Why a mother with two young children at home chose to go to Iraq

Let’s talk about Iraq shall we? That little chestnut. I can see by some of the comments and private messages I’ve received that some of you are wondering why on earth a mother with two young children at home would choose to go to a place like Iraq.  So I’d love to tell you why I went, what it was like and what I was doing there.  (All photos from my iphone5 - 'real' ones to come end of May once campaign is live).

Why I went?
Because I believe in a God whose heartbeat is for the hurt, the lonely, the hidden places and the forgotten millions. And I want to spend my life doing whatever I can to shed light on these people and their stories by coming alongside the incredible organisations working beside them. But the other reason is for my daughters. I want to raise brave, compassionate, kind girls.  I want them to know that the world does not and will not revolve around them. I hope in some small way, the choices I make in this realm encourage them in their journeys.  I’m not going to lie, I was quite scared - and at one point even shaking on my trip. Deciding to go was a complex decision for us to make but ultimately we believe one Tim and I took an educated risk on.

A gorge on the way to Soran, Kurdistan

 What’s Iraq like?

Since I was a little girl I remember hearing about a country called Iraq. It was a place of war, danger, uncertainty, crimes against humanity and a bad guy called Saddam Hussein. As I grew up this view was re-enforced by countless news stories that flash before my eyes even now. Suicide bombers, shootings, people setting other people on fire, air strikes. And for sure, that’s a deeply sad part of this country’s history. But it’s only that - a part.  And I was embarrassingly shocked to discover that other parts exist. For starters, Kurdistan in Northern Iraq is outrageously gorgeous. It’s rolling green hills, rocky mountainsides and humble houses nestled in the foothills are beautiful to behold. If you can imagine a childhood Bible with pictures of Jesus on the mountains giving a sermon – it looks like that! A local theory is that this is where the Garden of Eden used to be and as I drove past some of the most beautiful waterfalls and gorges and the Tigress River, I could see why. Though apparently it snows in winter and gets up to 52 celcius (125 Farenheit) in the summer!

A Shepard watches over his sheep in Duhok, Kurdistan

Kurdistan, Iraq is a land where families picnic by the river throwing stones to see how many hops they can make on the surface, a land where they sit close on the couch watching movies together till late at night. A land where the whole family, sometimes up to 100 of them will feast together and dance till they can dance no more. A land where the grandmas hold more respect and influence than you could imagine and the men care deeply for their children. And the women, oh the women. They are strong, hard working, kind, brave generous and most of all, resilient.   

Sunset Soccer in a refugee camp in Iraq

They have malls, KFC and Hardees (yes, I indulged in my first burger in Lord knows how long). They have theme parks and I drove past at least four ferris wheels. Both adults and children go to bed late and sleep in (11pm-10am ish). They love to eat out at restaurants and the hummus, shwarma and kebabs they make are both cheap and delicious. If you find a Western style bathroom you have to put all your toilet paper in the trash can beside it and not down the toilet. You must have your elbows and ankles covered at all times, and don’t even think about showing the bottoms of your feet in public.  

What was I doing there?

One of 27 camps in Iraq

I was in Iraq with Tutapona (trauma rehabilitation for victims of war and refugees) for seven days to help them tell the story of the people they serve and how they come alongside them. We were making a video with the amazingly talented and generous team at Exposure as well as capturing stories and images we can use for this years Summer Appeal.  Tutapona has their work cut out for them. In Iraq alone there are over 1 million IDP’s and refugees.  These people are usually fleeing ISIS in the Mosul/Sinjar area or are Syrian refugees. They come to one of the 27 refugee settlements in Iraq and it is here Tutapona comes alongside to provide trauma rehabilitation services through their 11 staff members. They start by providing a two week group trauma counselling program and then proceed to one on one counselling as needed. Tutapona is grateful to work alongside their partners, Samaritans Purse, The Refuge Initiative, World Orphans Project and The A21Campaign. I also spent one day with Tearfund New Zealand’s partner, MedAir who are providing non-food items, basic supplies, shelter, household items and medical services.

