The First Mission

He came to us at night, half-naked, covered in dust, and breathing heavily.

"Help me! Please! They want to kill me! Please!"

I had just fallen asleep, so I was awake again in a flash.

"Zandro! Get up!" I shouted as three men ran in after him.

The largest grabbed him by the arm, was pulling on him, trying to pull him away from us.

"Wait, wait!" I shouted. I felt the stick the large man carried whip past my face as he tried to strike the man I was trying to protect. "MY FRIEND. WAIT! You've nearly hit me now."

When the belt nearly hit me, I placed myself directly between the two. One man on the ground, trying to shield his face from the blows, the other in a murderous rage.

What I didn't realize was the man doing the beating had several inches and at least 45 pounds on me. If it had been daylight, I don't know if I'd have been as quick to intervene.

___________________

It was supposed to be an easy assessment mission. We'd be providing protection support for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in their distribution of non-food items (NFIs). IOM delivered the mosquito nets and blankets. We made sure the little old ladies didn't have to stand out in the sun too long in one of the biggest swamps in the world.

At least it's green.

Early on in our stay, however, we were approached by the local ICRC representative, who brought us a Kenyan man and a Ugandan husband and wife. They were looking to be repatriated to their home countries after months of fleeing the conflict around Malakal.

_____________________

There are things that must remain confidential. Things we know cannot be said. Things we see cannot be reported, if for no other reason then that they might put others at risk.

The Ugandan had been a merchant. He had money. Through a very circuitous path, the Ugandan found himself beaten, a gun in his mouth, forcibly marched out to the bush.

I've read far too many stories of human rights abuses in Africa to know that his story ended in anything other than murder. In Côte d'Ivoire, outside Man, I heard firsthand that both government and rebel forces had executed men outside town. Nigeria is notorious for police and military abuses that end with a "thief" shot while "trying to escape" even if his hands were bound and the bullet went through the back of his skull.

It was suicide for our Ugandan to push and try to run. It was suicide to stay and die in the bush. His potential executioners tried to wrestle him to the ground. He ran. They caught him near the river. He slipped his shirt and jumped our fence, where he'd found the people who'd promised his safety.

Four days later, we helped extract him, his wife, and the Kenyan. We got them safely aboard a helicopter to Rumbek and a plane to Juba.

At the airport, the Ugandan and the wife thanked us with shy smiles. The Kenyan, however, hugged each of us tight. "Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll never forget you. You saved my life. I'll never forget you."

He was a driver. A young guy who'd been caught up in the violence and had been running from it since. He was finally on his way back home.

__________________________

They're safe now. The three of them. There are others who aren't so lucky, who are still trapped in a sea of violence, trying to get home.

Imagine having no access to the outside world. The network is down. You haven't spoken to your family in months. They have no way of knowing whether you're alive or dead.

That's the fate of thousands throughout South Sudan at the moment, both foreign and domestic.

With this mission, we helped three find their way home.

For me, it was my first mission, a baptism by fire, as my partner Zandro put it.

I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Practice Makes Perfect

Nine and a half hours of training in the sweltering heat of Juba’s early rains is probably more than enough for most people.

But for the twenty-one of us who came to do unarmed, nonviolent civilian peacekeeping in South Sudan, in the middle of a civil war, there’s a bit more to worry about than the humidity.

We’ve spent these first few days going a bit through security risks – abductions, grenades, targeted attacks, and the near-constant presence of small arms such as pistols and assault rifles. In this, we’ve learned that much like martial arts, the best defense against these risks is to avoid confrontation in the first place.

As unarmed civilian peacekeepers, our duty is to the communities we serve. We’re not content to wait patiently behind massive walls edged with razor wire. We don’t carry weapons to defend ourselves, nor do we travel in convoys with force protection accompaniment.

Rather, we rely on our relationships within the community to keep us safe and help us in our work. If the Bible teaches to “Love thy neighbor,” then the training so far has definitely focused on “Know thy neighbor…and make sure she knows you.”

Not just your neighbor, but your community – the various shop owners in various towns, the district government officials, the police, the military, the boys in the cattle camps, the women at the well, even the armed actors on the other side.

