Stories - Africa

Letter From South Africa - Pat Cane
October 28, 2003
Johannesburg, South Africa

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Johannesburg, where I am resting briefly in a lovely country lodge before a long flight back to California. I just finished my tour for the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) AIDS Office. It is good to be in nature to renew my spirit after a nonstop month offering 9 two-day workshops in 6 different regions of South Africa, as well as in Swaziland and Botswana. Last year in a synchronistic meeting with SACBC AIDS Office Director Sr. Alison Munro, OP, I was invited to offer this series of trainings. I wholeheartedly accepted Alison's invitation without fully realizing what this would mean. For me the SACBC tour has been a great challenge, inspiration and grace - a heartfelt expression of Capacitar's vision and mission to heal ourselves and heal our world walking in solidarity with the marginalized people of our world. Nearly four hundred women, men and youth representing over 120 different grassroots organizations, parishes, hospices, orphan homes and caregiver groups participated in the workshops. Many of them serve as volunteer caregivers of those dying of AIDS or they work with orphans in their communities. Some of the participants were themselves HIV positive or had full-blown AIDS, and they were still caring for friends or family who were dying. Truly these people are some of the angels of our planet and it was a great privilege for me to care for them and empower them with Capacitar skills!

Almost every workshop participant arrived exhausted, depressed, or grieving, in physical or emotional pain, and often hopeless about the enormity of the AIDS pandemic. Some persons with HIV/AIDS shared feelings of self-hate, desperation, and wanting to end their lives. Very few of the participants knew anything about wellness, self-care, or how to deal with grief, emotional pain and the dying process. The Capacitar practices were enthusiastically embraced, as people quickly began to feel their energy and spirits awaken through Tai Chi, Acupressure and the Emotional Freedom technique.

The theme of the workshops was "Living in Wellness." The theme came to me last year as a challenge from a young Zulu man who said: "We are all going to die. You may die of an accident or old age, and I will die of AIDS. I want to learn how to live and die well." Few of the participants had ever considered that we all have to deal with how we live and how we die, whether we are HIV positive or not. So the workshops focused on how to live with a sense of physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, caring for ourselves as we care for families and communities. We studied different Eastern and indigenous practices to help boost immunity, as well as to alleviate or lessen symptoms of HIV-associated infections. And we looked at how to accompany those dying of AIDS and their families, empowering them to heal wounds and unfinished business, so they can let go and die with peace and love.

For everyone the AIDS pandemic is overwhelming in its magnitude. Over 5 million people (20% of the population of 48 million) are infected in South Africa alone. In Botswana 38% of the total population (and 50% of the adult population) is HIV positive, with a very high suicide rate among infected young men. By 2010 there will be more than 20 million orphans in the region. And last week the news in Swaziland reported that in one area there were over 4,000 households headed by children under 8 years of age. In many places the vast majority of poor have no access to antiretroviral drugs, or medications for HIV-associated infections. And the situation is compounded by drought in Sub Saharan Africa where millions of people are also starving. One caregiver in Port Elizabeth said: "Sometimes I visit whole families dying of AIDS who haven't eaten for several days." Teresa, a woman from Bloemfontein said: "When there are no medicines or resources available, all I have to give some of the dying people is my smile."

Yet in the midst of all the suffering, AIDS is teaching the human family the deeper meaning of life and death and the ways of compassion towards self and others. One woman from Durban said that she and her friends have had to learn how to care for the dying, as well as how to care for orphaned children (something new for those in her area). She also said that AIDS is teaching the importance of unconditional love as they accompany so many people dying without medication. Moses, an older Catholic priest in Swaziland, described the love poured out by his parish community when someone found an AIDS infant who had been thrown into the trash by his parents. The baby was rescued by a local doctor, and lovingly cared for by a group of women who fed, sheltered and held the child for months before he died. Moses said that all the people wept and grieved the death of this child as if he had been their own kin. Three days ago at the end of the workshop in Botswana, Joyce who has full-blown AIDS, said to the entire group that she is finally able to accept and love herself. She feels blessed to have life and wants to help others until she is ready to die.

