Victims Without Faces
by Sheila Velazquez
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 22, 2006



 

I was cleaning out a closet when I came across a box of correspondence that I hadn't looked at in a long time. As I flipped through the stack, I found a postcard from Saudi Arabia. It read, "I hope that you will be fine, Happy Christmas, Sheila." There were two cards postmarked Yemen, from Mohamed Al Ryashi. They both say exactly the same thing. "From Sanaa I send to you my regards and I hope that you will be in good health." He probably had his message translated and it was the only thing he could write in English. I reread the letters and cards I had received from my international friends, all of whom I met while on the staff of an East Coast university training program many years ago. They had been sponsored to come to the United States to learn how to improve the health, education and economies of their people. While here, they learned about us, but I learned more about them. Many of the cards are from people who are not Christians, yet here are their Christmas wishes, even as they celebrate their own holy seasons.

Since the start of the first Gulf War, an unfathomable number of Iraqi children have died as a direct result of military actions and their aftermath and from sanctions. But we never see their faces. There is no way of really knowing how many thousands of young lives have been lost. The media has been prevented from providing close coverage of civilian casualties, just as it seems to be prevented from covering the details of the current "war on terror." We saw faces reflecting pain and horror after the explosion of one bomb in Oklahoma City, but I can only imagine the face of a mother or father in Iraq and other war-torn nations, including those to come, where power and economics drive the war machine, and every day begins with a prayer for the safety of a family.

There are letters from Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Solomon Islands, and the Philippines. Dozens of countries, hundreds of friends. During their stay, the staff arranged housing, placed phone calls to home countries, handled emergencies and honored individual customs and religious ceremonies. Classes stopped when the Muslims unrolled their prayer rugs and prayed toward Mecca. In restaurants, I queried waitresses about ingredients so that the visitors could observe dietary laws. We organized parties, and everyone cooked their native dishes. It was sometimes a hassle trying to find the ingredients, but the results were incredible. Three young women from Turkey taught us to belly dance. We took busloads to New York to visit the United Nations and shop, and to Washington, DC to visit government agencies and see the sights.

On holidays when classes were suspended, each staff member would invite two or three visitors to their home to share our rituals. Our guests learned first-hand what American families were about. I remember one Thanksgiving in particular, when my guests were two men from the ministry of education in Yemen. Only one spoke a little English, and translated for the other. But I needed no explanation when they took out their children's pictures and glowed as they pointed to the face and said the name of each. They were taken aback at the amount of food on the table but dug in. It wasn't until the next day that I realized I had used lard in the pie crusts. My guilt lasted for weeks, but it was my sin, not theirs.

Abraham was a prince who took a shine to my youngest son. When war erupted in Liberia several years later, I thought about Abraham and his children and prayed they were safe. One of the women who came had another reason for being here. She and her husband had been unable to conceive, and she had one chance to take advantage of our technology and be artificially inseminated before she returned home. I reread her painful message, sent to me the following month. But the letter began with "God is good." I wonder if they ever had a child. She was a nurse, and while she was in the program, she spoke to a group of nurses at the university medical center. She explained how, in order to reach the children who needed their services, Bangladeshi nurses walked many miles, crossed rivers in primitive boats, and then got out and walked miles more. One of the naive young American nurses asked why they would do that. The visitor explained that in her country, serving the needy is the greatest honor one can experience. The young nurse didn't get it.

I also have 8 X 10 photographs of the programs, which usually lasted about eight weeks, with me in the middle of each group, along with the rest of the small staff, all of us younger by twenty years. So much has changed since then, and yet so little. Many of the countries of these visitors have been in crisis since I last saw them. I wish I had some way of knowing if these people, just like me, with children just like mine, are safe and happy, and like their pictures in my album, are still smiling.

Sheila Velazquez lives and writes in Bozeman, Montana. She can be contacted at: velazque@ix.netcom.com.

Other Articles by Sheila Velazquez

* I Blight
* No Immigrants Need Apply
* “Please, Sir, I Want Some More”
* Drug Wars
* A Tale of Two Cities
* More BS From the BLS
* Bonds Are Us

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