On Fire

"On Fire"
By Switchfoot

They tell you where you need to go
They tell you when you'll need to leave
They tell you what you need to know
They tell you who you need to be

But everything inside you knows
There's more than what you've heard
There's so much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words

And you're on fire
When He's near you
You're on fire
When He speaks
You're on fire
Burning at these mysteries

Give me one more time around
Give me one more chance to see
Give me everything You are
Give me one more chance to be... (near You)

Cause everything inside me looks like
Everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I'll take

When I'm on fire
When You're near me
I'm on fire
When You speak
And I'm on fire
Burning at these mysteries
These mysteries...

I'm standing on the edge of me [x3]
I'm standing on the edge of everything I've never been before.
And i've been standing on the edge of me
Standing on the edge

And I'm on fire
When You're near me
I'm on fire
When You speak
(Yea) I'm on fire
Burning at these mysteries... these mysteries... these mysteries
Ah you're the mystery
You're the mystery


I don't really have any big updates, so I'll just give you a quick rundown:

- We didn't get to go to Gulu last weekend, so I think we are going this weekend.
- I turned in my first legal memos to the court. I was very proud of myself.
- Diehard 4 comes out this Friday. Yes, I will be seeing it.
- There's a musicians' jam session every Monday night at the National Theatre. I'm a fan.
- Our new roommate is great. We're getting one more tomorrow, and then our family on Nagura Hill will be complete!

Thanks to everybody who sent me emails and pictures. I really appreciated them all.

PHRASE OF THE DAY: "Oli malungi nyo." It means, "You are very beautiful." It's probably the most useful phrase that we've learned thus far.

Up for Air

"The Blues"
By Switchfoot

Is this the New Year or just another night?
Is this the new fear or just another fright?
Is this the new tear or just another desperation?

Is this the finger or just another fist?
Is this the kingdom or just a hit n' miss?
A misdirection, most in all this desperation

Is this what they call freedom?
Is this what you call pain?
Is this what they call discontented fame?

It'll be a day like this one
When the world caves in
When the world caves in
When the world caves in

I'm singing this one like a broken piece of glass
From broken arms an' broken noses in the back
Is this the New Year or just another desperation?

You're pushing till you're shoving
You bend until you break
Till you stand on the broken fields where our fathers lay

It'll be a day like this one
When the world caves in
When the world caves in
When the world caves in
When the world caves in
When the world caves in
When the world caves in

There's nothing here worth saving,
Is no one here at all?
Is there any net left that could break our fall?

It'll be a day like this one
When the sky falls down and the hungry and poor and deserted are found
Are you discontented? Have you been pushing hard?
Have you been throwing down this broken house of cards?

It'll be a day like this one
When the world caves in
When the world caves in
When the world caves in

Is there nothing left now?
Nothing left to sing
Are there any left who hasn't kiss the enemy?
Is this the New Year or just another desperation?

Does justice never find you? Do the wicked never lose?
Is there any honest song to sing besides these blues?

And nothing is okay
Till the world caves in



I won't lie to you - I'm still pretty shaken up from this weekend. I've developed an unconscious habit of rubbing the callouses on my fingertips. I think I can still feel everything that I've touched.

I'm going to go ahead and get some reader involvement here. I know that several of my friends read this, so if you are a friend of mine and you have a picture of me and you together, or just a picture of you, then send it to me and I will make it my desktop background for the day. I am already putting several of you on my background picture cycle and it really brightens my day. So send pictures to joseph.halbert@gmail.com. Send me some emails, too, because every time I have internet access I save all your emails in a word document and then take some time every night to write back. I really like doing it and it makes me feel connected to everyone back home.

I've added a new section on this page called "Recommended Reading." I recommend you read these books.

Just in case anyone was wondering, I've been listening to the band Switchfoot every day. Particularly, the album Nothing is Sound. It seems to fit where I am in my life perfectly. Give it a listen.