Many of the workshop participants are also involved in education of youth to stop the spread of AIDS. Benjamin Marsala and Stanley Finck, who have worked for many years as social workers and leaders at Pollsmoor Prison in Capetown, started the Prosperty Youth Centre. Their goal is to inspire and educate poor black youth to prevent them from going to prison, where AIDS is almost inevitably contracted. Within an hour of my arrival in Capetown, Benny and Stanley took me inside Pollsmoor Prison to meet the men and see the reality of their lives. Currently this prison is 240% over-occupancy, with probably 40% HIV positive. Terrence, a prisoner who has had HIV for 17 years, coordinates a wonderful project where the men raise and sell rare African birds. At one point during my visit I had a baby parrot sitting on my finger as I walked through the prison cells. Benny and Stanley coordinated a most interesting Capacitar workshop which included: members of the prison staff, the co-director of the prison hospital, the head of AIDS outreach for the prison, caregivers for local people dying of AIDS, as well as former prisoners working in community youth ministry. The training was held on prison grounds, and while I was teaching how to release anger and fear using the fingerholds, I spied a couple of the prisoners listening in and holding their fingers! I plan to work with Benny and Stanley's groups in future visits to Capetown; and workshops will also include some of the prisoners who will be able to multiply the workshops in their cellblocks.

As I do these workshops I am learning a lot. I am finding that AIDS is like the tip of the iceberg. Under the surface there is so much unhealed individual and societal trauma from years of political and domestic violence, apartheid, racism, sexism and poverty. Nomonde who currently works with AIDS orphans in Umtata, described how her father and two brothers had been arrested and killed during the apartheid years. Her mother died of a broken heart as family members were killed. Nomonde herself has never had the opportunity or time to heal these memories. Along with past trauma, caregivers are currently battered by compassion fatigue or secondary trauma, not knowing how to care for themselves as they struggle to care for so many others. They talk a lot about their depression, hopelessness, despair and exhaustion. AIDS is also compounded by the extreme poverty of the masses of infected people. It is one thing to have HIV or AIDS and have access to food, water and medicine. AIDS is a very different thing for the desperately poor who are starving and have few medical, economic or human resources. The current programs for training caregivers focus on the medical and material aspects of caregiving and have little reference to self-care or the body, mind and spirit of patient or caregiver. People recognized that something was missing in their work of caregiving, so the Capacitar approach seems to be the right thing at the right time empowering people with simple skills for themselves, their patients, the orphans and their families.

Everywhere I worked people asked for resource materials. So for the trainings I developed a pilot Capacitar AIDS Manual that participants could use and copy for others. Living in Wellness: Capacitar Practices for Caregivers, Families and People with HIV/AIDS will be published next year by the SACBC AIDS Office to make it accessible to thousands of people throughout Southern African countries. I will also contribute a chapter of Capacitar practices for another SACBC book: Education for Life—a program for youth dealing with values and choices over AIDS. And next year I am scheduled for another series of SACBC trainings in Southern Africa, this time on trauma healing as this relates to AIDS and the dying process.

As I end my time in Southern Africa I look back on so many warm memories of exquisite natural beauty, vibrant cultures, remarkable people and special friends. Southern Africa is called the cradle of humankind, for it is here where the roots of our human family began over 3 million years ago. And perhaps in struggling to heal the AIDS pandemic and the extremes of violence, we will all learn what it means to be part of a human family grounded in compassion and loving care.

I am deeply grateful for your support of me, Capacitar and the people we serve.

