April 18-21: Venezuela Solidarity Network's Symposium "What's Up With Venezuela? Participatory Democracy or Democracy as Usual?" Howard University, Washington, DC, April 18-21, 2008. See my report and photos.

April 11-13: Historians Against the War National Conference, "War And Its Discontents: Understanding Iraq And The U.S. Empire," A Conference For Historians And Activists, Co-Sponsored by the Peace History Society, Atlanta, Georgia. See my photos.

March 28-30: Organizing Communities Across Boundaries: An Organizing Teach-in sponsored by the Midwest Social Forum. See my photos.

(I'm at Orton Park Festival, and two women have a table set up offering to write poems for a dollar. I tell them that I'm not particularly fond of poetry. Or, rather, I don't 'get' poetry. So, they took my dollar and wrote me a poem about how I don't understand poetry.)

a prose poem about how i don’t understand poetry at all

by Miriam Hall
8-25-07

poems are dense
made up of a thousand ideas packed into only a few lines. it’s too tense. expectations. will i understand it? will anyone care if i don’t care? it’s too hard. i prefer novels. they are long and i can lay my mind out on the spines of them, forget to read so carefully for a few minutes. poet-novelist nicole krauss says poetry is harder than novels. i agree. my head hurts after them. and yet, somehow, at the end of this one i feel understood. and it’s ok.

I am traveling to Atlanta, Georgia for the United States Social Forum (USSF) from June 26-July 1, 2007. I plan to blog and post photos from Atlanta on the webpage of the Midwest Social Forum. I'll probably also post links and reports on my own website.

I am traveling to Guatemala from March 25-April 1, 2007 to attend the III Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations and a Hemispheric Council meeting of the Americas Social Forum. My blog is at http://www.yachana.org/reports/3cumbre/blog.html and I'll probably post more information to http://www.yachana.org/reports/3cumbre/

I am traveling to Ecuador for the International Conference to Abolish Foreign Military Bases (March 5-9, 2007) and to Colombia with the Colombia Support Network (March 10-18, 2007). Blogs and more info are under trip reports.

Here is a quick selection of random photos from Rwanda (click on the photo to go to the album).

When we arrived at the COOPAC coffee cooperative on the shores of Lake Kivu, they greeted us with dancing:



and then they invited us to join in with them:

On the way out of town we stopped at the Kigali Memorial Centre. There are several genocide memorial sites around the country. This one was set up in 2004 on the 10th anniversary of the genocide. It is a rather powerful exhibit--describing and documenting what happened, and placing it in context of other 20th-century genocides. There are 10 mass graves on the premises with more than 200,000 bodies--many of them never identified. My time here has been very non-political, and this was the most moving and thought-provoking experience. I'm glad I was able to make the visit.

We'll be leaving Rwanda in a couple of hours--flying to Nairobi this afternoon, then a long layover there before an overnite flight back to Amsterdam and then on to Detroit.

Two days ago we drove north to visit a coffee cooperative, and then west to Lake Kivu where we spent the night. Yesterday morning we crossed the lake by boat, and late afternoon came back by bus to Kigali. It was dark by the time we returned. We stumbled along unlit, smog-filled, crumbly streets for a kilometer or two back to the hotel. A kid kept brushing behind us trying to open Cheryl's backpack. In contrast, the countryside was so beautiful--particularly around Lake Kivu. Despite the history of genocide and poverty, Rwanda is a surprisingly crime-free country. The kid was more an annoyance than an issue of safety.

I have some videos and more pictures I'll try to post later, but right now it is time to go eat breakfast and catch some final things before leaving.

Yesterday we went out east to visit coffee farmers. Today we are going north, staying overnite, then going out west before coming back into Kigali for one last nite before flying out to Nairobi and back thru Amsterdam to the States. The countryside is very beautiful. We got back in late last nite and are leaving early this morning, so this is all there is time for...