I'm going to a region called Gulu on Friday. There are several IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps up there, so I'm going to spend some time seeing whatever it is I need to see.

This might be it for the week, so I hope to hear from you and I'll be sure to post something of substance soon.

Cheers,
Joseph

Fingertips

For days I’ve been trying to come up with an effective way to relate what I saw and felt in Rwanda. I want to convey to you what it means when a million people are murdered by their neighbors, friends, and family. I want to understand it myself.

I want to understand how so many people could be killed so brutally. I stood in a church where 10,000 people where killed. I felt the bullet holes in the walls, in the communion table, on the floor. I touched the blood stained alter. I wept when a woman at a church told me that I wasn’t touching bullet holes, but marks left in the walls by shards of skull. The machetes had that much force. I touched the blood stains on the walls. Children were swung around by their legs and smashed against the wall, to save ammunition.

I saw rows and rows and rows of skulls and bones. I touched a blunt club used to shatter skulls.

I watched grown men break down as they tried to explain to me the complete and utter devastation.

I broke down myself as I looked at family photos of victims. Wedding pictures, pictures of mothers and baby daughters and the hospital, pictures of teenage girls dancing at a party, pictures of soccer players after a big game.

I wept when I looked at a picture of two sisters, ages two and three, who were grenaded while they hid in a shower.

I wept when I looked a picture of a beautiful two year old girl who was stabbed in the eyes and head until she died.

I wept when I thought of the 500,000 women who were raped. I thought about all of the women in my life.

I thought of the 300,000 children were orphaned.

I saw rows and rows of skulls, many shattered by clubs and machetes. I stared straight into where their eyes would’ve been.

In the span of three hours, my fingers touched the graves of 40,000 victims. 40,000 life stories, wasted.

I cannot understand what I saw, or the devastation that lives in the walking wounded.

Here is what I do know:

If we think that one million people were killed, we are wrong. One person, one life, one spirit, was taken from this world, one million times over. One million life stories ended. Their stories were cut short in ways that I wouldn’t believe if I had not seen with my own eyes.

A long time ago, I promised myself and you and the rest of humanity that I would never look away. This weekend that promise changed the core of me. I am positive that I am not the same person I was on Saturday morning. I am convinced that what I have touched with my own fingers has changed me on a fundamental level and has changed the direction of my life. These were God’s children. We are all children of God, and I owe it to all of you to never look away. Apathy and ignorance are not options for me. You and yours are much too valuable for that.

I want you to read a book called “We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with our Families.” It’s written by Philip Gourevitch.

That’s all I can say right now.

Fact of the day: Military analysts agree that the presence of 5,000 troops would have prevented the genocide.

T.I.A.

I know it's been almost a week since I've posted an update. Let me go ahead and say that while I would've loved to post an update, I was a little preoccupied with "not dying."

Let me make a long and disturbing story nice and short for you by giving you a rundown of my weekend.

- Have you gotten food poisoning in America? I haven't, but I've had it in Africa!

- Have you ever had to provide a urine sample in a cup? In your drinking cup? Have you ever had to collect the urine sample and in the middle of collecting the sample your city was hit with an earthquake?

- If the doctor says, "Well, there is one more thing we can do to break the fever..." Say no and run away. Or crawl away. Just get away. Don't look back.

- Did I mention I was carrying around my own IV when I was collecting my urine sample?

- Has a doctor ever said to you, "Your body has started eating itself...it's not a good cycle."

- Have you ever had strange women pass out and fall into your room while you were hooked up to an IV? Me too.

- Make sure the first thing you drink when you get home isn't apple juice. Your body will just laugh and laugh and say, "Try again."

- Make sure your first solid food in 48 hours isn't Indian food.

I would like to publicly thank my wonderful roommates for ensuring that I survived June 14-17. I would also like to thank Kevin for mercilessly making fun of me every bizarre step of the way.

