Heading North

September 14 2004, I arrived at the Brisbane airport on my way to Cairns in the far north of Queensland. My mouth was aching from two infected teeth and I was suffering from a chronic back complaint. Frankly I was feeling lousy.
I had decided to take this trip earlier than originally planned after receiving the following email from Noah Salameh who runs a conflict resolution centre in Bethlehem, Palestine. Here is Noah’s unedited email:

Dear friends

Using Security

Today is Wed. the 25th of August, the CCRR’s youth group decided to go in a trip to a Palestinian city called Jericho by a bus. So this morning at 7:00 o’clock, the participants, who are two counselors and more than 40 children between the ages of 8-16 years old, arrived to the centre. They were very anxious and interested at the same time, interested because after one week they will go back to school and they want to have a fun before that and anxious because of the complicated procedures on the checkpoints.
The bus left and the children cheered and I returned to my office to work. Something great Honestly, I was very happy for them. I felt that I have done because for some of them this trip is the first and the only trip they had
in their vocation. But and unfortunately after 2 hours my phone rang.
It was the counselor saying: “We are still stocked on the Israeli Army military checkpoint at the entrance of Jericho. The Israeli soldiers refuse to allow us to enter Jericho, what to do???? I’m upset, I’m angry, I’m tired,
and the children are very sad.” I didn’t know what to do, how I can help them, what is the appropriate suggestion for them. So, I told him to try to negotiate with the responsible soldier who is in charge there to make it clear
that they are children; all they want is to play and to have fun. They are not dangerous. They are going to visit their friends in Jericho. The consoler Naji told me that the Israeli soldier refused to realize all of that
and his response was:” NO YOU CAN’T PASS, GO BACK TO BETHLEHEM”.
We just wonder what is wrong in that. Is this also forbidden for the Palestinian children? I’m trying to understand how the Israeli army or the Israeli Government wants us to understand that? They treat us like we aren’t human being equal with them in everything, duties and rights. They want us to hate them. They encourage our children to use violence as a react to this kind of treatment. They are urging the Palestinians children, who go through this suffering in every time they want to pass a checkpoint or move from one place to another, to consider them as an enemy who steal from them their precious moments.
I’m asking the Israeli Government, why our children weren’t allowed to go to Jericho? Why our children are prevented from this kind of joy? Why our children had to travel two hours and to wait two hours on the checkpoint and forced to go back home with disappointment and anger? What Sharon or his government gain from this? I’m asking Bush the main supporter of Sharon’s policy: dose he really realizes the result of such action in the children’s psyche? What is more important for Mr. Bush the Jewish voters or the values?
I’m sorry because if I’m writing directly and being a little bit aggressive, but I would like to ask every one of you to imagine the reaction of the children faces after this long waiting on the checkpoint and going back fun????
How can I explain for them what happened, and why things happened in that way without making them hate the other side especially???? We try our best to train and educate those children on the value and importance of peace
and reconciliation so they can also work with other children on that.
It’s worth mentioning that those children participate in many workshops that aim to widen the belief of peace among people. Now the important question is how are we going to convince and explain for them the importance of having peace with those soldiers and their government, which is occupying their country?
This government is in control over everything. They control our water, electricity, and even our moving between the Palestinian cities. But sadly this government is supported by President Bush, which doesn’t criticize the building of new settlement or the aggression of the Israeli against the Palestinian people. Is the need of the Jewish voters
affect Mr. Bush’s judgments in this biased way? I hope that Mr. bush will deal with things from a human side and try to balance between the human and the political needs, and ask his friend Sharon to respect Palestinian humanity
as to allow our childhood to live their childhood as other children in another countries. I ask him to respect the minimum level of human rights?????

I’m not happy and I’m upset, but still I have hope because there are some peace activists in Israel, Palestine, USA, Europe, and the in whole world who are struggling to make changes in the general situation I do believe in them as agents of change more than I believe in the work of politicians.

Noah Salameh
The Center for Conflict Resolution & Reconciliation.
Bethlehem
Palestine

After reading Noah’s email and wondering what I could do to help. Knowing as he does the harm this injustice can do to children, - one-thing children need is to feel they are not alone and that someone cares. These children live in such a volatile part of the world. No mother would want their children to live like this.

I decided to return this email to Noah.

Noah

I can feel the pain you have in your heart and what the children must be feeling. I would like to suggest something very small we can do to make them feel that someone cares. Maybe I can't stop what is being done at the moment but I can through our Peace Embassy show them that children in Australia would like to be their friends. You are aware of the HOPE Hands of Peace Project I have started where we will link children around the world by simply exchanging their handprints.

I would like you to very quickly take the handprints of the 40 children who missed out on their trip. On two A4 sheet of paper each child can do their handprints in paint, pencil, pen or anyway they would like to do it, then have them write a message to the world of their idea of Peace.

On the paper put their name age and where they are from - not their full addresses.
Then take a few photos and send them to me and I will do some press and get 40 children from here to do their handprints to exchange with them. The first handprint we exchange and the second will become part of an exhibition of the Peace Embassy.
I will also do a part on the website where we can see the outcome from this simple yet powerful project.

The children will be able to see that the world of the Internet has no borders or walls. Soldiers may have stopped their trip but they can't stop their spirit of friendship.

Let’s do this NOW!

Love peace and a hug
Kerry Bowden

WHY?

Our eyes are big
Our noses cute
He wears a band
I wear a hat
He’s lost his dad
I live with mine
He plays with guns
I play with toys
He was born into war
I only know peace
He survives on the West Bank
I thrive on the East Coast
He cries and trembles
I laugh and giggle
Sounds of shelling wake him up
Sounds of the sea put me to sleep
Please look at us
And tell me why?
We are family
We
Not him and me
We are just children
We still love not hate
We are the future
Human race
Why are we so different?

Kerry Bowden 2002

Little did I know then that after receiving Noah’s email, a few days’ later suicide bombers would take not only their lives but also the lives of many more children on two Israeli buses? The last day of their school holiday would also be the last day of their short lives.

A few days later we all would hear the horrific reports of the hostage siege in Russia, and witness on television (between reality shows like The Simple Life and Trading Wives) the life and death event as it unfolded to its tragic end.

And between the reality shows, we might catch glimpses of the thousands of children starving to death in the arms of their Sudanese mothers. Somehow these shocking scenes become last weeks news as we moved on. Our lifestyle has conditioned us to seek the newest and most sensational.

I wondered how those women must have felt wondering whether their children were in pain or worse, dead. What could it have been like to stand outside that school? Or in Sudan what would it be like to sit with your child in your arms, too tired to keep the flies away as they slowly and very painfully died? I wailed for all of them.

This brought me to the conclusion that women around the world regardless of culture, religion or race would feel the pain of women. Maybe its time we did just that.

Each of us must do what we can in our own way. I decided, as I already know by now, Noah is getting the handprints of the children in Palestine, I must get the Australian handprints ready to exchange quickly.

So I packed and prepared to head for Cairns, with only a couple of hundred dollars in my wallet (the Government’s fortnightly handout of $380.00 is hard to live on at the best of times).

I find my suitcases are overweight with things for Djarragun and I’m asked to pay $80.00 excess – just a little less then my cheap airfare!

I reluctantly handed over my money vowing to fly with Virgin Blue, who I know would have let me carry the small case on board.

Wailing

The dawn arises from the sole of the horizon
A beacon seen by each mother on this planet
It reminds us to take this time each day
To open up our mind, heart, soul and womb
Then listen, imagine, hear, think, and feel
The wailing as its happening
From wombs around the world
As children become the victims
Of mankind’s inhumanity
While we speechlessly slept away the night
Others held their loved ones
Trying to patch they’re children’s’ lives
Held them as they lay dying
Or stood beside their graves
The wailing is the same
A mother’s pain is a mother’s pain
We beg for this all to end
Showing solidarity to our sisters
Let’s set aside this time each day
To unleash a profound wail from our soul
Out loud or simply just in silence
Not for ourselves or our own sorrow
But for each and every mother from all corners of the world
Regardless of country, culture or religion.
Together as we face the light of each new day
Let the wailing vibrate unceasingly
As we go back to our own lives knowing
Another mother has taken up your wailing.
There is now within you a small part of each and every mother
United in one cause to protect not only your own
But each and every child.
As the sound of wailing reverberates around the world
Let us hope those causing pain will hear
And know - we mothers will suffer this no more!

Kerry Bowden September 2004

I knew I would have places I could stay in Cairns until I sorted out a place for me. The important thing was to get to Djarragun School and arrange to take the handprints to exchange for the ones from Palestine I knew would be on their way. September holidays start on Friday.

Tuesday Sept 14, 5.30pm I drop my bags at the door of my sister’s place, who happens to be down the Coast where I had just left. Our mother who normally lives down at the coast is staying here at Sue’s place. I settle to have a cup of tea now already being prepared by my 84-year-old mother Jo. One of my brothers who normally lives in Townsville about 5 hours away is here for a few months doing some work, going home some weekends. Mum has been enjoying looking after him with meals and washing. Bless her heart, she is now happily looking after two of her five children as if we were both still kids. When Sue returns Mum will have three of her brood to fuss over for a while.

Have you noticed that no matter how old you are or how old your mother is you are still her little child, someone she must look after and protect? - It’s a womb thing!

Wednesday Sept 15 I phone the hospital dental clinic to make an appointment for Friday and make some other calls. The first one is to Djarragun to let them know I will call down on Thursday. I also arrange to catch up with Seith (a Gimuy-Yudinji traditional Owner). I want Seith to arrange a meeting with Aunty Mavis. She is the traditional woman from the Gordonvale area. I also want to catch up with Seith and see what he is up to in his very busy life.

An old mate from the late 70s and 80’s Carole. Called around for a cuppa and catch up. We go back to Noosa’s early days when I was an artist and she was a journalist running the local newspaper. Carole did one of the first interviews with me and we have had a sisterly bond ever since. Little did we both know what we would be up to within the week?

Then off to see Dr Fraz who had been my doctor when I was living up this way before? Dr Fraz is one of the many multicultural doctors working in a very busy 24-hour clinic in the heart of town, servicing the large tourist community.

Tenderness

There’s nothing so gentle
Nothing so mild,
Nothing so kind
As the hands of a child.

David Hope

Among the bundle of $1.00 books from the thrift shops was one called The Friendship Book, in it I found this little poem written by the author David Hope. As you read more about the HOPE Hands of Peace projects, you will understand how so many things are invisibly connected until by accident you stumble upon each others and a light bulb goes off. I read this poem and went WOW!

Dr Fraz who comes from Pakistan, had worked for many years in Africa mostly treating, as he said, injuries resulting from violence (burns, stabbings and shootings). I learnt this about him a few years earlier. I had consulted about a mole on my back. Before making an incision for a “flap cut”
he went out of the room to get something. Imagine my shock when he returned reading an instruction manual. I panicked - until he told me he just wanted to make sure of the measurements. Relief! The operation went ahead with Dr Fraz filling me in about his amazing background. I knew I was in very experienced hands.

I was delighted to find Dr Fraz was still at the surgery when I came this time. He again did what he could to improve my back now made worse from a frozen shoulder injury I am all but over, then wrote a script for antibiotics for my mouth. I didn’t want the dentist to say they couldn’t take the teeth out because of an infection.

Mum had come with me to the doctors. We did some shopping and then we called into a few thrift shops.

Thursday Sept16 drove south to Gordonvale, 24 km from Cairns. As I pulled into Djarragun Indigenous College carpark, I felt very much as if I was coming home. The college which is quite new now has well over 300 students. Some are boarders from indigenous communities in Cape York and many from islands off the Queensland coast.

It was here on March 17-18 2003 that I took the first 250 handprints for the HOPE Hands of Peace projects. From the start I had hit it off with the principal Jean Illingworth, - a hard working, innovative, creative global thinker if ever there was one. You must remember I had only come up with the concept of the HOPE project on March 12. I phoned Jean who I didn’t know at that time. Like me she could see the potential and believed in my dream for children and the project. She allowed me to interrupt her classes over two days while I took those very special first handprints.

On my return this time we greeted each other warmly as old friends. Our plans had developed since we last met. We decided we get together over the holidays to chat on many issues without interruptions.

The joys of being poor

I dress myself from head to toe
In my latest thrift shop clothes
All but my underwear
Finished off with a string of crystals
I re-stung from someone very old treasure
Each crystal so perfect that prisms of light
Flash around the wall, floor and ceiling
Most women would keep these beads for night
I prefer to wear them in the light of day
Where children are fascinated and amazed
Mesmerized in their own discovery
I always get a great big grin
When they realise these happy dancing lights
Are from my magic $2.00 crystal beads!

Kerry Bowden, September 2004

You don’t have to be rich to be classy – You just need to wear the right sort of crystals.

Before I leave Jean’s office, I admired a beautifully carved sideboard. Jean tells me it was made in the school workshop. I was so impressed with the craftsmanship and design I remarked “That piece should be in a furniture magazine”.

I leave via the staff room where Jean proudly showed me the display of woodwork that had won the school a trophy at the recent Cairns show. I must spend time with that manual arts teacher. He must be a very creative person going by the range of items his workroom has turned out.

I headed through the school grounds looking for Ludo the IT teacher. I always get good vibes from this room. Who would have ever thought I would ever feel at home discussing scripts, HTML, firewalls and spyware.

Thanks must go to the two Chris’s - the cheeky one in England who taught me so much and Chris from Comcen Internet Provider here in Australia who from day one in 2000 believed in my dreams and gave me free domain hosting, dial up and lots of good advice.

Now I look forward to working closely with Ludo and know that with his techno brain and my creativity and international contacts. Djarragun students should have lots of wonderful hands-on projects ahead of them.

I found the door locked. Lunchtime. I decided to get something at the canteen and just sit and enjoy the happenings, knowing that Ludo would appear at some point. Not long after I spotted him heading to another classroom. I called out and he waited for me to catch up. Again I could see he was busy organising students, so I suggested we also catch up over the holidays. IT is such a big part of all my projects, I think we will both gain as much as the students from this alliance.

Mission accomplished!

The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.
John Ruskin (1819-1900)

...next....Djarruga