Woundedness

Rumour goes like this a couple days ago a young man from our community stole a large sum of money from one of the cocoa station managers. The manager was walking out of the bank with the cocoa workers monthly wages when young man tore the bag out of his hands and ran. He has not been found yet. The story leading up to the theft is a rumor. A large sum of money was stolen by a young man from our community is the reality. The incident reconfirms many village people’s beliefs: “the Village have some sort of curse”.

Theo’s brother dropped by the day after the incident and said: “The boy put a real scar on the village.” I couldn’t help think , the village has been scarred from before it's birth beginning with the open festering historical wound called slavery”.

Last year the wound was re opened on many different occasions starting with the mysterious death of village brethren whose body was found on the other side of the island strewn across the seaside rocks underneath a bridge while his motorbike was parked on the bridge and keys were found in his pocket. Police said it was a motorbike accident. As the Village was getting ready to go to the funeral, police phoned to tell decease’s family to call off the funeral as there was going to be further investigation. The investigation led to nothing and our village brethren was buried along with no justice and very little community protest.

A few months later the wound was reopened when another young man’s hand and foot were chopped off with machete in a drug related incident. The suspect in the chopping was from the Village. That same night a gang of boys came up to the Village and burnt his house to the ground. The village suspect was let out of jail a few days later and has not been implicated again.

Wound reopened again when another chopping incident occurred related to the same incident this time another village man was chopped but this time died on the way to the hospital. Three men were involved in the chopping one of them was a 16 year old boy from down the road.

Wound reopened again when two village youths were said to have broken into a crippled elderly man’s house, tied him up and stole his money and watch. One of the youth’s Uncles came up from town and “beat him bad”. The other youth’s mom did not believe her son could do such a thing and cursed village people for being “so wicked and spreading lies.”

Wound reopened again when our nephew was misdiagnosed ( if our nephew was someone of importance in the eyes of the doctor who misdiagnosed would he have been misdiagnosed?) which led to the severe infection of his heart. Today he waits patiently, his life dependent on a yes from a hospital overseas.

The wound began generations back with the dehumanizing effects of slavery and continues today with a legacy of violence, oppression and poverty. The cycle continues to repeat itself. Unfortunately many people are blaming one another rather then looking deeper into the layers of past oppressive conditioning and the present global oppressive conditions.

2009 was a year of woundedness however with pain comes healing and new paths taken in order to dress and take care of the scars. The birth of the Harford Village Peace Workers was in response to the wounded ness of 2009.

The Harford Village Peace Workers are a small group of concerned village members who believe the cycle of violence can be broken and reversed by focusing on various projects and programs that emphasize the strengths, assets, talents and potential of our community. We started with the children and youths and began a “Peace through Art” program which led to outreach peace programs in neighbouring schools. We are now in full bloom with our second Youth Peace Program and outreach peace programs for 2010. We are also reaching out to include the adults through community get togethers, meetings and a future community newsletter designed and written by community youths. The goal of the village newsletter is to highlight the success stories of the Village reinforcing the strengths, talents, potential of our community helping to heal the wounds inch by inch with stories of love, hope, courage and resilience!

stay tuned for ways you can contribute to building cultures of peace in Harfrod Village!