With love and blessings,
Pat Cane

Letter From South Africa - Pat Cane
September 25, 2003
Johannesburg, South Africa

Dear Friends,

Sayubono! Special greetings to you from South Africa where we are enjoying a short rest at Pilanesberg National Park before the next part of the journey. It is a joy to see the peaceable kingdom of lions, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, zebras, rhinos and wildebeast all running free, while we humans are the caged ones in our safari vehicles.

The workshops here in Johannesburg have been going very well with some fine collaborations developing for Capacitar with such major institutions as the Cancer Association of South Africa and the AIDS Office of the Southern African Bishops Conference (SACBC), among others. There is great interest in what Capacitar offers because of the current situation in South Africa: extremely high crime rate, daily assaults, robberies and hijackings, 40% unemployment, the highest suicide rate for young males in the world, and an estimated 5 million people with HIV/AIDS. All this contributes to a national experience of stress and trauma for this country of 46 million people who have also been traumatized by the years of apartheid.

Since arriving last Wednesday my time has been nonstop with meetings, trainings and several radio programs. Mary Duennes, RN, from Capacitar for Kids in Cincinnati, is with me for the first two weeks in Johannesburg and also for work in Lesotho. Mary worked here in past years teaching a program of Healing Touch, and then started sharing Capacitar practices because of their simplicity and accessibility for grassroots people. Last year I offered trauma healing trainings here for a number of groups who recognized the value of the work, and as a result Capacitar was invited to begin in-depth trainings in 2003-2005. I was also invited for an October tour offering 8 trainings (in 6 regions of South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland) for AIDS Care givers sponsored by SACBC.

This past weekend we started the inaugural cycle of 1-year trainings in Multicultural Wellness Education to form teams of South Africans to carry on the work of Capacitar here. We are committed to walk with the people of Southern Africa empowering them to take on their own process as they develop the program here. The first module of training involved 20 women and 2 men from a wide variety of backgrounds. Sharon Ries, who has worked in development for many years, and Joel Perry, national director of the Educational program for the Cancer Association, have taken on the responsibility for coordinating these first trainings. The participants are a most interesting group from different parts of South Africa and Botswana. Seven black counselors and 1 Indian social worker come from the Cancer Association and work with families and the dying in 7 regions of the country. Several participants are doing outreach to people and youth with HIV/AIDS. Two Sisters of the Holy Family work with schools and the disabled. A mother and daughter, who came from Gabaronne, Botswana, have a holistic center in the villages for the poor and for youth. One white South African woman heads a training program for 600 employees at a national bank as well as directing an assault de-briefing program for employees affected by bank robberies (One employee she worked with was victim of 15 bank robberies!). One man who was an activist, businessman and engineer and is now suffering from postpolio syndrome, wants to learn some skills so he can reach out to help youth in stress. One woman came from the Valley Trust in Kwazulu/Natal where she works with youth at risk on HIV/AIDS awareness using drama and art. And most touching is Lynne, a white South African mother whose son was brutally shot in the head in a hijack/assault in June. (She synchronistically found out about the training the day before it started.) Lynne is in the process of organizing a national campaign against violence and will use the Capacitar practices to promote nonviolence and healing through her movement. She also plans to use Capacitar with her son's friends who witnessed his brutal murder and who are turning to drugs and alcohol to deal with their grief and trauma.

A wonderful sense of community, respect and celebration developed in this very diverse group of participants—black, colored, Indian and white, poor and affluent, religious and secular— came to recognize their own value and the wisdom in each other. Those who had arrived stressed and exhausted changed noticeably in the healing community after learning practices of self-care as well as the basic practices for use with others. As Capacitar we will walk with this inaugural training group during 2004 as they reach out to serve thousands of people in their professions and communities throughout Southern Africa. We are also planning for 2 or 3 other concurrent cycles of in-depth training in Johannesburg, Capetown and Kwazulu/Natal.