Indeed, the guys with guns, from either side, are some of the most important contacts we have. It’s important not only that we remain nonpartisan in our work, but that we remind others of our nonpartisanship. We do this not only by working with all sides but by making sure everyone knows we work with all sides.

There are definitely performative aspects in this. It’s not enough to be nonpartisan and nonviolent. Instead, we have to broadcast – through our words and deeds in every aspect of every day to as many people as possible – that we are dedicated to reducing violent potential and safeguarding vulnerable populations.

Practicing Fear

Everyone has to start somewhere, and on our second day of training, that start was with us, as individuals. We had to break ourselves down to build ourselves up.

That’s because one of the greatest dangers to the organization and to our personal safety will most likely not come through an external threat, but through personal mistake. It is all too possible, after weeks in the field, after bearing witness to fights, death, displacement, and extreme trauma, that it will all get too much. That instead of bending, we will break.

The first step is controlling oneself in the face of danger. Focus on the breath, reduce the pulse. Above all, remain calm. The second is to recognize the danger within you, the levels that can build and build until trauma has forced you so far into a corner that you have no choice but to lash out.

Without going into too much detail, we were pushed, hit, threatened – put in simulated situations that should frighten us and asked to remain calm. It’s the training that hopefully will prepare us for similar threats in the field.

There is fear in these scenarios, even if they’re just simulations. But by focusing on one’s breath, by turning inward, by finding that core inside of you, that the threats, the hits, the abuse and humility becomes so much white noise.

Practicing Trauma

Indeed, fear was easier to confront – the external – compared to what came next. We had to face down our demons and thank them for hurting us.

Each of us was asked to remember previous trauma. Something someone said to us that hurt so deeply, that even if we forgave or forgot long ago, left a spiritual scar in its place.

We shared simple phrases with the team that we associated with those events, and then we had to walk the gauntlet.

Think of some of the most hurtful things you’ve ever heard, and then think of some of the most hurtful you yourself have ever said, whether intentionally or not.

You’re stupid. You’re lazy. You’re fucking useless. I don’t want to see you again. I never cared for you.

We each had our phrase, and we had to walk between the lines of our team members while they looked us dead in the eye and repeated the phrase back to us. Twenty other people reminding you of your trauma and throwing it in your face, and after each one, we had to thank them for the pain.

For me, the anxiety skyrocketed the closer I drew to my turn. As I began the walk, each word cut deep. But as I continued on, it had less and less of an effect on me. The trauma was still there, but it no longer owned me like it once had.

And that’s important. Because the most dangerous time could come from when someone inadvertently touches that trauma. We lash out, and conflict ensues. By accepting trauma, being grateful for it, it can no longer hurt us.

Practicing Meaning

Finally, I’ll leave with a question that was asked of us. “What is one action you have done in your life that left you feeling content and helped you to feel real meaning?”

It’s a question we can all ask ourselves, something that we don’t often do. When was that last time? What was it that you did?

Chances are, it came about through helping someone. Humans are social creatures. We thrive in our relationships and connecting with one another.

So ask yourself, “When was the last time I did something that made me feel I had done something meaningful?”

Then ask, “What’s the next thing I can do to feel that again?”

No News, Good News

I’ve spent the last five days in South Sudan, sweating my way through stiflingly hot, humid afternoons, waiting for rains that rush in on tempest winds and unleash the full force of the sky in torrential downpours.

I've been lucky to have a bit of time to adjust to the jet lag that has dogged me, a byproduct of humanity’s hubris – traveling halfway around the world in a steel tube while Disney’s Frozen plays itself out on a six by eight inch screen embedded in the seat back in front of you.

Training started unofficially with Psychological First Aid(PFA), a technique for first responders to a crisis or disaster situation. Much like physical first aid, PFA assesses needs and tries to create a safe space for victims. It is not counseling, just as first aid isn't surgery. Instead, it’s an attempt to staunch the bleeding and stabilize the individual for future healing.

The training has brought in several international staff new to the game as well as a few who have already spent several months in the field. We’re also joined by a handful of nationals, South Sudanese who are our links to other displaced persons through language, culture, and kinship.

A Good Time

I keep being told that I've ‘come at a good time.’ The rains are coming on, and for a few months at least, I’ll be battling mud and mosquitos more than sun and sand.