The main street of Sinjar Town

But it was the trip to Sinjar that really hit home for me. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life (video is at the bottom of this blog). On August 3, 2014 ISIS invaded a beautiful town and all the towns surrounding it on the Syrian border called Sinjar. They came at night, destroyed everything in sight and then divided the remaining men, women and children into sections. 6,000 died in a day. The lucky ones escaped to the mountains behind them only to find themselves trapped with no water or food and surrounded on either side. 

The moment that had me undone.
A burnt out car and the clothes beside it

As we drove up the mountain burnt out cars lined the road. But beside them was what had me undone. The clothes. The shoes. The medicine. All left untouched for the last two and half years. Apparently ISIS would pull everyone out of the vehicle as they tried to go up the mountain, make them all take off their clothes, kill them and then torch the car.  I found a mother’s dress, a little girl’s dress and a shoe in one spot and it was all I could do to pull myself together.  The horror had hit home. They died on this mountain. As for those back in the village, the men were either murdered on the spot or forced to fight for ISIS. The women were taken as sex slaves into Syria or Mosul and married off to ISIS men. Their children were taught to become fighters often asked to cut off their Barbies heads, a chickens head and at ten years old, an “infidels” head. Any females over the age of 8 were fair game for rape.

The main street of Sinjar town

I interviewed many women who had only recently escaped, been rescued or bought back from captivity. I was a stranger to these people but on the strength of the Tutapona staff’s deep companionship with them I was greeted with trusting kindness and gentle smiles. Their stories are horrific and I will be able to share parts of them in due time after our appeal goes public. Stories about how their seven year olds were given grenades as birthday gifts, their fifteen year olds forced to put on a suicide vests, get in a car and then blow themselves up. Perhaps worst of all is knowing how many of their family are still in captivity. One mother wept as she told me of her 13 year old daughter being ripped out of her arms by her hair and taken by ISIS. Another mother has a little girl who is four, all alone and still in captivity with ISIS. She doesn’t know if they’ll ever be reunited. Most have lost their husbands, unsure if they’re alive or dead.  Their homes are rubble, their lives as they know it – over. Their trauma was deep and palatable. Their tears flowing from a place I’ve never known.  And the children we spoke to…. don’t even get me started. The need for Tutapona to expand their reach is critical. The suicide rates in the camp are at an all-time high and depression, anxiety and conversion disorder is the norm. Although food, water and shelter are being addressed – it’s the deepest parts, the unseen grief that is killing them slowly.

Final thoughts

A classroom in Sinjar town 

Over the years I’ve sat with many poor mothers and fathers as they’ve shared their stories of surviving war, humiliating rape, torture, slavery, abuse and the murder of loved ones. The pain they describe is unfathomable and horrific. Before I started doing humanitarian photography/storytelling, my honest mental temptation was to imagine that people who endured such things ‘on the news’ are somehow fundamentally different to me. Maybe, somehow, they just don’t feel things like I do. They’re “used to it”. Maybe they expect less, care less, hope for less, want less or need less.  But painfully, over time, I have seen that they are exactly like me. And what they endured on a mattress or what they endured as they fled for their lives up a mountain is in no way easier for them because they are poor. This Summer, Tutapona is giving us an opportunity to come alongside, to show that someone, somewhere hears them, cares and is going to do something to help.  I’ll be getting behind that.

www.tutapona.com 

Video of the main street of Sinjar Town

Ethical Fashion Report 2017 - How did your favourite brands score?

For the last six months, my colleagues and I at Tearfund in New Zealand have been working on this. The Ethical Fashion Report for 2017 ranking both New Zealand and Australian brands (242 of them) from from A to F on the levels of visibility and transparency across their supply chain with regards to worker rights, policies and practices.One of my favourite magazines, Good Magazine did this awesome write up that does an amazing job breaking down the report. You can read it here.  But if you've only got a minute or two....here's my key takeaways including one on kids clothing. And if you want to go straight to the source and download the full guide or the full report - go here.

