Good story...
The Vendor Disappears, Leaving a Void
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/nyregion/30bigcity.html?scp=1&sq=bangladeshi&st=cse
Read more!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Newcomers
This project started with a book, "Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing" edited by Ilan Stavans. I thought: could I do something like this in Oregon -- collect writing about the immigrant experience? After talking with my editor, I came to the conclusion that moving and being an "immigrant" (a newcomer) is a universal experience, one known to both immigrants and Americans who move from state to state. Learning a new language and culture adds a completely different level to a new arrival. Still, similarities abound. I solicited writing from people who moved to Oregon in 2009 -- whether from India or from Kentucky, from Washington or Mexico. They wrote about what moving and coming to a new place meant to them. And I wrote about my own experience...
New to Oregon: The chase of a fresh start rewards a refugee with a richer life
http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2009/12/new_to_oregon_the_chase_of_a_f.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
December 26, 2009
The first time my family moved, it was supposed to be just a vacation. Communist Poland lay behind the Iron Curtain then, in 1988, and getting passports for a family of four verged on a miracle. Paris seemed the most exciting summer break destination.
After three weeks of sightseeing, instead of folding up the tent we had pitched in a Parisian campsite and returning to our Polish concrete-block high-rise building, my parents asked France for political asylum.
I was 11 years old. Learning a new language, living in a refugee center and writing letters to friends left behind was not how I had imagined adolescence. A year and a half later, we sat on an airplane bound for New York City after being granted political refugee status in the United States.
America offered freedom and better jobs for my parents, a psychologist and sociologist. But this second relocation proved even more painful than the first. Language woes, cultural isolation and the scramble to survive marked our initial years in a Connecticut suburb.
What we wanted most was to go back home: to Poland.
Today, many other moves later, I wonder what propelled us, what made us persevere -- and what launches anyone to relocate across international borders or over state lines, and resettle in a new place.
Between July 2008 and July 2009, 16,130 people moved to Oregon. They came from Africa and from Atlanta, from Los Angeles and from Russia, and Mexico. What did they leave behind, and why did they come to our state? What did moving teach them? What did they gain?
People have moved for millennia -- of free will or pushed out by circumstances, legally or clandestinely, alone or streaming en masse -- in search of work, a like-minded community or sanctuary. They crossed plains and deserts, flew over oceans or rode for days in cattle wagons like my grandmother, forcibly repatriated across Eastern Europe after World War II.
The act of moving has always meant the chase of a fresh start, a more generous fate. That's what my family sought: a place where Communist Party membership didn't determine comforts or careers, where neighbors didn't spy on neighbors, where oranges were not just a rare gift under the Christmas tree.
It wasn't easy to leave Poland. Still, while others stayed on, my parents chose to move. They gambled everything they'd achieved -- family, friends, good jobs, a home -- imagining that a new place would bring at least a kinder reality. They couldn't predict the hardships.
Relocation is a feat of letting go. You disconnect from familiar people and places, ones you loved without knowing it. You shed habits and furniture, the accumulation of a life. Moving is, in a sense, the ultimate act of destruction.
But uprooting can also be an awakening. It can give you a new perspective on where you came from and where you are now. You can discover strengths and viewpoints you didn't know you had.
My parents eventually found jobs in their professions, while my brother and I attended universities. We bought a house, learned English and became U.S. citizens. When I tried to decide whether to go to graduate school on the East Coast -- close to family and friends -- or the West Coast, an American friend wrote me: "Go West, young woman!"
An early version of this 1851 advice of Indiana journalist John Soule had served as the mantra for 19th-century American migration. U.S. citizens and immigrants moved across the country, to the Pacific Ocean, including to Oregon. They have not stopped since.
This vast country lends itself to epic journeys. That's what Americans do -- that's how we all became Americans.
So back in 2001, I bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco. In a few years, I relocated, via a brief detour in Texas, to Oregon. Though I miss my family and friends, my life is larger, richer still by the people and landscapes I found.
But there's a burden left, a nagging grief: a grandmother who lives alone in Poland, a brother and parents whose lives are distant. Moving is, sometimes, a search for absolution -- a hope that what we've found vindicates all that we've left behind.
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
New to Oregon: The chase of a fresh start rewards a refugee with a richer life
http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2009/12/new_to_oregon_the_chase_of_a_f.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
December 26, 2009
The first time my family moved, it was supposed to be just a vacation. Communist Poland lay behind the Iron Curtain then, in 1988, and getting passports for a family of four verged on a miracle. Paris seemed the most exciting summer break destination.
After three weeks of sightseeing, instead of folding up the tent we had pitched in a Parisian campsite and returning to our Polish concrete-block high-rise building, my parents asked France for political asylum.
I was 11 years old. Learning a new language, living in a refugee center and writing letters to friends left behind was not how I had imagined adolescence. A year and a half later, we sat on an airplane bound for New York City after being granted political refugee status in the United States.
America offered freedom and better jobs for my parents, a psychologist and sociologist. But this second relocation proved even more painful than the first. Language woes, cultural isolation and the scramble to survive marked our initial years in a Connecticut suburb.
What we wanted most was to go back home: to Poland.
Today, many other moves later, I wonder what propelled us, what made us persevere -- and what launches anyone to relocate across international borders or over state lines, and resettle in a new place.
Between July 2008 and July 2009, 16,130 people moved to Oregon. They came from Africa and from Atlanta, from Los Angeles and from Russia, and Mexico. What did they leave behind, and why did they come to our state? What did moving teach them? What did they gain?
People have moved for millennia -- of free will or pushed out by circumstances, legally or clandestinely, alone or streaming en masse -- in search of work, a like-minded community or sanctuary. They crossed plains and deserts, flew over oceans or rode for days in cattle wagons like my grandmother, forcibly repatriated across Eastern Europe after World War II.
The act of moving has always meant the chase of a fresh start, a more generous fate. That's what my family sought: a place where Communist Party membership didn't determine comforts or careers, where neighbors didn't spy on neighbors, where oranges were not just a rare gift under the Christmas tree.
It wasn't easy to leave Poland. Still, while others stayed on, my parents chose to move. They gambled everything they'd achieved -- family, friends, good jobs, a home -- imagining that a new place would bring at least a kinder reality. They couldn't predict the hardships.
