota and Don Abdon, had rushed to La Paz in the cover of night, risking bribes or fines or worse at security checkpoints, to reach a mourning family in need that could not be accessed by Bolivia’s precarious medical system.
Before bidding farewell to our Collpapampa neighborhood families, Valentina and I hand over the modest donation from Dragons that had brought us together. We explain that while we won’t be able to receive students for an indefinite future, Dragons has started a fund to support our key host communities during this time of uncertainty and economic scarcity. They are deeply moved that Dragons has thought of them, and share with us what they’ll be able to do for their families with this support: a quintal de arroz (220 pounds of rice), much needed medication, stores of potatoes, flour, cooking oil, beans, and other staples to weather the certain precarity ahead.
Jumping back on our bikes, Valentina and I continue on to visit the homes of other families. As we ride through open fields and down tree-lined lanes, I am again taken by the sweet liberty of this moment, another small act of rebellion in a time of masks and security checkpoints and social distancing enforced for some at gunpoint. Nearly 10 years have gone by since Valentina and I walked these same roads together for the first time, stopping in at the homes of farmer families and single mamas and Aymara weavers to gauge their thoughts on receiving young Dragons students into their homes. They were so shy and skeptical at first, with young children peeking out wide-eyed from pleated skirts at the idea of a gringita or gringito sharing their homes. “But here, in the campo, where we have dirt floors and chickens roam free? Why would an American student want to live here?” And why not here, Valentina exclaimed, with the authority of someone who raised her sons free on these same country roads.
Here where we mark our days by the agricultural cycle, where the sweet cadence of Quechua hangs in the air, where the protective gaze of Mt. Tunari peers down at us from a height of 16,400 feet along the eastern flank of the longest mountain chain on earth.
Those children who peered up at me all those years ago are grown up now. They’re studying medicine at the public university or working at factories or helping in the fields. These women have been there through my pregnancies, they grew the flowers at my wedding, their younger kids climb trees and play hide and seek with my own daughter on the program house farm. By now they have received countless Dragons hijitas y hijitos into their homes, encouraging their Spanish, nursing their illnesses, laughing across seemingly impossible distances - cultural, economic, spiritual - that fall away in an adobe kitchen over a warm meal.
Riding past the Program House farm, we make our way to the farming communities of Apote and Totorkawa. Doña Marta lets out her deep and infectious laugh when we appear at her store front, beaming as she tells us about her granddaughter who is still managing to bring income in for the family at a meat factory as the public health crisis unfolds. She complains that her braids are untidy when I ask for a photo, and gives me a firm hug when we head on our way. Doña Marta has seen plenty of other crises unfold, she has survived dictatorships and the loss of children, and she’s unphased by COVID-19. We’ll get through this, she says, que mas podemos hacer pues?
Heading further down the road we stop at the homes of Sandra, Doña Eugenia, Susana, Doña Mari and her sister María. They invite us in, offer tea and mandarinas and fresh pacay from the tree. They share stories of past students and inquire about our kids and send their surprised and dignified thanks for the support more with their eyes and gestures than with their words.
All of these families depend on informal labor to make a living, much like most Bolivians. They sell produce and hot meals at the weekly farmer’s market, they are gardeners and carpenters and gifted weavers. They run dental offices out of their homes, and serve as local leaders in neighborhood associations. They look out for each other, just as they worry when students aren’t home as night falls on Tiquipaya. Last fall they saw their sources of income run dry after the political crisis took hold, when a predominately middle and upper class popular uprising paralyzed the country for 21 days. Bolivia was still contending with the effects of political turmoil when the public health emergency descended, snaking its way into corrupt political systems and the embers of recent massacres and the halls of deficient medical centers. Now our homestay mamas face the loss of Dragons income as well, which has provided a steady supplement to their income these past years.
I ride up the hillside back to Montecillo just before curfew kicks in at noon, and am filled to the brim with the presence of these strong women, laughter in their eyes as they face increasingly tenuous circumstances.
