From the Pen of Kevin Sites

"Real change requires risk."

Shellshocked (or, Random Rant II)

In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars, by Kevin Sites. Finished, 11.23.11, 11:48 AM.

I really don't know what to feel. I don't know what to think, really. This book will haunt me for a long time, and will end up in my library once I get money to buy it since the copy I have is borrowed. Mr. Sites' experiences really did fuel my want to go out there into the real world (which is found right out my front door) and see it all, stop being so whiny about trifles. Here I am, Thanksgiving eve, with all the feast almost ready. Am I really going to enjoy this gluttonous holiday? I don't know. I'm not sure I want to eat until not one more bit fits when there are many out there who do not have anything. If anything I learned from In the Hot Zone is that really I live in a "wealth of information and a poverty of knowledge." After I see that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo one military life is lost to sixty-two civilian lives. Like Kevin says, "War poses as combat but is really collateral damage." Thanksgiving, that I don't have an idea of what problems are. Maybe this Thanksgiving I won't be so gluttonous; maybe I'll be more thankful.

Without Mouths

"I believe that anything, a story, a novel or a piece of art, has a place for you in it. A place that is yours to decide."

Last time we left our hero, Kevin Sites, he was in Africa. Well, not anymore. He's in the middle east, and he has come across a Syrian artist who likes drawing heads. Heads, in may different poses, styles, and manners. There are some carved out, watercolored, and all in different stages of emotion.

However, they are all missing one major anatomical feature: a mouth. Kevin tries to gather the reason, but to no avail. Desperately, he asks if it is the pain of not being able to express something, but the artist only smiles and says "It's whatever you see, whatever it tells you, that's what it is."

Mr. Sites reflects,
"It's a thought that, like the stone walls outside, transcends this moment and makes me wonder if that is too generous a concept for most people. many choose their place as quickly as they can without trying to understand, seeing only the garbage on the streets rather than the art inside."

Maybe we should do that more often. See past the superficial, and, as cliche as it may sound, stop judging books by their cover. The world would have more peace if we would learn to understand what the other is fighting for.

What I Learned about Happiness, Hardships, and Humanity from broken Women in the Congo and a Vietnam Veteran

"But some, who like one old man whose name was called, had no problem sharing the joy of the moment by performing a little impromptu dance for my camera, making this crowd of people laugh with abandon. Everything had been taken from them--but their humanity."
                                                                                                       --Kevin Sites, In the Hot Zone
I realize that there is really no reason to be sad sometimes. In the last chapter I read, Kevin goes to the Democratic Republic of the Congo attached to a low-key humanitarian aid organization. He encounters boys not old enough to drive legally in the US who have been recruited by the various militias with confusing acronym names. These little boys have stories of how they have killed several people--not because they want to, but because they're being shot at. One of the boys talks about how he is haunted in his dreams by a man he killed for food.

I don't think I'll ever say "I'm starving!" when I mean "I'm a little hungry" again.

Mr. Sites then heads off to a women's shelter. As an aside, I've volunteered going door to door asking for donations for the local shelter and received good responses from people who have been there. For the women in the Congo, their shelter is the banana plant groves. There they hide from raping rebel soldiers, because if they were all in one place it would be horrible. Some of them have gone through several rapes and widowing experiences, yet Kevin Sites always describes how calm they talk about their experiences. He talks about their singing, their laughter, their dancing.

I don't think I'll ever complain about Mondays again.

Later in the day, I sat down with a professor who is a Vietnam veteran. He told me about several people who went through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. He tells me how he once sang old songs with his guitar at a veterans convention, and how those suffering from PTSD were able to open up. He told me, "I knew God had sent me to do this, and now I do it in prisons and I always get the same effect."

I don't think I'll ever complain about how hard something is if I PTSD is not a common consequence of that action.

A World of Conflict

I really hope that one day I can show the world what the real world is like by my photo-essays. I really hope that one day I can show the real world who Jesus is wherever I work. Now, however, I have to content myself with Kevin Sites' experiences in his book I'm reading, In the Hot Zone.
I was also made aware of his documentary, which accompanies this book, called A World of Conflict. As soon as I remembered, I went on YouTube and searched for it. Sure enough, there it is! So...I will begin to watch this now, at least a chapter a day (but not limited to that....). If I fall asleep in class, you now know why.