An open letter to our newlywed selves - 10 years on.

This morning I woke up after a rip roaring night listening to the local club down the road pound their baseline so hard it took my fan on full speed and two ear plugs to stop my stomach reverberating to the beat. I then switched off said fan, and walked down the hall to my daughter’s bedroom to find her playing in her room quietly. I moved to the next room to find Eva – not there – no surprise. She’d managed to get out into the lounge and was wandering around without a diaper and a spoonful of Vaseline she was feeding herself. Tim, who had kindly let me sleep in till 7am popped his head around the corner, gave me a smooch and said, “Happy 10 year Wedding Anniversary Babe.” And it hit me. I’ve been married a decade to this man. How the heck did that happen? How on earth did I end up in the middle of Africa, with two little girls living this chaotic but wonderful life? All at once the memories of a decade flashed before my eyes. Oh what I wish I knew back then.

And then the thought struck me, what if I could go back? What would I want to say to myself? What would I want to know? So I’ve decided to write a letter to my newlywed self  in the hope that somewhere, somehow, someone  would find a teeny tiny bit of wisdom from a wife that’s been there, done that and lived to write the blog. Because exactly 10 years ago at this precise moment I walked down the aisle and said, I do, and I wished someone had told me the following.

Dear Helen,

1)      Let the man be. Your husband is an ‘ambivert’.  He both enjoys time by himself and time with others. But every now and then he really needs time alone. This is not a bad thing. This is not a reflection on you. This is not a reflection on your marriage, or “the end of your marriage” as you dramatically put it. It is how the good Lord made him. So, let the man be! Don’t be texting and calling him while he’s doing his thing. Stop asking him to come home early from work/fishing/hunting/beer nights/rugby games and so on. Stop with the whining. You’ll be married about 7 years before you have kids. After kids, he will do next to none of this and you’ll wish he could! Don’t be stealing his joy. This season is a short one and he deserves a break. From you. To be blunt. You’re quite annoying.

2)      Go on adventures with him. This man of yours is at his core, an adventurer. He’s going to suggest things – wild things, things you’re going to want to instantly dismiss. Things like “Let’s move to the Middle East” or “Let’s move to Africa” or “Wanna walk around in the game park and sneak up on some elephants with me?” But when you day after day, month after month, year after year say no, you’ll be killing the creative, imaginative spark inside. Say yes baby, say yes. Not all his ideas are good ones, but the best years of your life will be the ideas you say yes to. Go to Amman, Jordan, let him hang the decapitated deer in the garage, let him build a fire pit out of your old washing machine – why the heck not? He’s weird. Embrace it.  Just make sure you’re wholeheartedly into the adventure – exactly 50/50 to be precise or you’ll blame him for every little thing that goes wrong.
 

3)      He wants your respect more than your love. When you are disrespectful, you wound him deep. That kind of undermining, mean spirited chat is bad. Real bad. He holds onto those words, mulls them over and thinks about them far more than you realise. When he brings them up weeks later you’ll feel terrible knowing the last few weeks have been a mess for him simply because of your careless choice of words you’ve long forgotten (and didn’t mean).

4)      Be his biggest cheerleader.  Encourage him to dream that dream he’s meant to dream. Encourage him to run after his passions. Support him in the endeavours that set his soul on fire. Don’t squash him. He’s got so many gifts and talents that God’s placed on the inside of him and he needs you to help bring them out.  Nurture that like only you can.

5)      Tell him what you want. If that means you need to write a list of what success looks like to you on your birthday, in terms of how many presents, what you’d like to eat and where you’d like to go then you do that hunni. This is not a guessing game. This is your marriage and if you want it to be good, be straight forward.

And because marriage is a two way street here’s Tim’s two cents.