Without their generosity, their kindness, their patience, the work we do of connecting young people to a landscape and slice of life different from the one they’ve always known would not be possible.
A donation from the Dragons fund will provide a small boost to their livelihoods in the coming weeks, but we will never be able to repay them properly for what they’ve offered us all these years. How can you even start to place value on the memories, the stories, the intimate folds of their lives that they’ve shared with our students?
I’ve been in this work for a long time and honor the effort that Where There Be Dragons has made to extend support to our host communities in a time of global crisis. In my years as an international educator, I have never come across another organization that seeks opportunities for extended homestays in communities like Tiquipaya or El Alto, locations that would not be on the radar for your average traveler. International travel programming is rife with inequities, both in terms of access to a carefully crafted intercultural experience, but also with regard to recipient communities and the many layers of power and privilege that subtly or overtly shape the exchange. As the travel industry faces an unprecedented global crisis, I am grateful that Dragons has paused to acknowledge the disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities and populations around the world. As far as I know, no other student travel organizations are directing fundraising efforts directly to communities in need.
When I slip back into my gate, my girls are frantic to see me and I realize it’s the longest time we’ve been apart in two months. Inara is eager to hear all about Tía Vale and the mamas I’ve visited, and I wrap my arms around my daughters who have not left our land since March. As I get back to work that afternoon, there’s an update from Ana on the community grant we’ve sent to her in El Alto. “Lxs chicxs are mobilizing” she says, talking to me from the front lines of Jeanine Añez’s assault on Bolivia’s indigenous and poor. “The situation is serious.” They are militarizing El Alto and residents have to get more creative about transporting emergency provisions to the families that have been hardest hit on the barren fringes of the city.
'They have created human chains to transport goods by foot to more remote areas,' she explains.
“Lxs chicxs” - referring to the youth activists and artists that make up Teatro Trono, one of our strongest partner organizations - take turns moving goods on their designated days as the security presence closes in. “We have three brigades getting supplies to the wounded in Senkata, to distrito 11, to families in more remote neighborhoods.” My heart chills at the mention of Senkata, the site of a government-orchestrated massacre that left 9 people dead and dozens wounded in November of last year. “We’re calling it the Cadena de Abrazos que Alimentan.” The chain of hugs that feeds…
Dragons Fund is a program of the COMMON Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
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[post_title] => A Chain of Hugs That Feeds—Dragons Community Relief Fund in Action
[post_excerpt] => Residents have to get more creative about transporting emergency provisions to the families that have been hardest hit on the barren fringes of the city. They have created human chains to transport goods by foot to more remote areas. “Lxs chicxs” - referring to the youth activists and artists that make up Teatro Trono, one of our strongest partner organizations - take turns moving goods on their designated days. We’re calling it the Cadena de Abrazos que Alimentan.” The chain of hugs that feeds…
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A Chain of Hugs That Feeds—Dragons Community Relief Fund in Action
Posted On
06/12/20
Author
Julianne Chandler, Latin America Program Director
Description
Residents have to get more creative about transporting emergency provisions to the families that have been hardest hit on the barren fringes of the city. They have created human chains… Read MoreWP_Post Object
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[post_author] => 1530
[post_date] => 2020-05-21 12:23:06
[post_date_gmt] => 2020-05-21 18:23:06
[post_content] => I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
How to fall down into the grass,
How to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed,
How to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
-Excerpt from The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver.
[caption id="attachment_131040" align="aligncenter" width="676"]
Photo by Eva Ramey, Student.[/caption]
We had just finished dinner in my homestay, and were still sitting on the mat in the center of the main room. The communal bowl of sticky rice had been returned to the kitchen, as well as the bowls of delicately cooked mushrooms and vegetables, and the chicken stew. As I sat, eating a banana and attempting to chat with my host mother, I noticed the two little boys – my host nephews – running around outside with large headlamps flopping up and down on their heads. My host sister seemed to be wandering the house collecting empty water bottles, and her husband, too, seemed to be up to something. I made some hand gestures to my host mom, attempting to gather what they might be up to, and she responded in turn with hand gestures of her own – a motion with her hands and arms, as if to catch something, and a finger pointed in the direction of the rice fields. Kaohi bpai dai boah? Can I go? I asked. She nodded, shooing me towards my host sister, who was now standing outside of the door with a headlamp around her head, her two boys by her side. I hurried to find my own headlamp.