Relocation is a feat of letting go. You disconnect from familiar people and places, ones you loved without knowing it. You shed habits and furniture, the accumulation of a life. Moving is, in a sense, the ultimate act of destruction.
But uprooting can also be an awakening. It can give you a new perspective on where you came from and where you are now. You can discover strengths and viewpoints you didn't know you had.
My parents eventually found jobs in their professions, while my brother and I attended universities. We bought a house, learned English and became U.S. citizens. When I tried to decide whether to go to graduate school on the East Coast -- close to family and friends -- or the West Coast, an American friend wrote me: "Go West, young woman!"
An early version of this 1851 advice of Indiana journalist John Soule had served as the mantra for 19th-century American migration. U.S. citizens and immigrants moved across the country, to the Pacific Ocean, including to Oregon. They have not stopped since.
This vast country lends itself to epic journeys. That's what Americans do -- that's how we all became Americans.
So back in 2001, I bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco. In a few years, I relocated, via a brief detour in Texas, to Oregon. Though I miss my family and friends, my life is larger, richer still by the people and landscapes I found.
But there's a burden left, a nagging grief: a grandmother who lives alone in Poland, a brother and parents whose lives are distant. Moving is, sometimes, a search for absolution -- a hope that what we've found vindicates all that we've left behind.
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Separate Lives, at the threshold of the EU
I was very excited to find that Transitions Online, the magazine that ambitiously covers all of the post-communist countries, reprinted a story I wrote several years ago. I found it online by accident! It was a great story to work on. My Polish colleague Wojtek and I took small rickety buses and trains traveling across villages and towns on Poland's eastern border. We were welcomed into people's homes, in the old tradition of Polish hospitality, fed kielbasa and tea by little Polish grandmas, and marveled at the times gone by and the times ahead. We finally found a village that was split in half -- one part lay in Poland and would be part of the European Union, the other part lay in Belarus, a former Soviet Republic that's still far from Western ways...
Polish-Belarusian Border: Separate Lives
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=352&NrSection=3&NrArticle=21045&tpid=6&ST1=ad&ST_T1=job&ST_AS1=0&ST_LS1=-1&ST2=body&ST_T2=letter&ST_AS2=0&ST_LS2=-1&ST_max=3
by Gosia Wozniacka and Wojciech Kosc
Photos by Gosia Wozniacka
21 December 2009
Joining the EU brought many benefits to Poles and much harder lives for those living just the other side of the bloc’s new eastern border.
The decade that is drawing to a close saw its share of revolutions, whether on the street, at the ballot box, or by the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. From now through Wednesday, 23 December, TOL will look at how we covered some of the most significant events of the past 10 years – today, the “big bang” accession of 10 new countries to the European Union in 2004.
This article originally ran on 10 September 2004.
TOKARY, Poland | Down Napoleon Highway, where the French emperor marched his troops to Moscow, a road winds through thick forest, barren fields, and hamlets cocooned in lingering morning mist. Wooden huts perch on the edge of clearings.
Around the bend, the village of Tokary appears almost out of nowhere. A Catholic cemetery, guarded by an Orthodox wooden cross, marks the entrance. At the crossroads, two border patrolmen chat next to their jeep on the empty and wind-swept road.
A mile into town, Eugeniusz Wichowski is having a hearty mid-day meal. He’s 42 and in his fourth term as mayor for a cluster of villages on the Polish-Belarusian border. His family is one of the oldest and most respected in Tokary – his grandfather was granted land here in recognition for fighting against the Germans in World War II.
Wichowski’s mother, Antonina Wichowska, 72, shuffles around the kitchen serving pancakes and tea with lemon. Thanks to the mayor’s efforts, his parents’ house – like 99 percent of households here – has running water and electricity. And the village, like most others, has paved roads and telephone booths.
But it is only half the picture. The other half peeks out from behind the trees a few hundred meters away, in Belarusian Tokary. The Polish-Belarusian border slices the village in two, and, as of 1 May, that border gained added significance. With Polish Tokary now in the EU, its Belarusian twin – though within walking distance – is worlds apart, and the border may additionally become a dividing line between prosperity and stagnation.
EU membership has not been officially discussed for Belarus, or for another of Poland’s former Soviet neighbors, Ukraine. Some fear that Tokary’s impoverished Belarusian counterpart – and the villages like it that dot the borderlands – will be sealed for years to come behind a new “iron curtain.”
AN OPEN AND SHUT CASE
Antonina, perched on a wooden stool by the white-tile stove, says the best thing her son ever did as mayor was to unite the two Tokarys, if only briefly. Her husband, Konstanty, has four brothers on the Belarusian side of the village and a sister in Brest. During the course of Konstanty’s lifetime, Tokary belonged to Poland, briefly to Germany, then to the Soviet Union, again to Germany, and, finally returned – or half was – to Poland.
As mayor, Wichowski was able to open the border in Tokary on two occasions during religious holidays, in the early 1990s. Prior to this, Konstanty had not seen his relatives for 40 years. His wife and son had never met them.
“You should have seen it when we met again for the first time,” Antonina recounts. “We were all kissing each other and cursing those who had divided us. My husband was crying. They [the relatives from Belarus] slept here; the house was full with three generations of our family.”
Things are more complicated now. To cross from one Tokary to the other, Poles now need to go to Bialystok, the province’s capital city 130 kilometers away, to get a visa. And the nearest border crossing is in Polowce, 25 kilometers away.
Minority populations live on both sides of the border. There are Catholic Belarusians and Orthodox Poles. In Tokary, as in many towns and villages in this area, a Catholic church and an Orthodox chapel coexist. Despite past misunderstandings, the Catholic and Orthodox adherents of today attend each other’s services, especially weddings, funerals, and major religious holidays. Many villagers here speak a local dialect, a mixture of Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, and on the Belarusian side, some still speak Polish.
A mile into the forest, a little past a sky-blue Orthodox chapel, a razed tract of earth stretches like a phantom road. From behind an iron gate, Belarusian Tokary is visible through the trees. Occasionally, the border patrol rumbles by in a jeep.
Ireneusz Koziejuk, 35, an Orthodox priest based in Polish Tokary, says he sometimes sees people driving up with old maps and waiting. “They sleep in their cars, and in the morning they are baffled as to why the gate is not rising. [I imagine] it used to be so nice, people going back and forth, back and forth. Now that’s just a memory.”
The border crossing between the two Tokarys was officially closed in 1948 after the turmoil of World War II – though a crossing operated regularly on special occasions. When Poland became a democracy in 1989, the border was again firmly secured until the mayor was occasionally allowed to open it again.
At least at first sight, Belarusian Tokary looks no different than Polish Tokary. In a wooden house that’s only 10 years his junior, Jan Gorbaczuk, 78, looks at the telephone, his gaze mixing resignation and sadness. “These were my friends, my guys,” he says of his lost relatives and neighbors. “We used to go see girls together. Now I don’t even have a telephone number for Kostek [Konstanty Wichowski].” Jan and Konstanty’s fathers were brothers.
Maria Zajec, who runs the kolkhoz, the village collective farm of about 160 workers, says financial reality won’t allow villagers like Gorbaczuk to visit Poland. Belarusians live on an average monthly salary of $50, and a single-entry visa costs $12.
“The European Union will not do us any good,” she announces categorically standing in her driveway. “We won’t be going to Brest anytime soon to get a visa, because most people here don’t even have a car, and if we did, we couldn’t afford to pay the [visa] fee.”
Zajec, in her late 40s, believes the West is out to exploit countries from the former Eastern Bloc. “We’ll all become their slaves,” she says. “The West doesn’t need your goods. It only needs your land and labor.”
“But if I had the choice,” Zajec adds quickly, “I would like to live in Poland. I often watch Polish soap operas on TV. It’s so nice there. In Poland you can be the master of your own life. There is something to look forward to. Here, it’s the collective.”
By the fence of Zajec’s house, an old woman pushes a rusted bicycle down the asphalt road. Weronika Samczuk, 78, got married three months before the border closed in 1948. Her house, which stood in the borderline strip, was dismantled. She was stuck with her husband in Belarus and never made it back to Poland. “Please, tell me how everyone on the other side is,” she implores.
Mayor Wichowski calls the closing of the border in Tokary “a mistake.” For years he has been working to re-open the crossing. “I feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, especially now that the European Union is here,” he says. “The new visa regulations have created so many problems. Contacts between people [on both sides of the village] used to be easier. Today it’s worse than ever before. People have stopped visiting each other.
“Contact with the Belarusian border region is one of my priorities as mayor,” he adds.
SERVING COWS IN APRONS
Wearing a stretched, gray sweater marked with holes and pieces of earth, Kazimierz Zalewski, the Tokary village administrator or soltys, has just finished mucking out the pigsty. He smiles heartily from under his thick moustache when he speaks. Zalewski, 48, has 23 hectares of poor-quality farmland from which he must sustain his wife, their six children, and his parents. He produces about 80 percent of the food his family needs on his farm.
According to Zalewski, farmers in Tokary are not enthusiastic about the changes the EU is to bring.
“They don’t have any hope,” he says, pulling on his moustache as he stands on the steps of his white-brick house. “They don’t believe in the EU.”
Zalewski says the EU will be beneficial for Warsaw, but not for fringe villages like Tokary, citing the cumbersome regulations that farmers must fulfill to operate in the new market as the main reason for his pessimism. Using his own case as an example, the soltys says he might have to give up milk production and sell his four cows, even though they now bring him about $250 per month in income through milk sales. He simply can’t afford to build the modern, roofed cowshed separate from other buildings in his farmyard that EU regulations dictate.
“This is baloney,” he sneers. “What are we supposed to do? Take care of the cows in white aprons?”
EU membership will bring with it EU agricultural subsidies, but at only half the level that Western farmers receive. That inequality will continue until 2013, when subsidies will finally level up. According to a study by the European Commission, Zalewski and other local farmers like him can count on receiving up to $300 a month.
SURVIVING, NOT THRIVING
With or without the subsidies, people in Tokary are trying to make do. Some have jobs in the neighboring village of Adamowo, where they’re helping expand the local oil pumping station, a part of the “Friendship” pipeline that runs from Russia to central Poland. Others work at the post office or at the juice plant Hortex in the town of Siemiatycze, 30 kilometers away. Still others cultivate their own small plots of land. But many, Zalewski says, have already left.
For some, it all comes back to the dormant border crossing.
“Young people leave because they don’t see a future here,” Bohdan Sawicki, the village’s Catholic priest, says. “I am quietly hoping that the border crossing will reopen here in Tokary. This would mean increased movement and trade, hence a hope for monetary gains. People here are strong, capable. They just need a chance.”
Without a border crossing, the 48-year-old priest says, this village may die. Only two baptisms were celebrated this year, but he’s presided over four funerals.
Despite ambivalence about both their future in the EU and the increasing formalization of the dividing line between the two Tokarys, people here still chose to vote yes in the referendum on Poland’s accession to the EU in June 2003. Anemic turnout aside, 67 percent of villagers in border towns like Tokary who did choose to go to the polling station cast a yes vote. And in April, Mayor Wichowski hired two advisors to help local farmers fill out paperwork for EU projects and subsidies.
But even the optimistic Wichowski sounds worried about the future of the tiny place where he was born. The divided village’s Polish part – even though it is most certainly better off than its Belarusian twin – is still a long way from prosperity. While he busies himself with learning how to fill out forms for EU benefits, Wichowski says he sometimes wonders about the wisdom of it all. Maybe if villagers in the Belarusian and Polish parts of Tokary were given the chance to stick together, Wichowski muses back in his office, both Tokarys could make it.
“When a poor guy gets together with another poor guy, they both get rich,” he says, coining an aphorism. “But when a poor guy gets together with rich guys, the poor man only gets poorer.” #
Read more!
Polish-Belarusian Border: Separate Lives
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=352&NrSection=3&NrArticle=21045&tpid=6&ST1=ad&ST_T1=job&ST_AS1=0&ST_LS1=-1&ST2=body&ST_T2=letter&ST_AS2=0&ST_LS2=-1&ST_max=3
by Gosia Wozniacka and Wojciech Kosc
Photos by Gosia Wozniacka
21 December 2009
Joining the EU brought many benefits to Poles and much harder lives for those living just the other side of the bloc’s new eastern border.
The decade that is drawing to a close saw its share of revolutions, whether on the street, at the ballot box, or by the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. From now through Wednesday, 23 December, TOL will look at how we covered some of the most significant events of the past 10 years – today, the “big bang” accession of 10 new countries to the European Union in 2004.
This article originally ran on 10 September 2004.
