Scott Warren '09 and Colin O'Brien '10 spent five nights stuck in Abeche, Chad, sleeping in a United Nations gym instead of visiting refugees as planned, after rebels attacked their destination. They had hoped to learn more about the situations on the ground in various African hotspots during their trip through the continent this summer. But the frustration that met them in Chad taught them one lesson they could have done without.
"It showed us how hard it is to work in that region," Warren said.
Instead of spending the summer doing the traditional internship or camp counseling, Warren and O'Brien planned and paid for the majority of a month-long trip together to Zimbabwe, Chad, Ethiopia and Kenya during May and June. After the end of their joint trip, O'Brien continued on to Tanzania, where he worked at a hospital. The purpose of the visit, O'Brien said, was to "try to understand a little bit of what's going on."
They also hoped to turn their time on the continent into speaking opportunities with high schools and colleges in the United States, which will also help to defray their costs for the trip. The pair is in the process of planning speaking engagements at a high school in Washington and a college in Cleveland, OH.
Both Warren and O'Brien have been involved in Darfur advocacy at home, with the Brown Darfur Action Network, a chapter of STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition. Warren is a former national director of STAND, and O'Brien has served as its national high school outreach coordinator.
This was O'Brien's first time to the continent, while Warren had previously been to Zimbabwe - where his parents live - and also lived in Kenya.
Despite the rebel attack in Chad and some other "hiccups" with flights, the rest of the trip was a success, O'Brien said, citing the many locals and officials with which they had the opportunity to speak.
"There's no way you can get close to that in the news," he said. "You just don't get that on CNN."
Complete strangers opened up to them, alternately bursting into tears or yelling in outrage, O'Brien said.
Their time in Harare, Zimbabwe - the first leg of their trip - was especially interesting because of the elections going on at the time, Warren said. There, they met with members of parliament and the mayor of Harare, none members of the ruling party led by the polemical Robert Mugabe.
Warren and O'Brien were in Zimbabwe between the two rounds of elections there this year. Opposition officials seemed confident but also fearful, Warren said. One member of parliament met them at a hotel and spoke with them while they rode in his car for fear of being seen with them, Warren said.
The members of the opposition they spoke to said that they would need international help in ensuring a fair outcome if they did win the elections, Warren said. The opposition lost the presidential run-off election, which Warren called a "sham," after political violence forced the candidate Morgan Tsvangirai to drop out.
The Brown students also got a tour of a town in Kenya from the principal of a grade school there. He told them the only reason students came to school was the promise of a meal during the day, O'Brien said. Also greeting them in Kenya, Warren said, were locals whose excitement for the candidacy of the half-Kenyan Barack Obama directed their discussions about Wolf Blitzer and superdelegates.
Warren and O'Brien kept friends and family at home up-to-date on their successes and travails through their blog at http://www.africatrip08.com. The blog was important, O'Brien said, because not many people are lucky enough to make the same trip they did. Their experiences also offered a chance to digest the complicated situations as a whole as they wrote each post.
"In activism, sometimes we're too rash with our judgment," he said, adding that it's dangerous to draw conclusions about distant problems without hearing the voices of the people involved.