‘Good’ might be an overstatement though as far as work is concerned. The rainy season is coming on strong, and in only another month or so, much of the country will turn into a swampy mess. Roads flood, vehicles get stuck and break down, and incidences of malaria and water-borne diseases will rise drastically, not least in the numerous, overcrowded camps where we’ll be working.

This next month will also see some of the most intense conflict, as the opposing factions fight for land and control of key towns, bargaining chips for future negotiations. With one million or more already displaced, there will be no shortage of humanitarian need.

Indeed, the conflict has now been labeled a Level 3 humanitarian emergency, on par with the Central African Republic and Syria, which is why it has only recently landed on the international media’s radar, mercifully (I hope) displacing an extended search for a missing plane.

Safety and Security

Some have contacted me in the past few days because the recent violence has finally reached the threshold where it can be considered a ‘developing story.’

The past two weeks saw attacks and counterattacks on Bor and Bentiu, with dozens to several hundred killed. I’d just like to say that I am safe in Juba, and although there are always rumors that the rebels will make a move on the capital, I’ve been told that it is pretty unlikely at this point.

Though I will eventually ship out to a field site, and the dangers will be real, they are nothing compared to those faced by the vast majority of South Sudanese fleeing the fighting. We tend to think about bullets and bombs in conflict, but exponentially more people are killed by the hunger,disease, and lack of shelter that accompanies displacement.

What I’m trying to emphasize then is “Don’t worry about me,” and while I know that’s small consolation to those who hold me close to their hearts (here’s looking at you, family), it should also come as somewhat of a ray of light.

I have food. I have water. I have shelter. And for that, I am unbelievably lucky. More fortunate than many who have faced so much and have a long road back to normalcy, if that’s even a place that exists after civil war.

If you hear about an attack in the international media, you can rest assured that I’m fine. Because by the time it’s hit the airwaves back home, it’s already old news here. And if it’s been a while since you've heard from me or since I've last written, just tell yourself that no news is good news. 

South Sudan - The New Road

Six years ago, I left America to join the United States Peace Corps, an experience that would change everything in my life, taking me farther from home than I'd ever been before and further from anything I'd ever known.

I've been back several times since. I traveled West Africa, went back to Nigeria and my village, biked through South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

It was always a lark though. Travel, never work, a distraction leading me on the path to now.

I'm leaving for South Sudan, where I'll be working with Nonviolent Peaceforce as an International Protection Officer. I'll be living and working in one of the camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), victims of what has become a full-fledged civil war only a few short years after the country gained its independence.

At the moment, upwards of 800,000 to one million people have fled their homes due to the fighting. With the rainy season coming on, the threat from malaria, dysentary, and other diseases is increased beyond belief for those crammed into overcrowded camps.

My job will be to work with vulnerable communities - conducting conflict assessments, context analyses, and liaising with local leaders and international organizations to hopefully help in some small way. I won't know more until I'm in country, and by that time, I will probably have limited to non-existent access to the Internet.

Obviously, I've had a lot on my mind. Things that I haven't even fully grappled with yet. If you have any questions, hopefully this entry can answer some of them. Apologies that this will seem very disconnected. It's hard for me to understand these things even as I write them.

1. Safety and Security

Large parts of South Sudan are currently active war zones. The rainy season will wash out roads and make heavy artillery movements difficult.

I'm not so much worried about my own safety, but that may only be because we tend to reduce risk until we face it. The most difficult aspect of preparing to leave this time around are the hidden anxieties at play among everyone I hold close and dear.

For lack of a better way to describe this, I am, essentially, going off to war, and while I won't be fighting, I will still be exposed to all the dangers that accompany conflict.

There's a scene in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, where one of the main characters is driven to the bus yard by his father. Instead of a father-son heart-to-heart, the real possibility that this could be the last they ever see of one another, the protagonist's father is complaining about the car, worrying over the engine and the money he's already paid to get it fixed.

Father and son leave on bad terms.

It's a symptom of masculinity, the inability to reach out and express concern, worry, and fear when men don't cry. The car is a distraction. It's displacement. It's a father who can't or won't express his fears and love for his son because he can't.

My last few days at home was a powder keg. My dad cursed out the neighbor over the phone. He called to apologize. I was aggravated over little decisions, like my mother's simple question over what I'd like for my last supper at home. Dad was overly concerned about how I was going to get to the airport.