Dear Tim,

1)      Your wife is going to ask you to write something in ten years’ time about what you’ve learnt in ten years of marriage to her. This is going to annoy you, but you will do it because you love that little firecracker of a wife and she currently lives in Africa with you.

2)      You feel uncomfortable whenever she’s driving now. You’ll still feel uncomfortable in ten years. Trust your instincts on this one.

3)      If you want to eat anything other than packet macaroni and cheese, vegetable lasagne or chicken salad - learn to cook.

4)      You’re marrying an incredibly energetic, talented and creative person who has lots of ideas.   She has a lot to offer in an important area so you need to build her up. Don’t hold her back, instead encourage her and watch where God leads.

5)      You have a God loving, beautiful and driven woman who is willing to marry you. What an incredible gift. Be thankful for that.

DISCLAIMER: We don’t presume to know anything about marriage. Really, we don’t. But we do know a little about our own marriage, in our own context. And that is all. 

A stark contrast

This week I traveled up to a small dusty, hot town in Northern Uganda called Adjumani with Helen and our girls. Both of us had work we needed to do up there, but not enough time to take separate trips, hence the decision to take Hope and Eva. It was a decision that I quickly regretted. Eva winged through the short flight and the moment we landed we all began to sweat profusely. The temperature was somewhere in the late thirties and our hotel turned off the generator at midnight, so off also went the fan. The girls simply couldn’t sleep, not having been in heat like this before, so of course Helen and I didn’t sleep either. I lay there feeling frustrated about all manner of things until morning. Then I had to go to work. Interestingly, by the end of the week I was glad we’d taken our girls with us. I think in a very small way it helped me to relate to what we saw.

On our first day I spoke to a young boy of perhaps 11 who said he and his siblings and mother had walked for 3 weeks to escape from South Sudan. That’s fairly typical. Many of the oldest and youngest are dying on the way from a lack of water, shelter and food. Internally, I feebly related that to my arduous hour-long flight. Self constructed, tarp-covered stick shelters are the accommodation option out there in the settlements. Blazingly hot in the day, less than rain-proof and small. As we walked through them I considered that their occupants were not camping, these were their homes for the foreseeable future. The war in South Sudan is showing no sign of letting up.

These refugees don’t have jobs to go to when they wake up in the morning. Helen pointed out to me a man lining up for food in one of the reception centers who would have been about the same age as my dad. As I tried to imagine what this would be like for him my mind balked. Most of these refugees were poor back in South Sudan but now they’re poorer. They have walked away from their land and houses and have had to leave behind the possessions they couldn’t carry. No prospect of self-sufficiency for a long time ahead for the man in the queue. Instead he has to put out his bowl and accept what is given. 

A mum that we interviewed had lost one of her children in the fighting. As she said it, I let the weight of that sentence sink in for a moment. What mother should have to lose a young child in some senseless war? What would my response be if one of my daughters were shot? No time to grieve for this lady, until she was an alien in a foreign country.

At our last location Quinn Neely who was doing some filming for us put up a drone to get some aerial footage of Palorinya refugee settlement. Looking at his screen as he filmed from a couple of hundred meters up gave an insight into the scale of this migration. Clusters of shelters stretching out for miles and miles along the banks of the Nile River. Each individual shelter holding a little family, but on the screen they were simplified down to thousands of tiny white dots. This one settlement currently holds 142,000 people and it opened 3 months ago, in December. Had the drone been able to climb higher, it would have picked up the 5 settlements of South Sudanese refugees spread out across Northern Uganda holding over three quarters of a million people. Still South Sudan’s leadership can’t sort their differences out and a bit north of where we stood about 2,000 more people

cross the border each day. My way of relating to that number is to think of my high school, Macleans College, daily walking into Uganda. This has been happening now for 9 months.

