This Story's Pages: Desperate Optimism

Hey Everyone,

I hope you have been doing well.

For those of you that have followed my updates for a few years now, you remember that I always learn something through public transportation. Well, Boston is no exception, and during my many rides on the T (Boston’s very old subway system), I meet some interesting people.

I met two very different women on the T the other day. The first woman is a bit strange; she has large and oddly vacant eyes and curly red hair, giving her a little bit of that crazy person look. She starts knitting very colorful sox as the train shakes and moves. After a few minutes, she turns to me, glances at the apple I am eating, and says that apples are the best snack. I nod in agreement, and between apple bites, we begin to talk. Turns out she is half blind, thus the strange looking eyes, but she makes an effort to live a normal life. She’s even learned to knit and ski, and plays ultimate frisbee with a team that has welcomed her and agreed to play with a bright orange Frisbee so she can see it better. She is taking her friend who is fully blind to ski in Colorado. He will have a full time instructor the entire time to give him verbal instructions. Even though people had hurt her, like her recent boyfriend who broke up with her because it was "too difficult" for him, she is so kind and interesting and open minded.

I get off the train to change grains, and while waiting, I notice this other lady, average looking, even pretty. She has an interesting and very intellectual conversation with her friend about social work and health care services for the poor. When her friend goes on another train, she begins to talk to me. We talk about social work, and all of a sudden she is angry, about Boston being taken over by immigrants who refuse to assimilate, about immigrants who dilute our good culture, until "our water turns their color." Immigrants who have no respect for women, and think they can come here and continue to be abusive, she says. I recognize the problem of people coming from societies with high rates of abuse towards women, and that it is unacceptable to use the “culture card” to justify violence again women, but I am uncomfortable by her generalizations. I can't keep quiet, and talk back about balance. “Immigrants also bring good additions to our culture and we do not want to lose that. And besides, Americans do not have all the answers either… I mean we produce more angry young people who shoot their university classmates for fun out of any country in the world.” But she is stuck in her anger and continues with comments about Asians being like this, and Blacks being like that, etc etc. I am relieved when she gets off the train. I feel embarrassed to even be next to her. She seems normal but anger her made her crazy, she seem smart but hatred is stupid, she seems pretty but there is nothing beautiful about prejudice.

I do not know these women and so I cannot judge them. However, from these brief interactions, I appreciate the power of attitude. One woman has chosen to blame the world for her woes, and the other had decided to make the best out of everything in life. The difference is in their attitudes, the decision to make life happy, the optimism to believe that it can be happy. I’ll always remember my friend on the train; though life has taken away her ability to see, she dazzles the world with brightly colored sox.

This amazing sense of optimism, reminds me of one of my best friends, Lindsey. When Lindsey’s auntie Nancy died of cancer last year, I remember the sense of anger that it was not fair that a person loved by so many is no longer with us. Lindsey could have drowned in that sadness, but she did not. In honor of her aunt, Lindsey decided to run the Boston Marathon as a fundraiser for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. We’ve talked about this often, and between her law school papers and other responsibilities, Lindsey is determined to support others to win the battle against cancer. In a few months, Lindsey raises over $10,000 in donations for Dana Farber. A few days ago, we have the privilege of watching Lindsey run a marathon. My dad made a lovely poster, Run Lindsey Run, and along with my mom we join the crowd of supporters on the course. Lindsey runs by us, and 18 miles into the race, she manages to smile, wave, and say “Guy, you are my hero.” My dad is very touched and happy, and I, the eternal sentimentalist, break down in tears of joy, and happiness, and sadness. I then rush to the T, to try to see Lindsey at the finish line. People are being super nice on the T even though we are cramped like sardines. A nice woman has her blackberry and is checking people’s time online for everyone. Lindsey is running fast and at the rate the T is going, she’ll get to the finish line before me! We’re all talking to each other about our friends and family who are running, and there is a sense of unity around this simple event of having loved ones on the running course. I wonder why we can’t find this unity every day. We all love our children and friends in their life courses, but somehow we find it harder to unite around our more abstract similarities. After the finish line, as Lindsey is struggling to step over the side-walk curb, I realize it is purely on the strength of will power that she ran the marathon. We often wave off optimism and something foolish, silly, perhaps even naïve. There is something incredibly real, inspiring, and foolishly powerful about positive energy that carries a person 26.2 miles.

