the national anthem

In Bangladesh, whenever the group was asked to share a song, we would sing "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, and because of this, many Bangladeshis believed it to be the USA's national anthem. I hope you will enjoy my first ever movie/slideshow. There is also a little of our favorite Bon Jovi song at the end.




The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

~ Marge Piercy ~

a list-making, chain-smoker

my covenant with you, as i head to haiti

A long time ago, Senator Kennedy made a covenant with the world: he promised to arduously dedicate his life to righting wrongs, replacing injustice with justice, and fighting-on for the voiceless; and this was all despite the dangers, with a lot of suffering along the way. - - Most notably, both of his brothers had been assassinated for some of their humanitarian and egalitarian positions on subjects such as war, race, and poverty. The news of the Senator's health condition is troubling for me as an American living in dreary times but also as a person who has had the privilege of meeting Senator Kennedy several times, as I am close with members of his immediate family as well as others in the "Kennedy clan." For them, I remain devastated. For our country, I am even more convinced of the necessity of the Obama Administration. Also, I will always remember how Senator Kennedy personally helped double the USAID food allotment for an orphanage in Haiti I am connected to. He went above and beyond for children in Haiti, and even sent the head of USAID -Latin America to the orphanage to meet with the director.

Reflecting on the life (personal and professional) commitments of Senator Kennedy, I am led to become more decisive about my own covenants with the world, god, and myself. What is my covenant? What will it be?

In about ten days, I will fly to Haiti to begin my job as a hospital administrator. As you are aware, the conditions of life in Haiti are inexcusable. I am going back to Haiti because I ordinarily carry with me an insurmountable burden from not being there. There are also plenty of material, spiritual, pedagogical, intellectual, and sociological "reasons" for this next phase. Haiti, although a close neighbor, retains the mystery of the unknown, and that can be scary. The instability of the country and its lack of resources cause great concern for those who love me, who know about my sporadic health problems, and who are aware that my risk-taking occasionally gets me into trouble.

While I continue to sort out my covenant with the world, I would like to make a covenant with you: I am going to do my best to take care of myself. Haiti is my new home; Haitians are my new neighbors; and a small hospital with a BIG vision is my new life, - - but none of this happens apart from your spiritual solidarity, or without the assurance that I have so many beautiful, and giving people to return to. I love you in the deep, deep, places in my heart. In quiet moments by the ocean, when I am alone with my thoughts from the day, of the world, and with tears, I will think of you, and of your love, for it brings me so much strength. When I am doing something like driving through a river in the back of a truck full of melons wondering how this instance of this is going to turn out, it is you who I will think of, and of the moments in which you each uniquely showed me that you loved me. Because of you, I am the luckiest woman alive.

I am going to have a great life in Haiti. Sometimes we essentialize the poor. We end up talking about the pain, and the struggles, the illness, and the strife with disregard for the other aspects of what it means to be human. I am going to live with people who give and love of themselves in the ways you do; and they will care for me too. Haitians are just as dynamic, committed, deep, giving, loving, suffering, cheering, dancing, laughing, crying, yearning, apathetic, bored, and questioning as any other group of persons I have ever encountered. For Americans - the accident of birth has caused us to live on a piece of land during a short period of time in which its inhabitants have more-or-less enjoyed extreme prosperity, and a powerful government. How this happened to us - - we will never know. But for me, I pray for the "best of both worlds." Please visit me. I promise to take very, very good care of you when you do.

Onward with affection and longing,
Kate

One of my favorite Rilke sonnets, translated from the German:

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice - - more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be-- and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

and at the National Zoo the sign says "no feeding the animals"

Comment Card
Harris Teeter, 16th and Kalorama
Dear General Manager:

When I moved to DC in 1997 I did not even know where 16^th and Kalorama was. Today while in town to visit a friend in the apartment building next door to your new store, I was excited to go in and spend around $7.50 on a package of strawberries, $8.00 on a wedge of brie, and $3.00 for a bottle of sparkling water to wash everything down. However my sentiments quickly changed upon walking up to the door of your store. On it is a sign: “No panhandlers or Loiters. Customers, please do not contribute to panhandlers on premises.”

I was so offended by this sign that I almost turned around and walked away. But then I quickly remembered that the only other full, non-specialty grocery store in the area is what is known as- - or at least used to be known as - - “the Socialist Safeway” over on Columbia Road. The nickname comes from the long lines and lack of food inside.

Your sign is obnoxious first and foremost because it presumes a harm done by, or reason for suspicion caused by, the poor in this neighborhood in Washington, DC. How DARE a corporation that OPENLY charges over 500% for a loaf of bread claim that the poor man, woman, or child standing out front of the store is a danger or problem! Corporations like Harris Teeter are the problem. You came into this neighborhood to cash in on and perpetuate what is clearly irresponsible gentrification. I should be suspicious of you, not those in the neighborhood harmed by you.

Secondly, it offends me that you would tell ME what to do with MY OWN money. If I wish to contribute to a beggar, that is my business, not yours.

Finally, I suggest that you remove the current sign and replace it with one inviting beggars inside for a discussion about how Harris Teeter can assist members of this community who continue to struggle. I also suggest that you provide free meals to the poor three times a day. If you would like to speak with me further about these ideas, I am available until June 5^th and have included my phone number at the top of this card.

With serious concern,

Kate Burke

it was grand

"You are a Schola Prophetarum, a School of the Prophets." - the pronouncement in 1875 to the faculty and students of the Biblical Department of Vanderbilt University by Holland Nimmons McTyeire (1824-1889) Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South; first president of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust

This weekend, I graduated from the school of the prophets. (No pressure or anything.)
Friends, please see all of my photos from a glorious weekend by clicking below. I particularly enjoy the dinner and party photos toward the end. If you double-click on a photo, you will be able to scroll through them as larger images with captions.

click here: Kate's Vanderbilt Photos

medical records for haiti

Partners in Health worked to create Open MRS, an open-source, medical record database designed specifically for the two-thirds world. This program was developed keeping in mind a preferential option for the poor for medical record keeping and medical care, but furthermore, in order to assist in providing accountability for the sake of receiving PEPFAR grants and so on; most clinics and hospitals in Africa are using Open MRS, keeping several million people in the system. So far in Haiti, Partners in Health uses it, and so does Hospital Albert Schweitzer. Being that the Gates Foundation expects its grant recipients to be run like little businesses: data matters, and Open MRS has helped to provide this sort of accountability.

In Haiti, prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS demands efficient information management, so at my hospital near Miragoane, we are using Open MRS. Today I worked with the President of our Board, Dr. Tom, to discuss ways of making it most efficacious, based upon what we need to track. I suggested that we add a field for how people arrive to the hospital. Basically, - fast donkey or slow donkey? Knowing that paper is a problem in Haiti, I told Dr. Tom that Open MRS is a necessity because we are going to be treating and saving more lives than exist in Haiti pieces of paper. He reminded me that this record keeping is something we must keep in the back of our minds, not in the forefront. When a child is dying of beri-beri in front of me because of a vitamin B deficiency, I need not be yelling at the doctors about getting on their lap tops to log this in. Charting the CD4 counts on women in our HIV / AIDS program will always be secondary to providing care.

Theresa Patterson, my boss, has been very excited about tonight because on "60 Minutes" her friend- - and the founder of Partners in Health, Paul Farmer, was featured for his work in Haiti.

my trip to bangladesh with project pyramid