As we left, I understood more fully what an immense privilege that is. We can leave. These people are in Adjumani right now because they have, in the words of Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond- 'no choice'. They cannot go home after a few days, and they have nowhere else to go. They have no idea if they’ll ever be able to go home. Home may well have been altered irreparably.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a beautiful house in Kampala with my family intact and safely with me. I have a job. I have choices. What stark inequality. I’ve worked in this space for a few years now, but this week I was hit anew by the gulf between the life of a refugee and mine.

Tim

An open diary - South Sudan March 14-18 2017

Married at 13. Widowed at 25. Land grabbing survivor Julianna's story.

There’s this verse my late Grandmother used to share with me that I’ve still got memorised to this day. “The Lord tears down the proud person’s house. But he keeps the widow’s property safe” Proverbs 15:25. She was a widow, a widow for a very long time. And her property was a constant source of contention (even in a beautiful law abiding country like New Zealand). But on Widows Day earlier this year, I came into contact with IJM and watched this verse come to life.

The International Justice Mission is currently working in Uganda alongside local authorities to defend the rights of some of the most vulnerable people in our world – the widows. For many women in Uganda, the loss of a husband is only the first trauma in a long term ordeal. Widows are often evicted from their homes and physically abused - some even killed by their husband’s family! There, a women’s social status is so inextricably linked to her husbands that she either has no rights or very limited rights to their property and often finds herself financially insecure and dependent on the charity of her husband’s relatives. Worse still, impunity for abuses of the rights of widows is rife, with few perpetrators every successfully brought to justice.

One thing we know about Jesus is that his heart is for the downcast, it’s for the grief stricken, for the excluded, for the invisible, for the widow. And as goes his heart, so goes IJM.

On June 23^rd 2016, hundreds of people gathered in Mukono in Central Uganda to celebrate the rights of the widow and the achievements IJM has had thus far in protecting those rights.  A lot of progress has been made and the day was a chance to recognise the extraordinary efforts of the local authorities including the Police, Chief magistrate, RSA, RDC and others.  

The celebration began with an official 90 minute march led by a brass band and fronted by almost 100 government officials. Taking up the rear were hundreds of women, widows, children and men lending their voice and their support to defending the cause of the widow.  The theme of the event read loud and clear across the banners being held by those marching and the keynote speeches that rang out throughout the day. ““No woman should lose her status, livelihood or property when her husband dies. Widows need and deserve our support.”

After the event concluded I met an extraordinary women that brought the reason for the celebration to life. Meet Julianna. 

“My name is Julianna and I am 75 years old. I had an arranged marriage when I was 13 and he was 40 years old. Soon after I had five children to him. When I was 25, my husband went to visit his relatives in Congo. A few months after he left, two of his brothers came to my house to visit me. One of them was dressed in the clothes of my husband and told me that he had died. This land was all we had left. Fortunately, he had made a will that said nothing on this land could be sold, not even a coffee plant – all of it belonged to me and our children.  Over the years all of my children died of HIV and various sicknesses and they are all buried here. I have one daughter left and four grandchildren. 

One day a young man came on a motorbike. He said he was my grandson and that he wanted a part of this land. He asked me to give him his portion. I had never met this man in my life and so I said no. Over many occasions he threatened me, intimidated me and made threats to my life and my land. He said that because I was a woman, I had no right to this home. I told him that this land is for my grandchildren and I kept insisting that he would not receive anything. One day he came and put all of his things in the kitchen. Another day, he came and started digging a foundation. When I told him to go away he picked up his panga and cut my hand as I blocked my head. I reported him to the police. 

One of my grandchildren later told me about IJM. Soon they came into my life and helped me in so many ways. They helped me go to court (where we won), encouraged me emotionally and gave me a guard to protect my land and house during my court case. They also helped me make a will. One day I hope to give my children and grandchildren this land.  I can sleep in peace now knowing that will happen. “

The perpetrator In Julianna’s case was sentenced to six years in prison. The longest sentence in any property grabbing case IJM has worked on in Uganda. IJM Uganda exists to defend the rights of one of the most vulnerable groups of people - the widow. 

Long may they continue.