Besides the inaugural training several other grassroots workshops have also been offered to women doing outreach to families and HIV, to persons working with abused women and to the trauma unit of police officers in Johannesburg. We heard that last year alone 238 police were killed. Because of low wages and the politics of law enforcement, the police department is not very effective in dealing with the growing challenge of crime and violence, so people look to private security companies or to their own means of protection. Since our time here last year it is wonderful to hear so many positive comments from people who have used the Capacitar practices to help with the stress of their lives. One friend uses the practices in all her trainings for assault victims and bank personnel. Another friend uses the practices with cancer families. So Capacitar is already recognized as a vehicle of empowerment and healing by many.

Besides setting up the trainings, Sharon and Joel also organized several media opportunities. I have been on the national radio circuit talking about Capacitar in South Africa with several different hosts. One program with SABC was a call-in show addressing Capacitar's response to the current violence, with callers as far away as Capetown and Durban. Another program, "Believe It or Not", on the very popular Radio 702, dealt with the need for spirituality to heal the society as well as the violence of the world. Joel Perry was part of this interview/show and could give his insightful comments on the need for spiritual tools of self-empowerment to heal violence. The third show was with Dr. Dee, a psychologist, who discussed the psychological trauma of South Africa and Capacitar's experiences in other parts of the world.

So as I journey here over the next 5 week, I ask your prayerful support, especially of the grassroots people with whom we work. At all of the workshops we mention that friends of Capacitar are praying for each of the participant groups. And you likewise are joined with us in spirit at our closing ritual circle. Thank you for your continued friendship and support as together we work to heal and transform our world.

Peace and blessings,
Pat Cane

South Africa from Newsletter, Winter 2002

"When Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994, I knew freedom for the first time. And now after so many years of pain and trauma, I feel free in my body and my spirit!" Mali, a Zulu activist working with AIDS outreach at the Valley Trust in Kwazulu/Natal, described his experience at a Capacitar workshop with Pat Cane. The response to Capacitar was enthusiastic and participants asked for more trainings and support materials. Capacitar will be producing another book - Living in Wellness: A Capacitar Manual for HIV/AIDS - which will focus on practical skills, body-mind-spirit practices, palliative care, the grief process, and self-care for youth, caregivers and grassroots groups for use especially where there are few resources and little access to medical or psychological care. The manual will be used in community-based training programs to be conducted in 2003-2005 in Southern and Eastern African countries. A number of wellness trainings are being scheduled throughout South Africa by the Capacitar-South Africa Coordinating Committee - Sharon Ries, Joel Perry, and Sandy Perry.

Letter From South Africa - Pat Cane
August 7, 2002
Johannesburg, South Africa

Dear Friends,

Special greetings to you from South Africa. I am deeply grateful for your prayer and spiritual support for this journey. Since the moment I arrived here on July 24 I have experienced many graced moments, remarkable synchronicities, and very special people. As one woman said in a workshop today, Capacitar is a greatly needed gift to South Africa and the time is so ripe for developing the vision and program here. I am staying with a wonderful couple - Joel and Sandy Perry - in Johannesburg. Joel heads to Education office for the SA National Cancer Association. Sandy is Office Manager of the Mayor of Johannesburg.

Through friend Mary Duennes from Cincinatti, who has taught Healing Touch in South Africa, I was put in touch with Sharon Reis, a wonderful woman connected with development at Wits University. Sharon has generously taken on the responsibility for organizing my schedule, which has focused mainly on training groups working with AIDS. Many of you probably followed news of the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona several weeks ago. The Southern African countries have the highest rate of AIDS in the world. In Botswana, for example, 44% of pregnant women and 40% of the population have AIDS. South Africa has the largest number of people in the world with AIDS—5 million people or 20% of their population of 40 million. Some areas such as Kwazulu/Natal (where I will be next week) have 60% to 70% of their population infected. Everyone here talks of the many funerals they are constantly attending. People are exhausted from caring for their loved ones, and agencies giving direct service are burning out quickly, with little medication and few resources available for the poor. Sue Roberts of the CARE program told me today that it takes six months from diagnosis for the person with AIDS to get into the clinic to receive some medical help. They are so backlogged with people needing help. You probably also have seen the news that within the next 6 months 10 million people will be on the brink of starvation in Southern African countries and many of these people are also infected with AIDS. So it feels very right to focus Capacitar trainings here on AIDS, to provide tools to give care to the care givers and holistic practices to bring relief and spiritual healing for those dying.

