...is it shakes us awake.

I took a walk this morning around my neighborhood; I do this when things get loud and confusing in my mind. I had just finished typing up the final version of our script for the Empowerment performance on Saturday. It's a sweet and rich story, with many opportunities for intervention, but something was bugging me about it.

How come it still seems like the kid's fault? No matter how many ways we swung the story, our antagonist character, the father, always seemed to come off kind, confused, doing his best, hardly to blame. For whatever reason, we kept crafting scenes where the teenage daughter was petulant, irritable and rude. Again and again, the story seemed to say it was her fault for being treated badly. She was asking for it.

At first, I thought nothing of it. Teenagers are petulant, irritable and rude. We were being honest in our storytelling. But something was still wrong.

Why are we protecting the parents here?

There had been some anxiety throughout the process that the play would be too edgy for the parents to watch. "We don't want to alienate them," many of the youth said. So we created a sweet, "realistic" parent who, for some reason, kicks his teenage daughter out of the house for having a girlfriend.

It hit me when I rounded the bend on my walk today, under the reaching arms of a flowering tree--oh.

We are protecting the parents here, because a large part of us as a group (and me as a facilitator) still feel our bad treatment by overwhelmed or confused parents is mostly our fault.

Click.

I realized also, in that same instant, that the images of the father dying alone, of the daughter estranged from her misunderstanding parent, had touched me on a personal level. I worry about that stuff. I live about a thousand miles away from my parents. They're getting older. Something about watching the enactment in class yesterday had shaken awake some deep fears in me, and made it hard to keep facilitating.

But, as insights usually do, this one has cleared the noise in my mind. Now I know why I was feeling so strange yesterday, and how I can direct the youth on Saturday to portray a stronger antagonist.

I am excited for our performance on Saturday. I hope to see you all there.

With love,

C

...is you meet many heroes.

Mohammad outside the door of his home.

“Wn Mai? Wn Mai?” 

Arabic floats to my ears from the street. Where’s Mohammad?

Last night Mohammad Saadi was arrested in the camp at around 1 AM. Israeli soldiers broke into his home without warrant or warning, beat his legs and knees with the butt of their gun, and took him away from his wife and child into custody. He was released this morning, unlike many of the others arrested last night. There are red burns on his wrist from plastic zip-tie handcuffs.

The noise of it kept me awake. I was up later than usual, waiting for my nail polish to dry, when I heard gunshots from the nearby refugee camp. Maybe a wedding, I thought. I finished readying for bed, tucked myself in and turned out the light.

I lay there for a long time, unable to sleep. Small explosions issue from the camp. Some are very close. Volleys of gunfire crackle and pop. I roll onto my side.

This summer, the soldiers arrived in droves to throw rocks at the Freedom Theatre’s guesthouse (you can read about it here). There’s still a hole in my window screen, and a shard or two of glass on the sill. A bullet hole neatly perforates the molding in the kitchen.

Someone sprints down the alley just outside my window. Someone else is right behind. They bark to each other in terse, quick Arabic. More gunshots—this time close. I perk my ears and listen for stirring from Ben’s room behind me, but he seems to be sound asleep.

The footsteps recede, running back down the alley past me how they came, towards the camp.

It’s too hot in here. I switch my space heater off, pausing to peer out of my curtains on the way back to bed. I can’t see anything. I sleep.

Now Sarah's pouring herself tea. “It’s just crazy,” she says. We sit in my kitchen. I’m still in nightclothes.

“Mai was telling me about it.” She shakes her head to clear it. “He says it’s normal, it’s okay, but it’s not okay. Who gives them the right to just break into someone’s house?”

I think of Hector’s story—how authorities in Colombia descended on his home at night, pointing guns; how they searched his home; how they arrested him.

“It’s pretty common,” I say. “It happens all over the world.”

“Yeah, but.” She exhales and deflates, dissolving sugar in her cup. “I think about how I sleep at night, having these dreams, having good dreams and people are being arrested below me in the camp—“

“Sarah.” I stop her. “Shut the fuck up.” She laughs. “You’re living here, okay? Think of all the things you do—photos, artwork, organizing. That stuff is important.”

“But if you hear them, seriously Christine, you have to call me. I’ll come down.”

“And what? Walk through the camp? Take pictures?”

She bocks. “I don’t know, yeah. Take photos or something, and post them.”

“Don’t.” I say. “It’s too dangerous. Heroes do what you do, everyday stuff. Don't forget it! You deserve to be happy, stupid.” It’s nice to see her smile. “Don’t be guilty. You’re doing a lot.”

Her face flushes, freckled cheeks spreading into a grin. “Alright. Okay.”

We finish our tea and she goes downstairs. “I’ve got a photo shoot tomorrow, for the Freedom Bus project. I need to talk to Adnan. Maybe after lunch we can go into town?”

“Sure, sounds good.” We hug at the door and she leaves, laptop bag slung under her shoulder, just another hero off to organize.

Now the breeze is floating gently through my room, and I wonder if I’ll see Mai today. I wonder if he’ll have bruises on his face, scrapes or burns on his body. Mai always smiles at me; he's the light and sound technician here at the theatre. He’s about my age, thin and shy, always carrying a crescent wrench or a hand drill.

I hope that he’s okay.

He says it’s normal. The mosque sings, and I remember my fear from the night. Just normal, everyday raids into your home. Normal, everyday beatings. A normal arrest, an okay intrusion.

I close my laptop and open my eyes, keeping them wide to take in all the heroes around me today: heroes with hand drills, boom mics and Bolivian drums. We’ve never needed guns. We defend our identities with the everyday magic of art.