* * *
My host sister, her husband, and her two boys, Alek, 8 years old, and Alak, 3 years old, take the lead on this evening expedition; they are joined by my host cousin, a sullen 16-year old, two local girls, both 10 or 12 years old, and me. Each of us is equipped with a headlamp and an empty plastic water bottle. We emerge from a narrow path between houses onto the rice fields, and disperse, headlamps trained to the ground. I follow my sister, trying to figure out what we are looking for.
The rice fields are dry this time of year, the mud and earth cracked and the rice grasses chopped short, golden, flat and bent. The dry paddies are still marked by their mounded earth boundaries, roughly delineated squares of varying size. I see tiny frogs, smaller than the size of my pinky nail, leaping among the dry grasses, and spiders whose green eyes glisten in the light of my headlamp. But no one seems to pay any attention to these creatures. What are they looking for instead? I watch my sister’s circle of light rather than my own, trying to see what she sees.
Finally, she points, squats, deftly and silently snaps her hand over a flash of black. A cricket. She squeezes it from the earth and into the palm of her hand, slides open the cap of her water bottle, and tips it inside. We are hunting for crickets.
Equipped with the knowledge of what I should be looking for, I spread out. The swell of the uncaught cricket’s chatter fills the night, accompanied by the lilting babble of little Alak, my 3-year old nephew. The evening sky glows purple in the light from neighboring Thailand as our small circles of headlamp light spread across the cracked fields. Orion hangs in the sky above us.
The crickets are nimble and wily. They prance among the grasses, and nestle into the cracks that have spread across the earth, or delve into holes in the paddy mounds, carved by other insects and animals. I know what a cricket looks like by daylight, but that’s not what I’m looking for – in the dim light of a headlamp at night, a cricket looks black, a black dash glinting among the dry mud and grass. I catch one, and then another. My host cousin’s water bottle is half-full already, the crickets piled atop one another, squirming and chattering. But I am learning to look. I follow the low mounds that delineate the paddy borders, and catch a few more. I pluck them by their hind legs, and slide them into Alek’s water bottle, or Alak’s, sharing my goodies; they share theirs, too. I’m learning, from Alek and Alak, from the young girls, and from my once-sullen, now lively 16-year old cousin, how to pay attention – to the night, to the earth, to the grasses, to the crickets, to each other. Tell me, what else should I have done?
Over the course of our travels along the Mekong, I’ve been reminded, as I hope my students have also been reminded, how to pay attention. How to notice the small and curious details in the world around us – the black crickets in the grass; the white porcelain Virgin Mary statue perched atop a red and gold Buddhist shrine; my host father’s arm, tenderly wrapped around his grandson as they watch cartoons together.
How to pay attention to one another – to notice each person in their sorrow, and in joy. How to care for each other. And how to care for ourselves: paying attention to our minds, noticing our thoughts. These are things that no classroom, professor, or textbook can teach us. These are things we learn from a host mother, brother, or nephew, or from the earth, the grass, and the crickets. They are things we learn from each other, and from the world around us. If the Mekong River, if Cambodia, Laos, and China, if the communities that host us, love us, teach us, can leave us with anything, I hope that it might be this –
How to fall down into the grass,
How to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed,
How to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
PS. WANT DRAGONS BLOG UPDATES SENT DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX? ONE EMAIL A WEEK. NOTHING MARKETY. UNSUBSCRIBE ANY TIME. SUBSCRIBE TO DRAGONS BLOG AND STAY CONNECTED TO THE COMMUNITY. ❤️
[post_title] => FEATURED YAK: HOW TO PAY ATTENTION
[post_excerpt] => Dragons Instructor, Angelica Calabrese, wrote this yak while leading a Mekong Gap Year semester. Over the course of our travels along the Mekong, I’ve been reminded, as I hope my students have also been reminded, how to pay attention. How to notice the small and curious details in the world around us – the black crickets in the grass; the white porcelain Virgin Mary statue perched atop a red and gold Buddhist shrine; my host father’s arm, tenderly wrapped around his grandson as they watch cartoons together.