My schedule is very full. I had a half-day to rest from jet lag (after sleeping 2 nights on planes!) Thanks to Sharon, I am working with the three most recognized and respected organizations of the country. I worked the first 2 days with the AIDS Consortium, a highly respected organization which networks with a large number of outreach organizations giving education, counseling, and other services to people with AIDS, their families, children and elderly. About one third of this group of 34 black men and women, were HIV positive or had AIDS. People were so eager to learn and wanted as much as they could get seeing the great value of the work and the relief and healing it brought to them. One street-wise man was ready to start Tai Chi on the street corners to pass it on to the youth. One woman connected with the UN and Trade Union Organizing wanted to take the practices to ANC men returned from exile who were unemployed and angry or violent. Another man was the head nurse in charge of HIV/AIDS at the prison (3,000 male prisoners) with only 8 nurses on staff. He is ready to train his staff and a group of prisoners in Capacitar practices so the prisoners can themselves be the multipliers, and he also wants to bring this work to other prisons. He said they had at least 7 funerals a month in his prison because of AIDS and they were desperate to learn anything to help them deal with the situation. There were several people from the Traditional Healers - Organization working with AIDS, who were fascinated with these practices and wanted to collaborate in the future trainings. The stories go on and on.

This past week I worked with with 2 different groups - CARE (Community AIDS Response) and in a very poor black township, Orange Farm AIDS Care Givers. The CARE group of 52 mostly black and colored men and women is coordinated by Sue Roberts, a truly wonderful and inspiring white nurse who single-handedly over the last ten years, developed her outreach programs putting pressure on the hospital systems to do something. She has a large group of lay volunteer counselors who work with dying patients and visit their homes and families. Like many of the poor in Latin America these volunteers are unemployed and at the same time generously give of their time to help those dying or in great need. It is from their poverty that they give of their time and few resources, with such generosity and love. So giving to these people and caring for their generous spirits is a joy and a blessing for me. One woman said this afternoon, that she had come with such pain and depression to the workshop, and she left with great joy and healing. One very large strong black woman named Beauty works as a volunteer since the death of her son. Beauty works with other mothers and families helping them to accept their children and teaching them what they can do for themselves and their families. Many families are afraid to deal with their children dying of AIDS and want to keep this hidden. Often AIDS patients are not cared for by their family members who are in denial of the disease because of fear and the social stigma of their communities. Some people with AIDS are beaten or murdered in the townships. So the CARE volunteers are the angels of the dying, visiting them, nursing them, and now they will be teaching some Capacitar practices to them and their families. I also worked in Orange Farm, a large township of over 1 million people most of whom are living in dire poverty in tin and plastic shacks. Few have running water and electricity. There are currently 15 AIDS outreach family visitors working with people in two sections of this enormous sprawling settlement. One family visitor said how difficult it was for her to visit a family which has not eaten for 3 days. AIDS is one thing, but the desperate situation of few resources is another. There are many teen pregnancies, and 1 in 4 girls are HIV positive, with 60% of Orange Farm pregnancies being HIV positive.

