Survival tactics for the international messenger

In Dili, our interviewees greet us warmly, and allow us, for one or two hours, to intrude into their lives, pose them for photographs and leave with hopes more than promises – we will try, we say, to get the world to care.  I’ve thought a lot about how to blog, or even how to write about what we’ve been told here, and the truth is I can’t, for now.  I can’t write about them, their bravery, their tenacity, their honesty, as a hurried blog from my hotel room.  Part of me wants to hold their stories in my heart forever, protect them, and keep them from the cruel and indifferent eyes of the world.  But I know that isn’t what they would want me to do.

 

 

Gloria and her daughter are patient while waiting for the interpretor ©Brie OKeefe

 

As this visit has progressed, as we’ve moved from one person to another, and taken in their sorrows, their tears, their lives, I’ve noticed several survival tactics employed by my psyche that have helped me keep going.  After each interview, after I’ve given my complete attention, all the empathy I can find, all the sympathy, sensitivity and respect I can possibly give, I take notes, I make sure the recording was good, and I forget.  I forget them because I cannot possibly concentrate on the next interview if I hold them all together in my mind.  The minute I leave their compound, they are gone from my mind.  This isn’t to say however, that they aren’t in my heart.  But to my mind they will return, slowly but surely, after I’ve gathered all of the stories, spent some days nurturing my soul, and I will think how I can best honour these people who’ve trusted me and given me the privilege of being another international messenger of their lives and reality. 

 

The other tactic, a slightly more pragmatic one, is that I sleep.  Its almost as if my mind, to keep itself sharp and ready, shuts itself off, and I sleep deeply, every night from 10pm to almost 8am, and then struggle to wake up.  I have heavy heavy dreams that seem to combine the urgencies of a stressful city life in London with my tropical setting – the tube runs across Dili harbour, and my passport is my oyster card.  There are large knives in children’s hands on the South Bank… although perhaps the strange mixture of allergy medicine, anti-malarials and Chinese herbal supplements (for digestive health!) could have something to do with this. 

 

Brie O’Keefe