They were the little microaggressions of fear and insecurity, anxiety and defensiveness that are layered beneath other arguments. And I don't know if there's any easy way to deal with them.

2. Home

When I left for Peace Corps, it was a two-year commitment. There was an understanding that it would end. There's no such guarantee this time around.

Over the last six years, I have spent several months at home between adventures and opportunities. I am so, so, so fortunate to have the ability to do that, even if (at times) it does drive me crazy to be stuck in rural Indiana.

I've been moving further and further away from the idea of America as my home over the last few years, and I think my parents have slowly, albeit painfully, realized that I am never coming back. I was gone nearly three years from January 2008 until September 2010. I was at home for several months before leaving again for Washington DC, Nigeria, London, Turkey, and South Africa. I came back for a few months before leaving again to pursue job opportunities in DC, and now I'm off for South Sudan.

I don't know where I can claim as my own anymore, and as much as I will be working with displaced people, I often feel displaced myself.

I always have a home to go back to. I know that, and I'm more fortunate than most in the world. But when you've carried your home on your back for years, the idea of permanence fades. I've begun to wonder if I'll ever find a home again, or if I've permanently ingrained mobility into my life.

It's scary to think of choosing a place when there's still so much to see.

3. Career

From everything I've read and everything I've done, this new job seems to be exactly what I want to do.

And that is the most frightening thing I've ever experienced.

What if I fail? What if I'm no good? What if everything that I've been moving towards for the past six years is broken and shattered? Where do I go then?

There's someone very special in my life who pushed me to follow my dreams. Really pushed me in ways that no one else ever has. I'm so grateful for her for that.

But following your dreams is terrifying. Because what if you succeed? The fear of failure can keep us in one place - a safe place, secure. It's easier to have dreams when you know you'll never accomplish them. But when someone presents the ladder to help you reach for the star, you begin to wonder - what happens after? Working for your dreams is work, and beyond that, there are new dreams, new things to work for.

Maybe there are some Buddhists present who can give me better answers. I should be content with what I have, right? Then why am I forever yearning?

4. Next Steps

There's so much I want to see and do in this world, and as I've gotten older, I realize that I have to make choices. Because it's nice to have all the possibilities open, but I can't sit and stare at possibilities. I have to make choices - choices that close some doors but open others. There's no looking back. As Robert Frost wrote:

Oh I kept the first [road] for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, 
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We often forget the last stanza. The narrator isn't saying the road less traveled was better, or that he was better for taking it. The road he took made all the difference, but still he tells it with a sigh, because he will never know truly know the difference.

Time is a river. We'll keep it in the flood. It carries us all the same.

Best to get a little bit of a swim in then, I guess.

Visit Detroit...Seriously

This post first appeared on the website of Trebuchet Magazine and can be found here: http://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/detroit-good-really/

So you’ve heard a bit about Detroit, and you’re curious to take a trip. Maybe you’ve got business in Chicago or Toronto, and you want to tack on some extra days’ vacation. Maybe you’re an urban explorer, who likes to break into abandoned buildings to relive a piece of history and photograph the decay. Or maybe you’ve gotten on the wrong Greyhound and now you’ve got an afternoon to kill and you don’t fancy spending it in the crippled shell of a Detroit bus station. Whatever the reason, worry not, there’s a place for you in Detroit.

Sports – Lions, Tigers, and Red Wings, oh my. Detroit has been a sporting city for decades now, and even though some of its teams have had some rough seasons in the past decade (the Lions are still the only football franchise to have gone completely defeated since the introduction of the sixteen-game NFL season back in 1978, and the 2003 Tigers were the third worst ball club of all time), that just means that it’s relatively easy to pick up tickets. It’s not all bad, either. The Pistons won their division four times over the past decade and picked up an NBA national championship in 2004. The Red Wings are consistently one of the best hockey teams in America, and have hoisted the Stanley Cup more than any other hockey team in America. With the construction of a new $444 million hockey arena downtown, you won’t even need to drive to get a taste of the ice.