This past weekend I flew to Durban (a beautiful city by the Indian Ocean) to offer a 2-day workshop for the Umtapo Peace Center. Sharon Reis joined me for this workshop, so we were also able to do some planning for a major Capacitar program of trainings in South Africa in 2003-4. With Umtapo Center I worked with about 36 activists from 8 provinces of South Africa who were gathered to look at economic justice and sustainability issues in preparation for the up and coming World Summit on Sustainability which takes places at the end of August in South Africa. UN and world officials will fittingly open the World Summit with a ceremony at the Cradle of Humankind site near Johannesburg, where the most ancient human remains have been found. The group from all over South Africa was delightful and a real inspiration, in their empowerment approach to community development - a real match for Capacitar. Needless to say, we have invitations for developing Capacitar programs now in many regions of the country. I also worked the last two days at the Valley Trust in Kwazulu/Natal with rural health workers and outreach workers. This is one of the most beautiful areas of the country and is called the Valley of the Thousand Hills. Valley Trust is a center highly respected throughout South Africa for its many program with rural medicine.

In between workshops I have also been giving shorter presentations to different gatherings. At one synchronistic luncheon with the Oakford Dominican Sisters this past Saturday, present was Allison Munro, OP, coordinator of the AIDS office for the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference. She invited me to do a one-month training tour later in 2003 of 5 Southern African countries (Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, and about 8 regions in South Africa) to train about 400 rural leaders working with AIDS outreach programs in 5 of the 7 most affected countries of the world. Ultimately this kind of training will bring Capacitar practices to tens of thousands of rural people in the five countries.

Before leaving South Africa, I gave a presentation that Sandy Perry has arranged at the Civic Center and through the Health Department. This was for NGOs (Non-governmental organizations), staffs, and health organizations. Sharon has also arranged for interviews with a magazine, as well as with a Wits University department interested in rural health outreach and research. We had our first coordinating committee meeting to set up Capacitar-South Africa and to plan for the development of the program in 2003. So Capacitar is well on its way to developing here with overwhelming interest and enthusiasm.

Life is not all work, and I did take a day off yesterday with Sharon to visit my first game reserve - the Rhino and Lion Park about an hour north of Johannesburg near the Cradle of Humankind. It was great! We drove through the park with Rhinos basking in the sun, ostriches blocking the road, zebras, wildebeasts and other beings moving across the hills. In the predatory animal area we literally had a lion sitting several yards from our car. It was both frightening and thrilling to see the power and majesty of these animals. I am quickly falling in love with South Africa and the wonderful people and wildlife here.

A somber note: the current crime and violence in South Africa is a big concern for all. Many people desperately poor in the townships come into the city and rob and mug people, homes, cars, businesses. Almost everyone lives with razor wire fences, alarms and security systems. When you go into a residence you are locked in behind bars and security devices. Everyone lives in fear of being mugged or robbed. A friend's home was burglarized the morning of our flight to Durban. A musician at the hotel where the Durban Umtapo Conference was held, told me casually yesterday that he had been assaulted the day before by two men who held guns to his head trying to steal his car and wallet. He struggled to free himself out of the car wanting to die standing, when the police arrived and shot the two men, and then had to watch one of the robbers die in front of him, without being able to help him. So this is quite common in many places in South Africa.

Many talk of the mixed blessing of AIDS and the difference between curing and healing. Without a doubt AIDS is a scourge and a terrible thing. But some people talk about learning so much spiritually and personally in the process of dealing with this trauma. Instead of a cure they are finding profound healing for themselves and their families. Perhaps in the African cradle of humankind, where AIDS is by far one of the greatest threats on the planet, the human family is re-discovering a different kind of fire of the human spirit. In facing the death and trauma of this epidemic, individuals and communities are once again learning what it is to be truly human - people filled with love, compassion and generosity working together to bring healing and transformation to our world.

Thank you for your friendship, prayer and support!

With blessings to you,
Pat Cane

East Africa

Newsletter - Winter 2002

Capacitar-Tanzania team members, including Constansia Mbogoma and Maryknoll Sister Pat Gallogly, MM, are already multiplying the work, planning trainings and securing funds for 2003-2004. Workshop participants in Mwanza,Tanzania represented women's groups working to deal with AIDS, women's rights, orphans, poverty, domestic violence, social justice, and caregiving. As Constansia remarked: "This is ripe for us here, and Capacitar will be well received!"

