Arthur C. Helton Fellowship Reflection Paper
E. Rania Rampersad
Original Goals
My original goals for my fieldwork this summer were to directly help people who are suffering by assisting them in resettling to the United States. I also plan to work in the field of environmental law and its impact on refugees. I wanted this summer to serve as a motivation for me when my career becomes more policy oriented and several layers removed from direct aid. I wanted to have an experience I would never forget: something that would stick with me and remind me why it is that I am fighting for. I also wanted to understand the abject poverty that so many people in the world live through every day so I would never take anything in my personal life for granted.
 Courtesy of E. Rania Rampersad, 2008. | Challenges Somali refugees have their own name for resettlement: buffis. It means a dream that blows into your mind and clouds out all other thoughts. Buffis is like a drug. It can make you deliriously happy, or it can make you insane. Insanity is by no means a poetic adaptation, but a cruel reality. An old man staring directly into the hot sun sits in a gutter full of trash in front of the UNHCR compound. He is a living testament to the very real danger of buffis-induced insanity. |
I was surprised to find that the most difficult and painful thing I had to do was not to listen to refugees tell me their flight stories full of torture, rape, and death, but to manage their expectations, to manage their buffis. They came in for a resettlement interview all full of hope. It was tempting to fuel that hope, nurture it and help it grow, but I knew that if they didn't pass the first stage of interviews, their deflated hopes could smother what was left of their will to go on. I would not be responsible for a testament.
| The people I interviewed had been in Dadaab for 16 years and were ready to say anything to get out. Many of them didn't understand that this interview was only the first in a long process which could take months and that they had less than a 50% of making it all the way through. Early in the summer, at the end of the interview I would ask if they had any questions for me. The response I got was almost always the same. The head of the household would beg me, sometimes with tears in his or her eyes, to help their children escape from this prison to find a better life inthe promised lands of America. I had to explain (again, because I already told |  Courtesy of E. Rania Rampersad, 2008. |
| them this at the beginning of the interview) that I would record everything they had told me and pass the file on to my boss who would make the final decision, that I couldn't promise anything, that I had to be fair and couldn't give them any "special" treatment, and that if they did not pass, they would never hear any feedback from us. If it was true, I added that their case had no problems that I could see and they had a good chance of being called back. They left looking uncertain and a bit suspicious of my callousness. How could listen to such pleading and look so calm and collected? Inside I hated myself. Towards the end of the summer, I stopped asking if they had any questions. I ended my interview with a smile and a curt, "Thank you for coming. I think we are done for today." They all walked away with questions, but I had no answers to give. Perhaps I did it for their own good. Perhaps to withhold the truth is to tell a lie. Perhaps the lies we tell to those who suffer are not to protect them from their pain but to protect ourselves from their rage and despair. | |
 Courtesy of E. Rania Rampersad, 2008. | Results and Expectations At the beginning of the summer I didn't really know what to expect. I thought the living conditions would be dangerous because we were close to the Somali border and bandits had attacked the camps in the past. Instead, the dangers I faced at work were scorpion stings, bathroom doors which wouldn't unlock (from the inside), a cholera epidemic in the camps, a door which flew off the plane carrying 10 of my coworkers and a hyena harassing the refugee children. Throughout all these minor disasters, not a peep was heard from the Somali border and no bandits were seen. In short, the work was dangerous, but not at all for the reasons I expected it to be. |
Effect on Professional Goals
This experience has affected my professional goals by proving that I don't have to choose between refugee and environmental law. These two issues are so intertwined that working in one field cannot help but to influence the other. Environmental degradation fuels conflict, which causes displacement, which causes strain on new environments and fuels more conflict. The vicious cycle can be so grand in scale it is difficult to see, but it's impact on individuals is heart-wrenching. However, seeing the connection is also liberating because it means there are various points at which one can intervene and break the cycle: by improving either domestic or international law relating to either the environment or refugees. Work in all areas is necessary to resolve this large-scale problem.
Influence Back Home
Even during this summer, my experiences abroad have begun to influence my family and friends. I have kept a blog, posting pictures, occurrences and my reflections on what I have learned and observed. It has sparked some surprising discussion and debate back home about the impact of humanitarian aid, the culture and politics of the refugees I work with, and the efforts my co-workers and I are making.
| A Moment:"This is what it means to be African." My interpreter, Abdullahi, was always full of energy. His bright smile greeted me every day I came to work in Ifo camp. He bounded around the room, moving desks, arranging chairs and settling in each set of interviewees. I knew I could count on him and his clear, strong voice to interpret each family's story accurately. One morning, he seemed to be a bit sluggish. His voice was soft, his eyes dim and his smile faded. I asked him if he was alright, but he waived me off, not wanting to give up the chance |  Courtesy of E. Rania Rampersad, 2008. |
| for a rare day's worth of work...and pay. As the interview continued, his straight back slouched and he rested his head in his hands on the desk. I became concerned, "Are you sure you are feeling well?" Abdullahi sighed, realizing he couldn?t satisfy me without more explanation. "It's just a touch of Malaria," he commented diffidently. "Malaria!" I almost shouted with alarm, not knowing that every headache in Kenya is diagnosed as malaria. The interviewees blinked at me curiously. "Shouldn't you go to a hospital?" I persisted. "Oh, no," he sighed and smiled with infinite patience as if explaining to a child that the sun will rise, "This is what it means to be African." | |