Peace is a verb, peace is loud.
Public post.
This week is Peace Week, a week-long extravaganza of events that is being hosted by the Women's Studies Department here at Vassar.
Tonight I went to a vigil called the Peace is Loud Vigil. The Vassar alum who was leading us in a drum circle told us this incredible story. He came to Vassar as a refugee from Uganda. When he was 7 years old, civil war broke out. In a civil war, everyone runs to hospitals and churches to hide. The soldiers come to "protect" them but with that "protection" they also rape the women and girls.
Parents were hiding the girls in the ceiling to try to prevent them from getting raped. Then, his mother runs over to the soldiers. The soldiers all speak Swahili, but his mother does not. The soldiers have guns, and she says to them, one of the few Swahili words she knows how to say: Stop.
And, miraculously, they did.
Peace is possible. Make peace.