In Nairobi, Kenya Mary Litell OSF and Pat Cane worked with Jesuit Refugee Service staffs, with invitations in 2003 for continued work there and in refugee camps. Maryknoll Sisters Ruth Greble and Nancy Lyons hosted a training at Maryknoll World Section House which included women from the Sudanese Women's Voice of Peace, and youth involved in Kenyan peace movements.

Letter From East Africa - Pat Cane
July 26, 2002, Kenya

Dear Friends,

Special greetings to you from Nairobi where we are down to our last week and a half of Capacitar work in Africa. After my time in South Africa I met up with Sr. Mary Litell, OSF, to travel and work in Tanzania and Kenya for a month. Mary, a dear friend from first grade and a very gifted facilitator, has been part of Capacitar's international work since 1995. Mary and I spent the first two weeks of our time in Tanzania, one of the poorest countries of the world with 37 million people, over half living well below the poverty level (defined as income of less than $1 US per day). Tanzania is also home to another 1 million refugees from neighboring war-torn countries. Nearly everyone we have met suffers from malaria, and the number of people with HIV or AIDS increases daily, with many of these being school-age children. We focused our workshops mainly in the Northwestern region of the country, in Mwanza on Lake Victoria and in Bijaramulo and Rulenge, rural areas closer to Rwanda and Burundi.

Mwanza, the second largest city of the country with a population of 5 million people, is a very poor sprawling city nestled among magnificent boulders and rocks with dirt roads, open sewers, and very colorful friendly peaceful people. Our first weekend workshop, coordinated by Franciscan and Maryknoll sisters, was for 32 women leaders from a variety of groups including AIDS Outreach, parish counselors, members of the Diocesan Women's Commission, teachers, religious, social workers and nurses from the main hospital. Two women from UWATU, a women's organization in Musoma, traveled nearly 4 hours to be part of our program. Their fundraising efforts involve building coffins for the many people currently dying of AIDS in their area. Most people in Tanzania speak one of a number of tribal languages along with Swahili as their second language. English and Swahili have been the official languages since the formation of the country of Tanzania in1964 (from Tanganyika and Zanzibar). Our Swahili translator was Constansia Mbagoma, a truly wonderful woman in her late 40s, who is a teacher, spiritual guide and community leader in Mwanza. Constansia, a widow with 7 children (her husband tragically died several years ago of kidney failure), recognized the importance of Capacitar practices from the moment she started translating. She remarked on the first day: "We are ready for this, and Capacitar will be well received!" Most of the women came exhausted and very stressed to the workshop because of their poverty and challenging lives. This was the first time that most women had ever been exposed to holistic energy practices, and the change in everyone was remarkable. In the evening the women gave us a wonderful gift—a gathering of lively African songs and dance. This has became the joyful and healing gift of each group offered to us at the end of our workshops. Our days in Mwanza were spent with sisters of Mary Litell's congregation who live as a Franciscan international community (sisters from Poland, Brazil, Indonesia and the US) who have a house of formation/novitiate of African women. There is great interest in religious life among young men and women in African countries and vocations are thriving.

From Mwanza we traveled to Bijaramulo, first crossing part of Lake Victoria on a ferry with big cargo trucks, old buses and hundreds of people with their children, chickens, and even someone in a coffin. The car ride to Bijaramulo was on one of the bumpiest dustiest dirt roads I have ever traveled on. We passed strikingly beautiful scenery of red hills, vast expanses of blue sky, fields and open spaces, and many small poor villages where people live with dirt floors. A number of the villages appeared abandoned, possibly because of the growing number of deaths because of AIDS. When we arrived six hours later Mary and I laughed at our appearance - we were so covered with dust from the road that we looked like we had red hair! In Bijaramulo we stayed again with the Franciscan sisters and worked with their young African postulants, aspirants and newly professed. There is great interest in sustainability in Tanzania and the electricity of the sisters, as well as in many other places, is solar-generated. The sisters also had a wonderful organic vegetable garden so every day we enjoyed their delicious papayas, bananas and other crops. Because of the rich variety of crops and trees in the area we saw a large number of African birds of all colors—osprey, herons, egrets, parrots and many others. I was rather impressed however when one of the sisters described the cobra that had wandered through their garden a year or so ago, and the huge python they had to remove from another convent garden in the region. Oh the surprises of organic gardening in Africa!