Arts – Detroit has one of America’s cultural gems hidden amongst the grit and grime of downtown. The Detroit Institute of Arts has one of the country’s preeminent collections of post-impressionist, modern, and post-modern art. Here you’ll find everything from Van Gogh, Seurat, Cezanne, and Degas to Picasso, Matisse, and Rodin. Spend some time in the European section and you’ll come across a few paintings from Rembrandt and Rubens. A quick jaunt to the American wing will bring you a couple from Whistler and Church, while a wing dedicated to African American artists (one of the first and only curatorial departments dedicated to the subject) will open you up to a range of painters and sculptors you may never have been exposed to. Finally, one of the most important pieces to come out of the 1930s, Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry, dominates the inner foyer and speaks to the viewer through the ages, painting a vivid scene of the intersection between capital, labor, technology, and humanity. Truly, it is a wonder to behold.

Food – If you’re in Detroit on a Saturday, head down to Eastern Market. This six-block, public, open-air market has been feeding the city since 1891, and every Saturday, hundreds of stalls compete for business with everything from food to fresh produce, cut flowers to jams and juice. Most of it comes from Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario, through there is some flown in from other, more temperate, parts of the country. Most of it is seasonal, but you’ll still be able to find some hothouse tomatoes in November, if you fancy it. For a true taste of the Midwest, head to Lafayette Coney Island where you’ll find that staple of Middle America, the chili dog, loaded down with onions, mustard, and hearty chili. There are some upscale establishments, but if you’re looking for something truly special, check out Slows Bar-B-Q, a hot stop for anyone coming through the city, with a particular focus on civic engagement. No less a vaunted publication than the New York Times has given the barbeque a write-up, highlighting it’s belief in the community and the restoration of the city.

Drink – I was a bit too poor to engage in much carousing on this latest trip, but if you, like me, are fond of the occasional dive, you could do worse than Detroit. My friends live a couple blocks from an old hole in the wall named Nancy’s Whiskey Pub. Established in 1902 in Corktown, one of Detroit’s oldest neighborhoods, Nancy’s offers live music on Friday and Saturday nights, and you won’t find a better price on beer (if you’re a fan of Pabst Blue Ribbon, that is). First timers get a free shot of whiskey, a sort of “Welcome to Hell,” that will immediately ingratiate you with all the locals. If you’re looking for some place with a bit more upscale ambience, check out the Grand Trunk Pub. There are a wealth of old speakeasies in Detroit, the Grand Trunk being one of them. All you have to do is sniff them out. Whatever you do, make sure you take a swig of local brews like those from Motor City Brewery, Bell’s, Short’s, or Dark Horse Brewing. If you’re in for something a bit softer, go for home-town originals like Vernor’s Ginger Ale or Faygo’s soda.

Architecture – During Detroit’s heyday, the city seemed to compete with Chicago for the biggest influx of art deco skyscrapers. The city has one of the country’s best collections of early 20^th century architecture. Unfortunately, most of it is in a dire state of disrepair, and many of the buildings have been slated for demolition, if the city can ever find the funds. Friends of mine know the current owner of the Book Tower, an Italian Renaissance-style building from the early 1920s. Plans are in the works to rehabilitate the building as a centerpiece of a revived downtown, though work has yet to start. The old Michigan Central Station, built in the Beaux Arts style, narrowly avoided demolition after a local resident threatened to sue, citing the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Plans to refurbish it as the Detroit Police Headquarters were scrapped earlier in the decade and the building remains a broken and haunting reminder of Detroit’s glory days. Finally, the Guardian Building, formerly the Union Trust Building, is a beautiful example of a wildly successful restoration, and now houses beautiful tiles from internationally known Pewabic Pottery as well as several large works by muralist Ezra Winter. Its bold art deco design as well as its close association with the city’s financial markets has earned it the nickname the Cathedral of Finance. Take a coffee in the lobby café and try not to imagine yourself as a hard-bitten detective in some gritty film noir.

Nature – You might not think it, but Detroit’s place along the river connecting Lakes Huron and Erie presents a beautiful stretch of waterfront that is hard for any other American city to match. Stuck right in the middle of the Detroit River is the 397 hectare Belle Isle State Park. Frederick Law Olmstead, who famously designed New York’s Central Park, drew up the original plans for the park, though only some of his ideas were fully incorporated. The park boasts a botanical garden, the Belle Isle Conservancy, an aquarium that has been refurbished and staffed entirely by a group of zealous volunteers, and the James Scott Memorial Fountain, which commemorates a man who no one really liked. Like everything else in Detroit, you’ll freeze in winter, but it’s perfectly brilliant from April through October.

Alternatives – Of course, there’s more than enough to keep you entertained in the city for a few days, but if you’re one to strike out on your own, then check out some of the amazing street art around Eastern Market. The Red Bull House of Art, located just around the corner from the shops, gives up-and-coming Detroit artists a chance to show off their new works. The Heidelberg Project is one man’s attempt to stave off the worst of Detroit’s collapse by building an artistic community around the abandoned houses in his neighborhood. Local resident Tyree Guyton uses everyday found objects and reconstitutes them as thematic art incorporating nearby abandoned properties. The project supports emerging artists and young adults in the inner city to challenge their perceptions on art and discover creative outlets to give back to the community. Finally, if you’re ready for a real slice of history, you can tour Ford’s River Rouge Complex, one of the oldest and largest factory complexes ever built, measuring in at over 16 million square feet of factory floor. In its prime, it operated its own dock system and boasted over 100 miles of internal rail track. During the 1920s, the factory employed over 100,000 people – a city within a city – and acted as the centerpiece for Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry.

So, if you’ve never thought much of Detroit, let me say that now is the perfect time to think about visiting. With the city on the verge of a historic bankruptcy case, there is a real danger that Detroit will lose many of the things that make it so special. Belle Isle has already been leased off to the state of Michigan, who will oversee its transformation and restoration and inevitably charge for admission to the site, one of the few green spaces formerly freely available to inner city residents. The Detroit Institute of Arts may be forced into selling off some of its most prized possessions, including paintings from Van Gogh, Matisse, and Rembrandt, among others. Christie’s auction house has already embarked on an appraisal of the collection. The Heidelberg Project has faced numerous challenges over its 25 year history, most notably the threat of arson. The day after I was there, the House of Soul, a wood-paneled house covered in records from hundreds of various artists, burnt to the ground.

Finally, like any city on the rise, gentrification will start to take its toll on the city’s current bohemian vibe. Already, major retailers such as Whole Foods have moved into Midtown, and while we should welcome the city’s revitalization, such developments always have a price. Get in while the dirt and the grime is still a part of the city. You can’t understand Detroit without it, and once it’s gone, the city will be that much poorer.

Those Detroit Blues

Note - This article originally appeared on the website of Trebuchet Magazine and can be found here: http://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/detroit-just-bad-really/

No city evokes the sense of urban, industrial decay quite like Detroit. Once America’s fourth largest city, Detroit has fallen to eighteenth in the latest census, losing nearly a quarter of its population in the last decade alone. Houses stand empty and abandoned, often the victims of arson attacks and metal thieves. Packs of feral dogs roam the streets.. Unemployment hovers around 19%. Three of five children live below the poverty line, half of the city’s streetlights are no longer operational, and you could get a pizza delivered to your burgled house before the police get there.

Despite all this, Detroit is on the up-and-up. Young professionals are moving back into the city centre. Artists and musicians are taking advantage of the fact that property prices are at an all-time low, and upscale shops like Whole Foods are settling in to Midtown. Friends of mine recently bought a house in the historic Corktown neighborhood, just outside downtown – three bedrooms, two bath – for $60,000. Detroit has a wealth of art and cultural experiences still at hand.

It is criminal how overlooked this post-industrial gem really is, and I’m here to change that. In the first of this two-part series, I’ll be looking at the city’s rise and fall. How did Detroit go from industrial behemoth to Mad Max-inspired wasteland? Does it really play host to a secret race of mole-people? Just how bad is it really? In the second, I’ll try to convince you that, yes, Detroit is a city that is worth your time.

Much of early America’s wealth came from the vast untapped resources at its disposal. Detroit started out as a French fur trading post back when beaver skin top hats were all the rage. The city grew throughout the 19^th Century as several Gilded Age resource barons took advantage of Michigan’s timber fields and copper deposits. However, it took a transport and manufacturing revolution for the city to really take off. In 1903, Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company, a move that would turn Detroit into the world’s automotive capital, The Motor City.

As a manufacturing powerhouse, the city became a key component in America’s “arsenal of democracy,” during World War II. Detroit alone accounted for nearly one-quarter of the United States’ tank production over a five-year period. After the war, factories transitioned from planes and tanks back to automobiles, spurring a car culture and suburban sprawl that would eventually lead to the city’s undoing. As the burgeoning interstate highway system clawed its way through the city, massive concrete, six-laned arteries took middle-class families out of the crowded city center and into an ever-sprawling suburbia.

Detroit was at its zenith in the 1960s. Over two million people called the city home and enjoyed the country’s highest income per capita. By 1960, one in six Americans were employed directly or indirectly by the auto industry, but it wasn’t all blue-collar car guys. Culturally, Detroit could compete with any other American city in terms of music, art, and entertainment. Motown Records started up in Detroit in 1959, cranking out 110 top ten hits in a decade. Diana Ross, The Four Tops, The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations – all hit it big recording in the Motor City.

Today the city’s music scene might be better known for Sixto Rodriguez, the aged folk guitarist who was at the center of the Academy Award-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man. His Establishment Blues (1970) spoke to Detroit’s slowly evolving political/economic crisis as the latter half of the century unfolded –

“Garbage ain’t collected, women ain’t protected
Politicians using people, they’ve been abusing
The mafia’s getting bigger, like pollution in the river
And you tell me this is where it’s at.”

He wrote those words a few years after the Twelfth Street riot, one of the most destructive civic disturbances in American history. Over the course of several days 43 died, over 1000 were injured, and more than 2000 buildings were destroyed. The riots prompted massive urban flight, especially of the white population, to the outlying suburbs.

The city had always had its racial tensions, as did most of the Midwestern United States during the Great Migration, the movement of former slaves from Southern states to Northern manufacturing towns at the turn of the century. The competition for low-skill, blue-collar jobs was fierce and helped to radicalize a strong following for the Ku Klux Klan. However, the death knell for any chance at racial integration in Detroit came not through violence or race hatred, but through a 1974 Supreme Court case, Millikan vs. Bradley, which held that de facto racial segregation in schools, through district housing policies and redlining (charging blacks more for banking credit, health insurance, etc.) had to prove intent to be considered in violation of US law. In other words, policies that produced overlapping class and racial inequalities were not segregationist. This all but guaranteed white flight from Detroit’s inner city, as anyone with money fled to more affluent areas.

By the time the 1980s rolled around, Hollywood gave us Robocop, Paul Verhoeven’s hyper-violent (for the time) cop flick about a crime-ridden hellhole where mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products own the police, and mafia bosses share power with business execs.

Sci-fi dystopia is meant as a warning. It should never be this prescient.

As housing prices plummeted, property taxes did as well. Services suffered. Police and fire systems faced severe cuts. The city tried to raise taxes to offset lost revenue, prompting even more migration into neighboring, lower-tax counties, thus further eroding the tax base. Despite falling population, the city had difficulty cutting services to match their diminished needs and continued to fund lucrative pension schemes on a borrowed dime. The city now has twice as many pensioners as public employees, and it can hardly afford to pay any of them.

Desperate to clean up the pension problem that hammered any chance at a balanced budget, in 2005, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick engineered a $1.44 billion deal with Wall Street, leaning on derivatives and complex credit swaps to fund the failing pension schemes. The deal imploded with the financial collapse and now represents nearly one-fifth of Detroit’s $20 billion debt.

(A quick sidebar on Kwame Kilpatrick. If you, like me, love a good story about slowly unfolding, long-running train wrecks of hilarious, humiliating, brazen, and absurd corruption. You will love Kilpatrick. Detroit’s mayor from 2002 to 2008, he was recently sentenced to 28 years in prison for crimes including mail fraud, wire fraud, racketeering, obstruction of justice, and tax evasion. Beyond the blatant corruption, he is probably best known for hosting a party at the mayoral mansion that involved several exotic dancers. When Kilpatrick’s wife returned home early, she attacked one of the women, Tamara Greene AKA ‘Strawberry,’ and sent her to the hospital. Days later, Strawberry was murdered in what investigators suspected was a deliberate hit by a member of the Detroit Police Department. Kilpatrick continually meddled in the case, removing special investigators and costing the city millions in wrongful termination lawsuits. Kilpatrick’s full biography really has to be seen to be believed.)