TOKARY, Poland | Down Napoleon Highway, where the French emperor marched his troops to Moscow, a road winds through thick forest, barren fields, and hamlets cocooned in lingering morning mist. Wooden huts perch on the edge of clearings.
Around the bend, the village of Tokary appears almost out of nowhere. A Catholic cemetery, guarded by an Orthodox wooden cross, marks the entrance. At the crossroads, two border patrolmen chat next to their jeep on the empty and wind-swept road.
A mile into town, Eugeniusz Wichowski is having a hearty mid-day meal. He’s 42 and in his fourth term as mayor for a cluster of villages on the Polish-Belarusian border. His family is one of the oldest and most respected in Tokary – his grandfather was granted land here in recognition for fighting against the Germans in World War II.
Wichowski’s mother, Antonina Wichowska, 72, shuffles around the kitchen serving pancakes and tea with lemon. Thanks to the mayor’s efforts, his parents’ house – like 99 percent of households here – has running water and electricity. And the village, like most others, has paved roads and telephone booths.
But it is only half the picture. The other half peeks out from behind the trees a few hundred meters away, in Belarusian Tokary. The Polish-Belarusian border slices the village in two, and, as of 1 May, that border gained added significance. With Polish Tokary now in the EU, its Belarusian twin – though within walking distance – is worlds apart, and the border may additionally become a dividing line between prosperity and stagnation.
EU membership has not been officially discussed for Belarus, or for another of Poland’s former Soviet neighbors, Ukraine. Some fear that Tokary’s impoverished Belarusian counterpart – and the villages like it that dot the borderlands – will be sealed for years to come behind a new “iron curtain.”
AN OPEN AND SHUT CASE
Antonina, perched on a wooden stool by the white-tile stove, says the best thing her son ever did as mayor was to unite the two Tokarys, if only briefly. Her husband, Konstanty, has four brothers on the Belarusian side of the village and a sister in Brest. During the course of Konstanty’s lifetime, Tokary belonged to Poland, briefly to Germany, then to the Soviet Union, again to Germany, and, finally returned – or half was – to Poland.
As mayor, Wichowski was able to open the border in Tokary on two occasions during religious holidays, in the early 1990s. Prior to this, Konstanty had not seen his relatives for 40 years. His wife and son had never met them.
“You should have seen it when we met again for the first time,” Antonina recounts. “We were all kissing each other and cursing those who had divided us. My husband was crying. They [the relatives from Belarus] slept here; the house was full with three generations of our family.”
Things are more complicated now. To cross from one Tokary to the other, Poles now need to go to Bialystok, the province’s capital city 130 kilometers away, to get a visa. And the nearest border crossing is in Polowce, 25 kilometers away.
Minority populations live on both sides of the border. There are Catholic Belarusians and Orthodox Poles. In Tokary, as in many towns and villages in this area, a Catholic church and an Orthodox chapel coexist. Despite past misunderstandings, the Catholic and Orthodox adherents of today attend each other’s services, especially weddings, funerals, and major religious holidays. Many villagers here speak a local dialect, a mixture of Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, and on the Belarusian side, some still speak Polish.
A mile into the forest, a little past a sky-blue Orthodox chapel, a razed tract of earth stretches like a phantom road. From behind an iron gate, Belarusian Tokary is visible through the trees. Occasionally, the border patrol rumbles by in a jeep.
Ireneusz Koziejuk, 35, an Orthodox priest based in Polish Tokary, says he sometimes sees people driving up with old maps and waiting. “They sleep in their cars, and in the morning they are baffled as to why the gate is not rising. [I imagine] it used to be so nice, people going back and forth, back and forth. Now that’s just a memory.”
The border crossing between the two Tokarys was officially closed in 1948 after the turmoil of World War II – though a crossing operated regularly on special occasions. When Poland became a democracy in 1989, the border was again firmly secured until the mayor was occasionally allowed to open it again.
At least at first sight, Belarusian Tokary looks no different than Polish Tokary. In a wooden house that’s only 10 years his junior, Jan Gorbaczuk, 78, looks at the telephone, his gaze mixing resignation and sadness. “These were my friends, my guys,” he says of his lost relatives and neighbors. “We used to go see girls together. Now I don’t even have a telephone number for Kostek [Konstanty Wichowski].” Jan and Konstanty’s fathers were brothers.
Maria Zajec, who runs the kolkhoz, the village collective farm of about 160 workers, says financial reality won’t allow villagers like Gorbaczuk to visit Poland. Belarusians live on an average monthly salary of $50, and a single-entry visa costs $12.
“The European Union will not do us any good,” she announces categorically standing in her driveway. “We won’t be going to Brest anytime soon to get a visa, because most people here don’t even have a car, and if we did, we couldn’t afford to pay the [visa] fee.”
Zajec, in her late 40s, believes the West is out to exploit countries from the former Eastern Bloc. “We’ll all become their slaves,” she says. “The West doesn’t need your goods. It only needs your land and labor.”
“But if I had the choice,” Zajec adds quickly, “I would like to live in Poland. I often watch Polish soap operas on TV. It’s so nice there. In Poland you can be the master of your own life. There is something to look forward to. Here, it’s the collective.”
By the fence of Zajec’s house, an old woman pushes a rusted bicycle down the asphalt road. Weronika Samczuk, 78, got married three months before the border closed in 1948. Her house, which stood in the borderline strip, was dismantled. She was stuck with her husband in Belarus and never made it back to Poland. “Please, tell me how everyone on the other side is,” she implores.
Mayor Wichowski calls the closing of the border in Tokary “a mistake.” For years he has been working to re-open the crossing. “I feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, especially now that the European Union is here,” he says. “The new visa regulations have created so many problems. Contacts between people [on both sides of the village] used to be easier. Today it’s worse than ever before. People have stopped visiting each other.
“Contact with the Belarusian border region is one of my priorities as mayor,” he adds.
SERVING COWS IN APRONS
Wearing a stretched, gray sweater marked with holes and pieces of earth, Kazimierz Zalewski, the Tokary village administrator or soltys, has just finished mucking out the pigsty. He smiles heartily from under his thick moustache when he speaks. Zalewski, 48, has 23 hectares of poor-quality farmland from which he must sustain his wife, their six children, and his parents. He produces about 80 percent of the food his family needs on his farm.
According to Zalewski, farmers in Tokary are not enthusiastic about the changes the EU is to bring.