In Rulenge we met with the Caritas staff which works with many refugees. Currently there is an effort to move the refugees back to Rwanda or Burundi, and staff members described how the conflict continues among the warring tribes. In a meeting with Bishop Severini, head of the Rulenge diocese, he spoke of the desperate need to heal the trauma of the refugees. He questioned how there could be peace or the creation of healthy societies if the people returned to their homes so wounded and traumatized. We also had a brief visit with the staff of Radio Kwizera, developed by Jesuit Refugee Services. Their programs are broadcast in 4 languages to over 1 million people from Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. The program director was very interested in doing a program on Capacitar practices that she planned to download from our website. Our time in Tanzania ended with the inauguration of an official Capacitar-Tanzania coordinating committee who will share what they learned during the workshops with other groups, and who will take on fundraising and coordination efforts for the future development of Capacitar in country. Our translator Constansia Mbagoma will head up the Capacitar committee. Constansia is already enthusiastically teaching the Capacitar practices in her own seminars and classes!

We are now in Nairobi, Kenya, another country greatly affected by violence, poverty, malaria and AIDS. Kenya is home to 31 million people, with over half the population living on less than $1 US per day. Like Tanzania, Kenya is home to a large number of refugees, these being from Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. There are also large numbers of internally displaced Kenyans due to political violence of previous years. There is a growing number of orphaned children due to AIDS, with 1.5 million projected by 2005. 38% of women between 15 to 19 years have undergone female genital mutilation, and there are many women victims of rape, incest and sexual assault. In the midst of it all there are some fine organizations doing excellent work in the area.

Last Friday Mary and I did a workshop for staff, parish counselors, social workers, and members of outreach programs of Jesuit Refugee Services, coordinated by Roxanne Schares, SSND. The 23 JRS men and women who participated work with thousands of refugees in 8 major Nairobi parishes, and some specifically focus on AIDS. Everyone spoke of their need to take care of themselves as they work with victims of violence and many desperate cases. We met with the Kenya JRS country director who is very interested in future Capacitar work for staff trainings as well as in the Bukomu refugee camp (with 80,000 refugees). Somehow or other our older Capacitar manual made its way to Bukomu camp and some of the refugees and JRS staffs are actively using many of the practices!

In Nairobi we have been staying with the Maryknoll Sisters Center House. This week we will offer workshops with several groups coordinated by Maryknoll, including one group of Sudanese women. The long recent period of violence in Sudan has meant that the Maryknoll sisters, as well as the bishop, have moved offices to Nairobi and run services and administration from here for a diocese in Sudan.

When we worked with JRS we shared in the Eucharist celebrated by Jesuit JRS Director, John Guiney, SJ. The scripture for the day was the wonderful passage from the prophet Ezechial that speaks of the dry bones, plundered, scattered and hopelessly buried in a foreign land. And God breathed Spirit into these dry bones giving them sinews and flesh, a new life and a new heart. As we do the work of Capacitar we often meet the dry bones of refugees, abused women, people with HIV, AIDS caregivers, and victims of trauma living in desperation. And in humble grace-filled ways we see Spirit and creative breath filling these dry bones, empowering many with a new life and a new heart.

Thank you for your prayers and your love, supporting and filling our own dry bones!

With love and blessings,
Pat Cane