T minus one

"We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life mean? ... You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness." ~ line from the movie Shall We Dance

We leave for the airport in one hour and we will be spending Friday in our layover city of Casablanca.

The hostel turned out to not be so bad. After I got over the communal shower and feigning a light sleep in a hot room where I could hear the breathing of five other young women I did not know as I lay on a thin mattress that complained loudly whenever I moved, I did ok. I had breakfast with two of the women who were from Toronto by way of England. They had traveled all over the U.S. and were on the tail end of their trip. We parted after breakfast and I went to orientation.

The group is very diverse with two Southeast Asians, one Sudanese refugee, one West Indian, three African-Americans and a Latina. Of course some of the group is going to Mali and some is going to Cambodia. I was a little disappointed that the Mali group is so small but then I found out the French was required for Mali so we just represent those of the group who had a command of the language.

We had sessions with the One World founders and Board of Advisors, who had done human rights work in Cambodia, the Congo, Sudan, Uganda, and even transnational work comparing development efforts and strategies for community rebuilding in Indonesia after the Tsunami and in New Orleans after Katrina. Fascinating stuff! Our surprise guest was Congressional Representative Charles B. Rangel who stopped by to encourage us, telling us how important the work we are doing is and how important our journey is.

The theme for the day seemed to be bearing witness and that really resonated with me. The concept that the things we experience in our lives whether they are trivial everyday issues or significant rights issues only matter in the context that someone else is there to bear witness for us. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it...

So a part of my going to Mali is to learn and to share but also to bear witness. Sometimes I think it is only through others that we learn about ourselves...