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FEATURED YAK: HOW TO PAY ATTENTION
Posted On
05/21/20
Author
Angelica Calabrese, Mekong Semester Instructor
Description
Dragons Instructor, Angelica Calabrese, wrote this yak while leading a Mekong Gap Year semester. Over the course of our travels along the Mekong, I’ve been reminded, as I hope my students… Read MoreWP_Post Object
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[ID] => 156776
[post_author] => 1530
[post_date] => 2020-05-18 10:22:02
[post_date_gmt] => 2020-05-18 16:22:02
[post_content] => Dragons instructor and journalist, Kristen Gianaris, wrote an article for Morocco World News comparing western perspectives on toilet paper and the benefits of switching to a more sustainable solution such as water—the way many communities around the world have done for centuries.
In The Article Gianaris Mentions:
- Statistics such as the fact that somewhere between 70 and 75% of people worldwide use some alternative to toilet paper and that the World Wildlife Foundation estimates that people flush 27,000 trees a day down the toilet.
- The historical, cultural, and environmental elements present in the discussion around "bathroom business".
- The way that Dragons immersive curriculum encourages students to challenge their perspectives.
Preferring the road less traveled by tourists, WTBD designs educational courses in a way that encourages students to do as locals do. In many of the countries where the organization operates, water is the primary method to take care of bathroom business.[caption id="attachment_156784" align="alignright" width="376"]
An alumni response to a prompt on Instagram to share a lesson from the field that is helping them cope under the pressures of COVID-19[/caption]
Dragons instructors were quoted on the topic:
"TP is perhaps one of the best examples of ‘leaving home behind.’ So much of the world lives without toilet paper, how did/do humans do without it? Exploring this brings us closer to understanding who we are as humans. In addition, breaking open our judgments of what constitutes ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ can help break down stereotypes.” —Tim Hare, Director of Risk Management. “I am doing the #notpchallenge [no toilet paper challenge] with Where There Be Dragons...once you start, there’s no turning back.” —Greg Pettys, Instructor. “Our students are uniquely situated to help build practices on this continent … that are more resource-use-aware...we have to instruct on the use of water to cleanse oneself. And the students, of course, in the first week, students find it hilarious and unsettling, and then by the end, many of them actually like it better than using toilet paper.” — Charis Boke, Instructor.PS. WANT DRAGONS BLOG UPDATES SENT DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX? ONE EMAIL A WEEK. NOTHING MARKETY. UNSUBSCRIBE ANY TIME. SUBSCRIBE TO DRAGONS BLOG AND STAY CONNECTED TO THE COMMUNITY. ❤️
[post_title] => DRAGONS #NOTPCHALLENGE FEATURED IN MOROCCO WORLD NEWS [post_excerpt] => Dragons instructor and journalist, Kristen Gianaris, wrote an article for Morocco World News comparing western perspectives on toilet paper and the benefits of switching to a more sustainable solution such as water—the way many communities around the world have done for centuries. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => dragons-notpchallenge-featured-in-morocco-world-news [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-05-18 14:50:53 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-05-18 20:50:53 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.wheretherebedragons.com/news/ [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [categories] => Array ( [0] => WP_Term Object ( [term_id] => 697 [name] => Dragons Travel Guide [slug] => dragons-travel-guide [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 697 [taxonomy] => category [description] => [parent] => 0 [count] => 25 [filter] => raw [term_order] => 2 [cat_ID] => 697 [category_count] => 25 [category_description] => [cat_name] => Dragons Travel Guide [category_nicename] => dragons-travel-guide [category_parent] => 0 [link] => https://www.wheretherebedragons.com/news/category/dragons-travel-guide/ ) [1] => WP_Term Object ( [term_id] => 638 [name] => From the Field [slug] => from_the_field [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 638 [taxonomy] => category [description] => Featured