So a clown walks into a bar.

and sits down.
That's not funny.
And yet, it still involves a clown.

So here I find myself blogging for the second day in a row after something of a sabbatical. I am feeling much more upbeat today, maybe its the weather, maybe its because I finally didn't spend my day sick in bed. I still have bronchitis but I am healing.

Other:

So I bought a scarf in South Africa. A pashmina, red,gold and orange which I haven't gone a day without wearing since I returned from South Africa. Today I spontaneously swapped scarves with a friend for a week today. I plan to photo-document the adventures of said scarf and report back to you.

A Rant:

So. I was listening to one of my interviews today, the first one I have made an attempt toward transcribing in a while. I thought it was a relatively straight forward interview without an exceptional amount of sorrow. A good way to ease back into things. Unfortunately it was not quite so straightforward. The respondent, a young woman who is now 19 told me about when war reached her city, Kisangani, in 2000. She was 10. When the Rwandans and Ugandans started fighting in her city they cut off the power and water supply to the entire population. They went for an entire week without bathing or clean drinking water and survived off of the food her mother was able to collect at the beginning of the week. A day into the fighting her neighbour's house was struck by a bomb, killing to people. Their bodies lay exposed in the rubble for days until the stench became unbarable and her family had to seek shelter elsewhere. That, she told me, is when they became "displaced". She also told me about how a number of children in her class died when a bomb was dropped on the school and how she was unable to attend classes for 5 months after the week long conflict.She also explained unwaveringly that the exiting armies lay land mines around the border of her city which killed many children who picked them up, thinking they were toys.

For the first time today, I succumbed to tears today after listening to one of my interviews. We almost all know that such things occur but its hard to imagine until someone sits in front of you and tells you about it or worse yet it happens to you.

My distress has now subsided into ambivalence. How do we, as Canadians, as citizens of a peaceful developed countries, as youth, and most of all as people, how do we continue to allow these tragedies to continue to occur? Is it that we have become cynical and believe that in certain countries, in the heart of darkness, there is no hope? Is it because the media only reports on certain conflicts and when they do its largely inaccurate? Is it because its happening too far away and you don't know what you could do anyway?

No child should ever have to smell the rotting corpses of their neighbour.

The reason that we should care, and perhaps must care is that such events are in no one's interest in the long run. They only serve to divide us further, to breed hatred against the people who stood by and did nothing. Even if you are an ardent capitalist, it removes access to markets, reduces the amount of consumers for your capital. It could just as easily be your town or city which is bombed to pieces or left riddled with bullets. How would you feel if the world looked on and did nothing. Sighed when they heard that more than 5 million people have died after a decade long war.

If we are ever interested in seeing long lasting, sustainable peace in the world we have to start acting. We have to abandon the us versus them mentality that sees people living these realities as others, glad we're not them. We have to start looking out for one another. Its not that hard. Get informed. Write a letter. Stop supporting companies which contribute to arms proliferation or the continuation of war. Better yet, demand that our governments also stop. Donate to a charity that is doing something if you must. Spread the word.

I have a friend with whom I debate such matters. Recently we were talking about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that there were more civilian casualties caused by insurgents and the Taliban than by coalition forces. When he forwarded me a report showing this and asserting that the insurgents and Taliban were intentionally targeting civilians while those who died as a result of coalition activities were unfortunate but unavoidable collateral damage, I asked him whether he really thought it mattered to the family and friends of the people who died whether they were killed intentionally by militants or accidentally by soldiers. It doesn't. Loved ones are still lost. Bodies still rot in the streets.

Stop war.