“They don’t have any hope,” he says, pulling on his moustache as he stands on the steps of his white-brick house. “They don’t believe in the EU.”
Zalewski says the EU will be beneficial for Warsaw, but not for fringe villages like Tokary, citing the cumbersome regulations that farmers must fulfill to operate in the new market as the main reason for his pessimism. Using his own case as an example, the soltys says he might have to give up milk production and sell his four cows, even though they now bring him about $250 per month in income through milk sales. He simply can’t afford to build the modern, roofed cowshed separate from other buildings in his farmyard that EU regulations dictate.
“This is baloney,” he sneers. “What are we supposed to do? Take care of the cows in white aprons?”
EU membership will bring with it EU agricultural subsidies, but at only half the level that Western farmers receive. That inequality will continue until 2013, when subsidies will finally level up. According to a study by the European Commission, Zalewski and other local farmers like him can count on receiving up to $300 a month.
SURVIVING, NOT THRIVING
With or without the subsidies, people in Tokary are trying to make do. Some have jobs in the neighboring village of Adamowo, where they’re helping expand the local oil pumping station, a part of the “Friendship” pipeline that runs from Russia to central Poland. Others work at the post office or at the juice plant Hortex in the town of Siemiatycze, 30 kilometers away. Still others cultivate their own small plots of land. But many, Zalewski says, have already left.
For some, it all comes back to the dormant border crossing.
“Young people leave because they don’t see a future here,” Bohdan Sawicki, the village’s Catholic priest, says. “I am quietly hoping that the border crossing will reopen here in Tokary. This would mean increased movement and trade, hence a hope for monetary gains. People here are strong, capable. They just need a chance.”
Without a border crossing, the 48-year-old priest says, this village may die. Only two baptisms were celebrated this year, but he’s presided over four funerals.
Despite ambivalence about both their future in the EU and the increasing formalization of the dividing line between the two Tokarys, people here still chose to vote yes in the referendum on Poland’s accession to the EU in June 2003. Anemic turnout aside, 67 percent of villagers in border towns like Tokary who did choose to go to the polling station cast a yes vote. And in April, Mayor Wichowski hired two advisors to help local farmers fill out paperwork for EU projects and subsidies.
But even the optimistic Wichowski sounds worried about the future of the tiny place where he was born. The divided village’s Polish part – even though it is most certainly better off than its Belarusian twin – is still a long way from prosperity. While he busies himself with learning how to fill out forms for EU benefits, Wichowski says he sometimes wonders about the wisdom of it all. Maybe if villagers in the Belarusian and Polish parts of Tokary were given the chance to stick together, Wichowski muses back in his office, both Tokarys could make it.
“When a poor guy gets together with another poor guy, they both get rich,” he says, coining an aphorism. “But when a poor guy gets together with rich guys, the poor man only gets poorer.” #
Read more!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Organizing immigrants and refugees
Story on CIO, or Center for Intercultural Organizing, in the paper tomorrow:
Refugees and immigrants today, citizens and leaders tomorrow
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
December 06, 2009
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/refugees_and_immigrants_today.html
On a Sunday afternoon in October, Kayse Jama stood before two dozen immigrants and refugees from 14 countries, describing how Portland's commissioners run the city. Though many in his audience had fled to Oregon for fear of a violent or corrupt government, Jama told them how to join committees, attend meetings, and vote.
"You have to be early at the table, otherwise no one will raise your issues," Jama said. "If you're not there, no one will be speaking for you."
Six years ago, Jama, a refugee from Somalia, founded the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO) in Portland. He felt that immigrants and refugees wanted more than government services; they wanted a way to affect their community and have a say in state and city politics.
The organization, which unites new arrivals from diverse backgrounds, hopes to create a multiethnic, multiracial movement for immigrant and refugee rights. It has trained hundreds of newcomers in civics and leadership skills, helping them integrate into U.S. society.
The center also helps newcomers become residents and citizens, obtain work permits and travel documents, and guides them in how to petition for family members.
The work is crucial, Jama said, because Oregon has seen a large immigrant influx over the past three decades, but its political leadership is still one of the whitest, least diverse in the nation.
"There's belief that Portland is a progressive city," Jama said. "But the reality is that there's a huge demographic shift and the system has not figured out how to address it. People in power are not able to understand how to engage diverse communities."
Training leaders
While most smaller nonprofits focus on specific ethnic communities, CIO organizes across nations and cultures.
"It's an organization that really fills a niche of giving voice to a growing community," said Midge Purcell, a coordinator with the Urban League of Portland. "And they are doing this by giving people the skills to represent their interests in the city and to be more engaged in the decision-making process."
The center attracts mostly immigrant/refugee professionals and U.S.-born "internationalists;" it has 425 members from 67 different countries. Ninety percent of its members are low-income. The group tries to alleviate class and language barriers by providing translators and baby sitters.
The organization is a result of Jama's own frustration. He fled Mogadishu in 1991 during Somalia's civil war and has lived in Portland for the past 10 years. But he felt his fellow immigrants and refugees lacked a voice in Oregon.
CIO was the solution. Its flagship leadership training program, PILOT (Pan-Immigrant Leadership and Organizing Training), teaches newcomers about immigrant rights, state and city politics, community organizing, campaigning, and media strategies, among other topics.
Jama, who became a U.S. citizen last month, puts the trainees to work testifying at public meetings, running short-term campaigns, and lobbying local politicians against policies that discriminate against newcomers. He promotes immigrant leaders who can get involved in the political process.
For some, such as Tatyana Bondarchuk, a refugee from Russia, that means overcoming significant barriers of language, culture, and a deep mistrust of politics.
"People coming from countries that are experiencing conflict have a fear of government," said Donna Perry, a refugee from Nigeria and policy adviser to Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz. "They are just trying to survive when they come here. What CIO has done is to get them educated about how significant participating in the life of your community is."
When Bondarchuk moved to the United States in 2000, she knew only two words in English – "yes" and "no." After training at CIO, she met with the mayors of Portland and Beaverton. This year, she helped Russian youths secure Portland city funding for an outdoor concert.
"I felt like I had more confidence because of CIO training," Bondarchuk said. "I learned how I can make my impact and work with the government to bring issues from the community."
And this spring, Bondarchuk was one of 50 members who took a bus to Salem to lobby legislators on state health care issues. Members of APANO (Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon), the Urban League and Oregon Action also participated, highlighting another of CIO's widely praised qualities: building bridges with community organizations.
Overcoming challenges
While the organization has grown and become a fixture, it has struggled to survive on a shoestring budget. It cut two of its five staff members – at a time when more newcomers are knocking on its doors.
CIO is also grappling with a loss of visibility at Portland City Hall. The group gained a high profile during Mayor Tom Potter's time in office. It was active in Potter's Vision into Action, the Immigrant and Refugee Task Force, and the campaign to create the Office of Human Relations.
"Potter opened the doors to immigrants and refugees. It was a very symbolic time, a real coming into City Hall," said Maria Lisa Johnson, director of the Office of Human Relations. "CIO was such a part of that."
Engaging Mayor Sam Adams has been more difficult, Jama said.
"We're not part of his urgent agenda," Jama said. "As a community member, I don't feel like we're even at the table. I feel like we took three steps back."
But Adams does care, said fellow Commissioner Fritz, who overseas the offices of Neighborhood Involvement and Human Relations. The proof:He made funding for CIO's leadership training ongoing.
"There's a recognition that our new partners, like CIO, are key," said Fritz, an immigrant from England. "They really help new Portlanders settle in."
But to Jama, the funding is "a given," he said. "We want more than money."
The problem is one of perception, he said. Most people think immigrants and refugees just want financial aid – but the reality is that every city decision affects newcomers.
"It's been a difficult process to explain that when they're creating environmental policy, or economic development, or planning policy, immigrant and refugee leaders need to be at the table," Jama said. "We're not just people who need services."
CIO is now expanding to Beaverton, helping city officials there create an immigrant and refugee task force. It's only a matter of time before more cities make an effort to include newcomers in civic life, Jama said. "Immigrants and refugees are changing the face of America," he said. "We're the future. We cannot afford to be on the sidelines."
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
Refugees and immigrants today, citizens and leaders tomorrow
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
December 06, 2009
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/refugees_and_immigrants_today.html
On a Sunday afternoon in October, Kayse Jama stood before two dozen immigrants and refugees from 14 countries, describing how Portland's commissioners run the city. Though many in his audience had fled to Oregon for fear of a violent or corrupt government, Jama told them how to join committees, attend meetings, and vote.
"You have to be early at the table, otherwise no one will raise your issues," Jama said. "If you're not there, no one will be speaking for you."
Six years ago, Jama, a refugee from Somalia, founded the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO) in Portland. He felt that immigrants and refugees wanted more than government services; they wanted a way to affect their community and have a say in state and city politics.
The organization, which unites new arrivals from diverse backgrounds, hopes to create a multiethnic, multiracial movement for immigrant and refugee rights. It has trained hundreds of newcomers in civics and leadership skills, helping them integrate into U.S. society.
The center also helps newcomers become residents and citizens, obtain work permits and travel documents, and guides them in how to petition for family members.
The work is crucial, Jama said, because Oregon has seen a large immigrant influx over the past three decades, but its political leadership is still one of the whitest, least diverse in the nation.
"There's belief that Portland is a progressive city," Jama said. "But the reality is that there's a huge demographic shift and the system has not figured out how to address it. People in power are not able to understand how to engage diverse communities."
Training leaders
While most smaller nonprofits focus on specific ethnic communities, CIO organizes across nations and cultures.
"It's an organization that really fills a niche of giving voice to a growing community," said Midge Purcell, a coordinator with the Urban League of Portland. "And they are doing this by giving people the skills to represent their interests in the city and to be more engaged in the decision-making process."
The center attracts mostly immigrant/refugee professionals and U.S.-born "internationalists;" it has 425 members from 67 different countries. Ninety percent of its members are low-income. The group tries to alleviate class and language barriers by providing translators and baby sitters.
The organization is a result of Jama's own frustration. He fled Mogadishu in 1991 during Somalia's civil war and has lived in Portland for the past 10 years. But he felt his fellow immigrants and refugees lacked a voice in Oregon.
CIO was the solution. Its flagship leadership training program, PILOT (Pan-Immigrant Leadership and Organizing Training), teaches newcomers about immigrant rights, state and city politics, community organizing, campaigning, and media strategies, among other topics.
Jama, who became a U.S. citizen last month, puts the trainees to work testifying at public meetings, running short-term campaigns, and lobbying local politicians against policies that discriminate against newcomers. He promotes immigrant leaders who can get involved in the political process.
For some, such as Tatyana Bondarchuk, a refugee from Russia, that means overcoming significant barriers of language, culture, and a deep mistrust of politics.
"People coming from countries that are experiencing conflict have a fear of government," said Donna Perry, a refugee from Nigeria and policy adviser to Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz. "They are just trying to survive when they come here. What CIO has done is to get them educated about how significant participating in the life of your community is."
When Bondarchuk moved to the United States in 2000, she knew only two words in English – "yes" and "no." After training at CIO, she met with the mayors of Portland and Beaverton. This year, she helped Russian youths secure Portland city funding for an outdoor concert.
"I felt like I had more confidence because of CIO training," Bondarchuk said. "I learned how I can make my impact and work with the government to bring issues from the community."
And this spring, Bondarchuk was one of 50 members who took a bus to Salem to lobby legislators on state health care issues. Members of APANO (Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon), the Urban League and Oregon Action also participated, highlighting another of CIO's widely praised qualities: building bridges with community organizations.
Overcoming challenges
While the organization has grown and become a fixture, it has struggled to survive on a shoestring budget. It cut two of its five staff members – at a time when more newcomers are knocking on its doors.
CIO is also grappling with a loss of visibility at Portland City Hall. The group gained a high profile during Mayor Tom Potter's time in office. It was active in Potter's Vision into Action, the Immigrant and Refugee Task Force, and the campaign to create the Office of Human Relations.
"Potter opened the doors to immigrants and refugees. It was a very symbolic time, a real coming into City Hall," said Maria Lisa Johnson, director of the Office of Human Relations. "CIO was such a part of that."
Engaging Mayor Sam Adams has been more difficult, Jama said.
"We're not part of his urgent agenda," Jama said. "As a community member, I don't feel like we're even at the table. I feel like we took three steps back."
But Adams does care, said fellow Commissioner Fritz, who overseas the offices of Neighborhood Involvement and Human Relations. The proof:He made funding for CIO's leadership training ongoing.
"There's a recognition that our new partners, like CIO, are key," said Fritz, an immigrant from England. "They really help new Portlanders settle in."
But to Jama, the funding is "a given," he said. "We want more than money."
The problem is one of perception, he said. Most people think immigrants and refugees just want financial aid – but the reality is that every city decision affects newcomers.
"It's been a difficult process to explain that when they're creating environmental policy, or economic development, or planning policy, immigrant and refugee leaders need to be at the table," Jama said. "We're not just people who need services."
CIO is now expanding to Beaverton, helping city officials there create an immigrant and refugee task force. It's only a matter of time before more cities make an effort to include newcomers in civic life, Jama said. "Immigrants and refugees are changing the face of America," he said. "We're the future. We cannot afford to be on the sidelines."
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Former enemies talk and reconcile
This was a hard article to write. I played catch up on a number of African conflicts and disasters, which I generally know about but am not an expert on. When you interview people who went through a particular conflict, you want to get the details right. And you don't want to offend -- even as you need to ask uncomfortable questions. For example, which tribe are you from - when they do not want to talk about tribes anymore - implying, are you from the tribe that did the killing or the one that got killed? But in these conflicts, there's really very little black and white. Some of the reading I did was incredibly gruesome, difficult, sad, esp. about Rwanda and DR Congo. On another note, the perseverance of African refugees reassures me. Their ability to move on past disaster, to go on with their lives... Projects such as this one go a long way in helping the community heal.
African refugees find common ground with enemies through dialogue
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/african_refugees_find_common_g.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
December 01, 2009
Vincent Chirimwami and Marie Abijuru did not know each other when they met in Portland. She was a refugee from Rwanda. He had fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Actually, they didn't want to meet. A 15-year-old conflict that cost millions of lives in Africa still haunted them, even in Oregon. They hated and feared each other so much that being in the same room seemed implausible.
"Talking with whom? The Rwandese? Whoa!" Chirimwami thought when approached about participating in a dialogue project. "How can we talk to the Rwandese?! They were the ones who invaded and killed us!"
Abijuru was just as skeptical. But the African Diaspora Dialogue Project became a turning point. Run by the Conflict Resolution Graduate Program at Portland State University and Portland's Africa House, the project allows refugees to help one another heal. While federal services for refugees focus on housing and job assistance, they don't tackle the social fallout of wars and conflicts.
"It's my tribe against your tribe, my clan against your clan," community leader Djimet Dogo said. "They don't talk because of what happened back home."
But when Hutus live upstairs and Tutsis downstairs, and warring Somali clans attend the same English class, "the people are afraid," Dogo said. "They don't know how to handle it."
If such historical conflicts go unaddressed, said PSU professor and dialogue facilitator Barbara Tint, they "stand in the way of refugees successfully integrating into American society."
Tension turns to talk
The dialogue project was launched in January 2008, financed by a two-year, $298,000 grant from the Andrus Family Fund, a New York philanthropic organization. The initial six-week dialogue session included about 30 participants and a half-dozen facilitators.
Launching the dialogue proved challenging, Tint said. Suspicion overflowed. Community leaders who became facilitators were insulted and accused of having a special agenda and taking bribes.
The project's tie to the university and its facilitation by Tint helped, Dogo said, because the teaching institution provided an air of neutrality and credibility.
It also was tough to get refugees, overwhelmed with survival in a new country, to commit to months of meetings, Tint said. Most are minimum-wage workers who can't afford baby sitters or bus passes. A stipend covered those costs.
Many participants were seen as traitors by friends and family, who told them, "Who gave you the authorization to talk to our enemies?" said Dogo, who runs Africa House.
For Chirimwami, who is secretary of the Congolese Community of Oregon,, curiosity won.
"I wanted to understand what the Rwandese think," he said. "I didn't go in thinking I'm going to make peace. I told my community, I'm going to do diplomacy with the enemy."
Abijuru decided to talk for her children.
"I wanted my kids to meet with other African kids and not see the conflict," Abijuru said. "We don't want to pass on the bad things to them. We need to resolve this conflict ourselves."
Chirimwami and Abijuru were part of the dialogue's first two groups, a dozen people in each. One group brought together survivors of the genocide in Africa's Great Lakes region -- Rwanda, Burundi and Congo. The second -- hostile Somali clans, which fought during that country's civil war.
From enemies to friends
At the start of the dialogue, some participants refused to talk or even eat the other group's food. Several dropped out.
"Dialogue is often about holding multiple truths simultaneously," Tint told them. "It's for people to tell their story, to feel like they can and have it heard and acknowledged."
The key, Tint said, was to create a safe space for people to share their experiences.
Eventually, Chirimwami and Abijuru learned each other's stories. The conflict that divided them stemmed from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by an extremist Hutu government and civilians.
Abijuru survived and left Rwanda with her baby to join her husband in the Ivory Coast. When her husband was killed, Abijuru applied for refugee status. She came to Oregon in 2004.
The strife in Congo nearly killed Chirimwami. After the Rwandan genocide, more than 1million Hutu militiamen poured into Congo and set up base in refugee camps.
In response, the Rwandan army and Tutsi rebel forces invaded Congo three times, carrying out massacres and sparking a war in 1998 that sucked in six other African nations and killed an estimated 5.4 million people by 2008, known as "Africa's World War."
As a teacher, Chirimwami tried to protect his students. He was branded a traitor and nearly executed, but his family bribed the soldiers to release him. Chirimwami escaped to Tanzania, where he lived for six years before coming to Oregon as a political refugee.
The six-week dialogue changed Chirimwami's and Abijuru's perspectives.
"When I listened, I heard that the Rwandese were also victimized," he said. "I started to separate them from the problem."
Chirimwami shared his ideas with his community. Instead of blaming each other, they decided, the Congolese and Rwandese should work together to educate the American public about the conflicts.
As for Abijuru, when a Congolese family recently moved to her Portland neighborhood, she helped them "as people, as human beings," she said. Before, she would not have been comfortable even stepping into their house. But now, "I am over these conflicts. Our stories are similar."
And in October, Chirimwami and Abijuru's families met at a Rwandan family wedding in Portland.
"What happened back home is not our fault," Abijuru said, "so why should we hate each other?"
Unity at last?