The power of optimism is a good opportunity to update you about the Football Tournament for Peace in Kibera. Earlier this year, in the aftermath of post-election violence in Kenya, many of us watched Kenya with great concern. During one of many worried phone calls and text messages to friends in Kenya, a dear friend of mine shares the idea of a football tournament for peace in Kibera, as an opportunity to bring the community back together. From this conversation, the idea is written into a document, shared with other friends in Kenya and abroad, discussed over the phone again and again. Within a week or so, we decide to really go for it, to make this event happen. People in Kibera join the effort and soon enough we have an organizing team on the ground, with individuals whose commitment to this cause is phenomenal and whose creativity makes this idea their own. We ask for support from friends and family, and the response is overwhelming. People care about Kenya, about peace, about not watching suffering with indifference, about giving hope a chance. In less than two months, we raise $4,500 to support youth activities for peace and non-violence in Kibera. On April 17-20, the tournament took place in Kibera. In the days leading to the event, 100 students were educated on peace and non-violence. In the tournament, 640 youth, both boys and girls, played in football matches, watched by over 1000 community members who gathered from all parts of Kibera. The tournament brought together groups from various villages within the slum - in this way breaking down fears of moving outside their own “safe” areas which many residents have faced since the unrest. Local women’s groups, in-school youth, artists and musicians participated by performing skits, songs and poems about peace and non-violence at the event. The most amazing aspect for me has been the formation of a true coalition for peace in Kibera. The organization of this tournament brought together community groups and non-governmental organizations who after seeing the power of working together are considering continuing the coalition into the future. Thank you all for your support, this experience has taught me the force of optimism to turn an idea into reality.

And yet sometimes our optimism is challenged, and our hope humbled, and the world really is a tough place. I was recently in Paris, on a wonderful visit with Pierre and his family. We had a lovely time, a magical week, of meeting family and friends, enjoying art, savoring delicious food (and cheese!) and cherishing our moments with each other. In the midst of this joy, we come across a beautiful photo exhibition outside the Luxemboug gardens. The exhibit has pictures from the past 30 years of various events and places in the world. The mixture of spectacular places, beautiful people, and devastating events and circumstances is challenging to see. We live in such a beautiful world, and yet there is so much bad in it. I feel a bit silly, standing in beautiful Paris, hand-in-hand with my loved one, and shedding tears in front of a picture of mother and her son in a Darfur internally displaced persons camp. I realize in this moment just how much we need each other, all of us, loved ones and strangers; how we depend on love and happiness to protect our optimism and hope when the world seems so dark.

Here is Boston we are doing well. I am working on Uganda programs for the Bantwana Initiative at World Education, and it keeps me somehow connected the my beloved Uganda.

My father is continuing with his clinical trial and his numbers are improving slowly. On May 10, he will be walking 5 kilometers to raise money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Fund. You can support his effort at: www.active.com/donate/bos08/teamorbotech

I find it remarkable that through his personal health struggles, he can see with hope into the future, not only for himself, but for others, a world without cancer.

Gandhi said “be the change you wish to see in the world,” but perhaps before we can be the change, we need the hope to believe in it. So I try to be the hope I wish to feel in the world; to start each day with a desperate search for optimism, look for it like it is gold, search for it in people’s eyes, gasp for it like it is oxygen needed to breathe, and find it in the most unexpected places, a smile, an act of kindness. I savior it, hang on to it when I can. When a blind woman is knitting, admire her. When a friend is crazy enough to run a marathon and raise 10,000, support her absolutely. When someone shares an idea, act on it. It may seem desperate, but in the end, we are all looking for our own way to both save the world and savior it, and optimism is the fuel that keeps us going.

Thank you for being in my life,
Inbal

Pictures from the tournament in Kibera: