Georgia Dalto, an attender of Reno Friends, is currently studying and working in Kosovo to become a reconciliation facilitator.
I woke up at 7am, without an alarm clock. I looked out through my sleepy eyes, seeing the old wooden dresser with the broken handle. I never noticed before, but it’s splintered as if a bullet struck it a few decades ago when there was war in this village. Dust floated through the ray of sun slanting in through the high window, and I was grateful to the farmer who let me stay in the old house his grandparents built, and in which his father was born. This farmer, like so many others here, has since built a modern house for his own growing family, using a government grant that we helped him secure. But he left the old house standing, out of respect for his forebears.
I got out of bed and mindfully started my morning routine. This is my time, and alone time is rare nowadays, so I relish every second of it. I started by just listening to the sounds as the kettle boiled, the water splashed into my cup and onto my tea bag, the birds sang outside, a chicken clucked by the open door, and then the sound of my breath filled the lull. I had a quick call with Bobby and confirmed that the fort was being held down. I ate a simple breakfast on the crooked porch and once again marveled at the freshness of what was provided for me by this generous farming family.
I put on jeans, a cleanish shirt (laundry day is coming up), and boots, and headed to work. Funny to think that what I do is work. It feels more like just natural, deep, human connections with the coolest people in the world. I felt a singing in my heart in anticipation of the day’s tasks.
My work environment is so varied. Currently, we are operating out of the old village hall, one of the first structures erected in this place, and the oldest still standing. There is a dirt area in front of the building, a patch of ground once soaked with blood after the massacre. You can’t see the stains anymore, but you can feel them. Some might find this spooky or eerie, but to me it is hallowed ground.
My work is incredibly meaningful, varied enough to never be boring, and painful as hell sometimes. I started by meeting with the team. On this project, we are each housed on different neighboring farms, so when we gather together here, we have not spoken since the end of the previous day. We catch up, share stories, check in with how everyone is coping with what had been said and heard. It’s important, before the villagers get here, that we each know that we can do what is ahead, and that we have the support of this group for when things seem impossible to carry.
After this meeting, I prepared tea and coffee in big stainless-steel urns and laid out pastries. The villagers arrived, trickling in by twos and threes. One old man came alone and did not make eye contact with anyone. I made note of where he was sitting and seated others with the aim of leaving an empty chair for myself next to him. An outsider would not know who was who in this group – would not see the invisible line that separated members of the two communities. Two communities that once lived in harmony, then hated each other, and now approach each other with fear and an incredible courage that undoes me every time I think of its magnitude. An outsider would just see a circle of older men and women in worn clothing, the occasional 30-something frantically scrolling their phone before we asked them to be put away, the dirty face of a child peeking in the open door from the bright light outside, then running away with a shriek of laughter. I wondered what was in the heads of the older folks when they heard that laugh. On the one hand, it felt disrespectful to the process that was about to unfold. On the other hand, this is what people here had fought and died for – the freedom for children to grow up with safety and laughter.
A colleague called the meeting to order, and I slipped into the chair next to the silent man who had come alone. Phones were put away, conversations fell to a whisper and then died, people shifted their feet and sat up straighter. We listened together to the outline of what the day would look like. Instructions were given for the first exercise. One by one, people moved off in twos to sit in pairs of facing chairs that were well-spaced around the perimeter of the hall. Each pair had a member from each of the two communities. Somehow we had an odd number of folks today, and I was left with the man I had been sitting next to. I asked if he would be willing to talk to me, even though I was an outsider, a facilitator, not really part of this part of the process. A colleague caught my eye and nodded silently, then went off with the other facilitators to wander around the room in case any pair needed support.
The old man walked with me to a far corner of the room, and we took our places in the chairs, facing each other. He sat hunched forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. I looked to the side, taking him in with my peripheral vision. After a moment, he shifted, and I noticed his head raise slightly. I looked back at him, and into the deepest, saddest, blackest eyes I had ever seen. He held my gaze, took a deep breath, and sighed. He then closed his eyes, and without a single prompt from me, he told me his story. I listened with every fiber of my being, barely remembering to breathe. I had heard many stories like his before, but it was as if this was my first time. His voice was soft and measured, but occasionally broke with horror and grief, and he had to pause to collect himself. At these times, he would open his eyes and connect with me. I would nod, and he would continue. By the end of the story, he was holding my gaze. His shame had fallen to the floor like a cloak he had shed as the old building warmed in early summer sun. There was pain, yes, but also relief in his eyes. I have never felt so privileged to be a human being as I did this morning.
We broke for lunch at noon. The chairs were arranged around several tables, and folks could choose where to sit. I noted that they stayed segregated, sitting only with members of their own community, as they so often did at this stage of the process. The food was excellent, brought in by villagers who had taken part in this workshop on a different day. They came into the space with knowing and compassionate faces, and offered the plates with equal grace to those in their own community, and those from the other community. I saw the usual mix of surprise, mistrust, and hope in the recipients and my heart sang.
The afternoon session went well. I remained with my partner for the remainder of the exercises. We warmed to each other, and there were moments of humor amidst the heaviness of what we were doing. I shared of myself in a way that facilitators don’t often get to do, and I think it was healing for me as well as the old man. During the final break, I noted that mixed groups were cautiously interacting, even helping to pass the platters of fruit and pour tea and coffee for one another.
The final activity of the day required us to come together again in a circle, standing this time. We were invited to place our arms around each other’s shoulders, but in this exercise, if you keep your arms down, it means you also do not want to be touched. As I looked around the circle, I saw that there was no imaginary line dividing the two communities. They were all mixed up together as they had been 50 years ago. Indistinguishable in appearance, each with a radiant face and shining eyes. The old man initially stood with his arms down, gaze again fixed on the floor. But as we sang our closing song, chosen by consensus by these people who were just now remembering their shared folk history, he tentatively reached out to both his neighbors, who turned their heads to him and reached out gently in return. Tears were streaming down my face.
I work with the most incredible bunch of people. My team is comprised of folks who come from all over the world. We are united by our outsider status, but also by our compassion, dedication, and desire to build peace in these places where it seems most unlikely. We partner with people who come from these communities but have left to get an education and then get trained in the work that we do. But the heart and soul of the work are the folks who live here; who tentatively agree to have us come to their village and offer them a new way of being together. Their hesitant willingness moves me every time. And the amount that they grow and open and change in the course of a single day astounds me. This is just the beginning of this process. These folks have a long way to go in healing from what occurred between them. Reconciliation doesn’t happen in an 8-hour workshop. But the villagers left this evening in twos and threes that were different than the twos and threes in which they arrived this morning. A jumbling up is beginning to unfold, and they see each other as just a little bit more human than they did yesterday.
When I’m doing my work, I feel as if I am finally doing what I was built to do. You might think the work is hard, because of the pain and horror that you witness in my role. But there is a strange ease that comes from knowing you are making a real difference in people’s lives, that you are offering them a way through the pain they shouldn’t have had to bear, and that each village you enter might be just a tiny bit safer, warmer, and more whole than it was before you came.
The most enjoyable parts of my work are the relationships I form with people. The bonds with my colleagues are deep and long-lasting. The relationships with the villagers are more transient, but they are based on the most meaningful interactions of my life and each person I work with carves out a place in my heart and rides with me forever. I also love the setting in which I work. Sometimes remote, often hot and dusty or cold and icy, usually beautiful, the land is always of the utmost importance to these humble folks who were born on it, work it with love in their hands, raise their children on it, and have knelt on it sometimes multiple times with a dying loved one in their arms.
The things that I don’t like about my work are few and far between, for which I have tremendous gratitude. Funding is always an issue, and the work we have to do to secure funding is not my cup of tea. But we all shoulder this burden with grace because it is so heavily outweighed by the good parts of our jobs, the stuff we signed up for, the things that drew us to this field and to this crazy corner of the world where one day you loved your neighbor and the next day you slaughtered him and his family as your sworn enemies.
At 5 pm, I’m ready to shift gears and enjoy the evening. My colleagues and I gathered for dinner at the one restaurant in the village. We are always determined to pay our own way after the workday is done, but I suspect that the owner took a little something off the bill at the end. There are welcome silences as we eat, and we don’t talk much about what happened today. We save that for tomorrow morning when we gather again, after we have each had time to reflect and process and integrate all that we witnessed and went through.
Now I’m back at home, reflecting on my day and feeling so many emotions. I cried when I walked in through the door and saw the bouquet of flowers left in thanks on the rustic wooden table. My heart is so full I think it will burst. I am thankful for all the many varied and seemingly disconnected moments of my life that led me here. The unexpected or poorly planned twists and turns that made up the rocky path to where I’m meant to be. I’m tired. I’m satisfied. I’m excited for tomorrow. I take a few moments to center and follow my breath and regulate my nervous system. I sit on the grass outside the farmhouse as the darkness gathers and birds sing a frenzied last chorus and the trees sigh in a breeze that was still all day and stars begin to prick the sky.
By Georgia Dalto, Blog Contributor, Reno Friends Meeting