OneVoice

Amid the deluge of daily news, this may have been understandably lost in the shuffle: Nicaragua, where OneVoice has worked and made friends for 3 years now, has been experiencing civil unrest and government sponsored violence. As a result, Coco Loco, our gome when we come to visit, is temporarily closed, and many of the friends you see here--including Lester, Maria, Gustavo, and so many others--are out of work indefinitely.

If you are inclined to help these people who have given us and their community so much, we encourage you to click on the link below.

Click here to support Emergency Fund for North Nicaragua organized by Earl Cahill It is with heavy hearts that over the past few months we have witnessed growing civil unrest in our beloved Nicaragua. What started on April 19th as peaceful protests over social security changes quickly escalated into a nationwide movement when the government responded with violence against the...

On the flight home I sat next to a man from Seattle. We got to talking as people do and when I told him I'd been in Lesvos working with refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere, he turned curious but uncomfortable, and said:

So, do you have an answer to all this?

He meant a political answer, I think. No, I don't have an answer, I said. In fact, I have only more questions now. But here's one place the questions seem to have led me:

We belong to one another.

Both the Talmud and the Koran tell us that to save one life is to save the world entire. Though I've always thought that was incredibly beautiful, I have no idea if it's true. Here, in the camps, the world shatters into so many pieces even the word broken ceases to hold meaning. Judgments, solutions, analysis, blame are no longer of use to me. There is only Life: your suffering and mine, your joy and mine, rising and falling and rising and falling. And the growing inability to discern any separation between the two leaves room for nothing but the shared uncontainable ache of being.

That's it. It's not satisfying but it's all I've got, I said to the man from Seattle. He nodded but I could see he already had one eye on the tv. The rest of the time we talked about soccer.

The people in the photo below did not belong to one another before they got to Pikpa camp. Sultan is 19 and from Pakistan. Maria is 2 and from Syria. But they belong to one another now. They belong to me too. And I to them.

Photo Credit: Pippa Samaya

Lesvos Solidarity - Pikpa

No problem? asks Sahar, pointing at my guitar.

This is her favorite English phrase. She is 14 years old and has recently arrived from Afghanistan with her father and younger brother.

No problem, I answer, handing it to her. Sahar has played my guitar every day since I’ve been here. She asks me to teach her chords. Play sad one, she says, smiling easily.

On the fifth day I finally ask her about her mother. She points her finger in the air and makes the sound of a gun going off.

Taliban, she says.

Her mother was a teacher. Her mother played guitar.

Fighting back tears I want to run out of the camp toward the sea, the sea that carried her here, the sea in which I can dive and scream and be washed of the world’s brokenness. Instead I look in her eyes—the ones that have seen too much--and tell her how sorry I am.

She begins to play.

No problem, she says.

Photo: Pippa Samaya Lesvos Solidarity - Pikpa

Boredom. Despite the best efforts of all of us at Pikpa camp, this is not home and boredom and a sense of being suspended in time is never far away. Photo: Pippa Samaya. Lesvos Solidarity - Pikpa