Dogo and others say the dialogue project was long overdue. For years, African community leaders have struggled to bring together the multinational, multilingual community that includes at least 15,000 Africans from a dozen countries.
Even after Africa House opened three years ago in Southeast Portland, fear and divisions caused by old conflicts persisted, Dogo said.
"This project gave us a boost," he said.
Tint and Dogo hope to expand the dialogue to Africans from other nations. Chirimwami, Abijuru and other participants are preparing to facilitate their own groups in January.
"Before, it was us versus them," Dogo said. "Now, it's, 'How are we going to work together?' This is their home now."
For Abijuru, that means leading a normal life in Oregon.
Healing, she said, will take time, but it's indispensable for all Africans.
"It's not easy to move forward for refugees," Abijuru said. "History will remain, nothing can change that. But people can change. I have hope."
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
African refugees find common ground with enemies through dialogue
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/african_refugees_find_common_g.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
December 01, 2009
Vincent Chirimwami and Marie Abijuru did not know each other when they met in Portland. She was a refugee from Rwanda. He had fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Actually, they didn't want to meet. A 15-year-old conflict that cost millions of lives in Africa still haunted them, even in Oregon. They hated and feared each other so much that being in the same room seemed implausible.
"Talking with whom? The Rwandese? Whoa!" Chirimwami thought when approached about participating in a dialogue project. "How can we talk to the Rwandese?! They were the ones who invaded and killed us!"
Abijuru was just as skeptical. But the African Diaspora Dialogue Project became a turning point. Run by the Conflict Resolution Graduate Program at Portland State University and Portland's Africa House, the project allows refugees to help one another heal. While federal services for refugees focus on housing and job assistance, they don't tackle the social fallout of wars and conflicts.
"It's my tribe against your tribe, my clan against your clan," community leader Djimet Dogo said. "They don't talk because of what happened back home."
But when Hutus live upstairs and Tutsis downstairs, and warring Somali clans attend the same English class, "the people are afraid," Dogo said. "They don't know how to handle it."
If such historical conflicts go unaddressed, said PSU professor and dialogue facilitator Barbara Tint, they "stand in the way of refugees successfully integrating into American society."
Tension turns to talk
The dialogue project was launched in January 2008, financed by a two-year, $298,000 grant from the Andrus Family Fund, a New York philanthropic organization. The initial six-week dialogue session included about 30 participants and a half-dozen facilitators.
Launching the dialogue proved challenging, Tint said. Suspicion overflowed. Community leaders who became facilitators were insulted and accused of having a special agenda and taking bribes.
The project's tie to the university and its facilitation by Tint helped, Dogo said, because the teaching institution provided an air of neutrality and credibility.
It also was tough to get refugees, overwhelmed with survival in a new country, to commit to months of meetings, Tint said. Most are minimum-wage workers who can't afford baby sitters or bus passes. A stipend covered those costs.
Many participants were seen as traitors by friends and family, who told them, "Who gave you the authorization to talk to our enemies?" said Dogo, who runs Africa House.
For Chirimwami, who is secretary of the Congolese Community of Oregon,, curiosity won.
"I wanted to understand what the Rwandese think," he said. "I didn't go in thinking I'm going to make peace. I told my community, I'm going to do diplomacy with the enemy."
Abijuru decided to talk for her children.
"I wanted my kids to meet with other African kids and not see the conflict," Abijuru said. "We don't want to pass on the bad things to them. We need to resolve this conflict ourselves."
Chirimwami and Abijuru were part of the dialogue's first two groups, a dozen people in each. One group brought together survivors of the genocide in Africa's Great Lakes region -- Rwanda, Burundi and Congo. The second -- hostile Somali clans, which fought during that country's civil war.
From enemies to friends
At the start of the dialogue, some participants refused to talk or even eat the other group's food. Several dropped out.
"Dialogue is often about holding multiple truths simultaneously," Tint told them. "It's for people to tell their story, to feel like they can and have it heard and acknowledged."
The key, Tint said, was to create a safe space for people to share their experiences.
Eventually, Chirimwami and Abijuru learned each other's stories. The conflict that divided them stemmed from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by an extremist Hutu government and civilians.
Abijuru survived and left Rwanda with her baby to join her husband in the Ivory Coast. When her husband was killed, Abijuru applied for refugee status. She came to Oregon in 2004.
The strife in Congo nearly killed Chirimwami. After the Rwandan genocide, more than 1million Hutu militiamen poured into Congo and set up base in refugee camps.
In response, the Rwandan army and Tutsi rebel forces invaded Congo three times, carrying out massacres and sparking a war in 1998 that sucked in six other African nations and killed an estimated 5.4 million people by 2008, known as "Africa's World War."
As a teacher, Chirimwami tried to protect his students. He was branded a traitor and nearly executed, but his family bribed the soldiers to release him. Chirimwami escaped to Tanzania, where he lived for six years before coming to Oregon as a political refugee.
The six-week dialogue changed Chirimwami's and Abijuru's perspectives.
"When I listened, I heard that the Rwandese were also victimized," he said. "I started to separate them from the problem."
Chirimwami shared his ideas with his community. Instead of blaming each other, they decided, the Congolese and Rwandese should work together to educate the American public about the conflicts.
As for Abijuru, when a Congolese family recently moved to her Portland neighborhood, she helped them "as people, as human beings," she said. Before, she would not have been comfortable even stepping into their house. But now, "I am over these conflicts. Our stories are similar."
And in October, Chirimwami and Abijuru's families met at a Rwandan family wedding in Portland.
"What happened back home is not our fault," Abijuru said, "so why should we hate each other?"
Unity at last?
Dogo and others say the dialogue project was long overdue. For years, African community leaders have struggled to bring together the multinational, multilingual community that includes at least 15,000 Africans from a dozen countries.
Even after Africa House opened three years ago in Southeast Portland, fear and divisions caused by old conflicts persisted, Dogo said.
"This project gave us a boost," he said.
Tint and Dogo hope to expand the dialogue to Africans from other nations. Chirimwami, Abijuru and other participants are preparing to facilitate their own groups in January.
"Before, it was us versus them," Dogo said. "Now, it's, 'How are we going to work together?' This is their home now."
For Abijuru, that means leading a normal life in Oregon.
Healing, she said, will take time, but it's indispensable for all Africans.
"It's not easy to move forward for refugees," Abijuru said. "History will remain, nothing can change that. But people can change. I have hope."
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
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