Yaks, Reflections, Quotes, Photo Spreads and Videos from the Four Corners. [parent] => 0 [count] => 74 [filter] => raw [term_order] => 4 [cat_ID] => 638 [category_count] => 74 [category_description] => Featured Yaks, Reflections, Quotes, Photo Spreads and Videos from the Four Corners. [cat_name] => From the Field [category_nicename] => from_the_field [category_parent] => 0 [link] => https://www.wheretherebedragons.com/news/category/from_the_field/ ) [2] => WP_Term Object ( [term_id] => 653 [name] => Global Community [slug] => global_community [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 653 [taxonomy] => category [description] => Featured International People, Places, Projects. [parent] => 0 [count] => 45 [filter] => raw [term_order] => 6 [cat_ID] => 653 [category_count] => 45 [category_description] => Featured International People, Places, Projects. [cat_name] => Global Community [category_nicename] => global_community [category_parent] => 0 ) [3] => WP_Term Object ( [term_id] => 1 [name] => Uncategorized [slug] => uncategorized [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 1 [taxonomy] => category [description] => [parent] => 0 [count] => 12 [filter] => raw [term_order] => 16 [cat_ID] => 1 [category_count] => 12 [category_description] => [cat_name] => Uncategorized [category_nicename] => uncategorized [category_parent] => 0 ) ) [category_links] => Dragons Travel Guide, From the Field ... )
DRAGONS #NOTPCHALLENGE FEATURED IN MOROCCO WORLD NEWS
Posted On
05/18/20
Author
Dragons HQ
Description
Dragons instructor and journalist, Kristen Gianaris, wrote an article for Morocco World News comparing western perspectives on toilet paper and the benefits of switching to a more sustainable solution such… Read MoreWP_Post Object
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[ID] => 156770
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[post_date] => 2020-05-15 11:58:11
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[post_content] => Frances McMillan, a participant on a West Africa semester program, made the following video to reflect the transformative impact of the close friendship she formed with her homestay brother, Moussa.
Upon arriving in Senegal, I was petrified. How would I form a meaningful relationship with my host family when we didn't speak the same language? When we came from two different worlds? Would I be able to adapt to their way of life, while still holding onto my own identity?
I soon realized I had nothing to be worried about. Yes, it was hard at first. Like, really really hard. Was there deafening silence coupled with awkwardness and anxiety for the first few days? 100%. But as time passed, I felt like I had known my family forever. Their routines became mine. After dinner, I cleaned with my sister, then we settled down to some Senegalese soap operas with my grandma and I always laughed when they laughed (even though I could barely understand a word of the rapid-fire Wolof), and then it was tea time.
Moussa and I sipped hot, bittersweet attaya from tiny glass cups while popping fresh peanuts into our mouths in the courtyard under the stars. We exchanged sarcastic comments and inside jokes like old friends. I remember I never wanted to go to sleep because I could talk with Moussa forever. He made me feel like I had a second home I could always return to.
I hope this short documentary stirs something inside you. Whether it's an urge to travel, an urge to get outside your comfort zone, or maybe just a feeling of admiration for the man who I was lucky enough to spend every day with for a month. Thank you Dragons for making our connection possible and thank you Moussa, you are a force to be reckoned with and I can't wait to see what you achieve in the future.
Love your friend and mentee,
Khadidja (Frances)
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[post_title] => MOUSSA'S IMPACT: AN ALUMNI REFLECTION ON THE POWER OF HOMESTAYS
[post_excerpt] => Frances McMillan, a participant on a West Africa semester program, made the following video to reflect the transformative impact of the close friendship she formed with her homestay brother, Moussa.
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[post_modified] => 2020-05-15 12:29:38
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MOUSSA’S IMPACT: AN ALUMNI REFLECTION ON THE POWER OF HOMESTAYS
Posted On
05/15/20
Author
Frances McMillan, West Africa Semester Alumnus