Today, Detroit is on the verge of a historic bankruptcy case, one that will decide the future of the city. The Republican governor of Michigan has appointed a bankruptcy lawyer to govern the city’s finances. If the city defaults, pensioners will receive pennies on the dollar for their retirement plans, the city will be forced to cut even more essential services, and the Detroit Institute of Arts may have to sell off some of its impressive collection of modernist and post-modernist art to keep the doors open.Despite all of this, the city is still an impressive monument to a specific time and place in American history, and, I firmly believe, it is on the up and up. I have recently spent several days in the city, and I fell in love with it. In the next article, I will tell you why you should check it out and why a city that is so far gone still has so much left to offer.

The Woman behind the Wheel

I went down to the Copacabana the other day. Yes, the hottest spot north of Havana, where music and passion were always in fashion...until the present day that is.

In Harare, the Copacabana is a taxi rank. The area used to house the Copacabana nightclub. It closed down decades ago, but the name stuck, as it has in several other African countries I've been to (for some reason I can't understand, maybe Barry Manilow was big here?).

Either way, Copacabana is one of the major places to catch a kombi to various parts of the city, and I've been doing so quite regularly for several weeks now. I was a bit surprised, then, when, upon reaching the kombi rank that would take me out to my regular café on the Chisipiti route, I noticed a woman in a bright, coral-colored sun hat ushering people into the car. Usually, that is a job reserved for men. The guys that do this are typically conductors, leaning halfway out of speeding cars calling out the various destinations on the route “Sipiti! Sipiti!” for Chisipiti, “Bare, Bare, Bare!” for Mbare township, or just waving four fingers on their left hand for those cars speeding toward the Fourth Street kombi rank. These guys handle the money, call out stops for the driver, and provide general entertainment as they contort their bodies into whatever space is left in a cramped, overcrowded bus.

I didn't think much about the woman until we were well on our way. I was immersed in a book when I noticed that the radio, rather than blaring the usual mix of Zimbabwean contemporary, gospel, or reggae, was tuned to a talk radio program about financial planning. “It’s important to have a savings account,” the guest speaker said, “I speak to so many people who say, ‘I don’t trust the banks, I keep my money at home under the mattress.’ Why? I say. It is important to control your spending and to keep a budget by having a savings account.”

An odd choice for a kombi ride, but one, I felt that was important. It was like a ride-along with good sense.

Then I noticed a bright, coral-colored hat perched atop the driver’s head. It was the woman I had seen in the kombi rank. She was driving the car!

Now, this might not seem like a big deal to the typical Western audience, but I can count on one hand the amount of women kombi drivers I have ever seen in my three-plus years in Africa. I can remember riding along with only one other female kombi driver, and I remember how struck I was by her presence.

It’s just not something you ever see. Kombi drivers are aggressive. They work long, hard hours and spend a lot of their time in the transport yards, areas known for being rough and tumble, full of thieves, pickpockets, and general ne’er-do-wells.

I’m not sure if women are more likely to listen to talk radio, or whether this woman was an exception, but here I was, on a twenty-minute journey across town listening to a radio program extolling the benefit of savings accounts. 

(Most Zimbabweans don’t trust the banks after losing everything in 2008’s wholesale economic collapse. The banks are back up, but most of them lack the liquidity to make serious loans. The loans that are made often carry 18 to 20% interest because, again, the banks’ money supply is non-existent.)

Instead of being assaulted by reggae or American hip hop, I was instead treated to sound financial advice at a reasonable volume (this too should not be understated). I began to think about the nature of kombis – an attentive audience stuck in a cramped taxi with nowhere to go – and realized that they are the perfect vehicle (pun not intended) for communicating ideas via radio. If only more kombi drivers played these kind of programs, think of how much better-off the average Zimbabwean could be.

Part of me wishes that this was just one enlightened kombi driver, but I think it was more than that. I think the woman’s gender had a direct role in what she played for her passengers. Like an attentive mother hen, she was responsible not only for our safety but for our well-being.

There might be arguments to be made for gender differences in radio programming, or a preference for music or speech, but I won’t make them here. On one typical weekday morning, however, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to hear some productive information from a kombi stereo. I only hope others listened as closely as I did.