I would also like to thank Star Wars for being created, because I watched every movie this weekend.

I would also like to thank the four pounds of medicine I've swallowed in the past 48 hours. Because of you, I left the house today.

Anyway I'm fine now and I think I'll be ready for work in the morning. I just thought I would share my absurd misfortunes.

T.I.A.

A word on some links

I just realized that I haven't said much about the links on the right side of the page.

Invisible Children is a group that works on behalf of displaced chlidren in Northern Uganda. They are the people responsible for the Displace Me nights all over the world where people (usually young people) sleep in the streets to show solidarity with their little brothers and sisters in Uganda.

Waves of Justice is a blog that is loosely related to a new nonprofit called Isaiah Project International. I'm a part of IPI but I don't have anything to do with the blog. It follows the summers of young people all over the world.

International Justice Mission is basically like a holy swat team. It's a group that uses national laws to help oppressed people. Usually, it helps young people forced into prostitution, people wrongfully put into prison, and people who had their land wrongfully taken. They even stage raids on brothels. That's awesome.

Restore International is a nonprofit in India and Uganda. They do things with the judiciary, digging wells, teenage prostitutes, and some other projects. The founder, Bob, is an amazing man. He might be the most well-connected person I've come into contact with.

Ilea's Blog is Ilea's blog. Go read the whole thing and you will get a better idea of what is happening in Uganda right now. A lot of good links here.

Enjuba is a clothing/fashion company started to spur on economic development. It gives African artisans an easy way to sell their work on the internet, and therefore all over the world. A new friend of mine named Leah works for them. I honestly don't know much about this company at all, but I thought I'd pass it along.

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll add more sites later.

Mzungo, how are you?

I am:
Interested
Curious
Willing
Driven
Invested
Confused
Flawed
Selfish
Ugly
Hungry
A Force

I am not:
Anyone’s savior
Selfless
Perfect
Altruistic
Jaded
Cynical
Afraid
Fatalistic
Enough
Comfortable
Satisfied
Complete

I stood on the bank of the river, squinting to see through the rain. Each cold drop bounced off my head and ran down my shoulders, my chest. Little hands squeezed my own hands and pulled me up the hill. As we trudged through the brush, I felt orange mud squish between my toes. The children showed me everything there was to see, teaching me how to name everything in English and Luganda.

“Mzungo, this one is cassava. This one is avocado. This one is maize.”
“And this?”
“Soya bean.”
“And this?”
“Coffee.”
“And this?”
“Mzungo, that’s a tree!”

I didn’t mind the rain, or the giant bugs, or the mud that stained my feet orange. I hope my feet never lose these stains. I hope that forty years from now I remember every drop of rain that hit my buzzed head. I hope I remember every ripple in the river. I hope the sky and the trees and the hills and the mud stay as real to me as they were yesterday. In a few years a dam will stand where we stood. The children will be forced to move because their homes will be underwater. I hope that when they have left and moved on, they will remember yesterday as vividly as I do. I hope they can see and smell and feel everything. I hope they remember me like I remember them. I know I won’t forget.

I Survived the Nile River

I went whitewater rafting on the Nile River yesterday. Tales of victory, defeat, and a weird stomach problem will surely follow. For now, I just wanted to let everyone know that I went, it was maybe the most fun I've had in 2 1/2 hours, and I'm still alive. And kicking.

I'll write more later but I'm at work right now. By the way, work right now involves me consulting on the creation of a small claims court. It's a wonderful idea, and several brilliant people have already done all the work. Basically I just flew in from America to give a thumbs up.

I've realized part of the reason I'm here is so that the Ugandan higher-ups can show some young Americans that Uganda is looking pretty good in a lot of ways right now. And then young Americans will tell other Americans. That's fine with me, though, because a lot of traveling is just about understanding yourself and the world around you. If we can come over, help a little bit, and learn a lot about this beautiful country, then that's a good 74 Days, yeah?