I join Robin and Joris in visiting Ala’s house. We have a question for him and, I’m curious to see how he lives. Ala is our translator and one of our bridges to the community. He studies at the Arab American University. He is one of those people whose bright eyes betray a busy inner life. It’s after sunset, and as we walk, the streetlights switch off. Power cut.

There are around 10 people in the room, all men. Brothers, cousins, Ala’s father, an uncle and a neighbor. We sit down, and at once I feel tense about the situation. Where do I hide my female self?   Read more...

Hotel Wal-Mart from B-Rilla on Vimeo.

I'm currently in Missoula, Montana and we just spent the night at a Walmart parking lot. It's actually our 5th or 6th night at a Walmart parking lot. I'm not too sure.   Read more...

Has it ever happened for you that you’ve picked up a book, usually a highly recommended one, read it and disliked it? It’s rare for me. Such was my first response to Eckhart Tolle’s original offering, The Power of Now. More than five years have elapsed since then and since I loved his second book, I thought the first deserved a retry. Either I’m totally different or I wasn’t ready before. It’s a book packed with wisdom.

Interestingly, what I couldn’t do was read it all in a row. It’s structured in Q & A. Starting in January of this year, I read a question and an answer a day. Then, I’d sit with them. It took me almost four months to read the whole thing.   Read more...

“Have you ever been in a country more miserable than ours?”

I am facilitating a meeting with Palestinian women in the Westbank. They are describing their situation to me. Their village is a 2,000 heads big community up in the hills with very few facilities. The Israeli occupation has a big impact on their daily lives. It is impossible to travel outside the Westbank without a special permit. The men who used to work in Israel until a few years ago are now sitting at home idly. There is an unemployment rate of 58% in the area. The women keep their heads up and work hard to keep their big families fed and educated.   Read more...

That was the scene last Saturday April 18th at 6:30am underneath Astoria’s famous landmark, the Washington Bridge. Carla Oja and her Chief of Police husband, Alan, literally following us across the 4 ½ mile expanse between Oregon and Washington, with flashing red and blues to ensure we made it in style to run our last State.

How’d we get to do this you may be asking?   Read more...

The Preemptive Love Coalition began with a little girl in Iraq dying of a congenital heart disease. In the early summer months of 2007, I sat in the Palace Hotel in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, with a man and his little girl. The meeting had been arranged by a tea-maker I had befriended in the hotel when he learned that I had contacts who might help get this little girl out of the country for the life-saving heart surgery she had been waiting on her entire life.   Read more...

Let me tell you about a guy named Don. He is the perfect candidate for the tour’s “local hero” category. In fact, this guy named Don could be awarded with the title of, “the originator of what it means to be a local hero.” You see our friend Don Grant has all the qualities of what a local hero brings to the table:

• Lives local (Burnaby BC)
• Has a family (an awesome wife and kid to match)
• Works with many people in the community (way beyond 9-5)
• Coached hockey for many years (pretty Canadian, eh?)
• Goes way out of his way for anyone in need of his talents (often)
• Is humble in his ways but accomplishes way more than what most in his profession profess to do
• Is the kind of guy you know you can always count on, when you really need him

I love this quote, by Janusz Korczak. “Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and respect, as equals.” I am reminded almost on a daily basis that children are not treated as equals. Just in the last few days, my kids have been treated disrespectfully.

We went to the bank the other day because my son wanted to get a debit card so that he could use it instead of carrying cash around with him. The money in the account was his money that he had saved. The woman that helped us asked him how old he was in a patronizing voice. It was as if she was implying that he wasn’t old enough to be responsible for a debit card. He answered that he was 11. From then on, she kept talking to me, instead of him. She asked me if he should have full access with the card. She quickly said it was up to me. I looked at my son, and he looked confused. It is HIS money, why shouldn’t he have full access to it? I told her, yes, he should have full access, as it is his money. She kept asking me if I wanted to take other “precautions,” implying that I needed to make sure he doesn’t spend more than what is in his account. The whole encounter just felt so negative. I kept thinking to myself that she would never have treated me this way, why is it okay to treat my son this way? It was all about assumptions.   Read more...

We woke up yesterday in El Centro and headed into Calexico to see the graveyard where the unidentified migrants found in that area are buried. They are found by the border patrol and taken to the County Coroner's Office and then sent to this grave site. I had contacted Calexico's Coroner's Office last month to see if they would grant me an interview during this trip. They politely declined. The officer I spoke to said he was "suspicious" of what I was doing, a doctor traveling with musicians to the border to do a project.

"Suspicious"--of what? Making music? Or practicing medicine? Of forming my own opinions based upon my reading, questioning and experience? Probably all of it.   Read more...

Talking to the cemetary groundskeeper in el centro, It hit home just how over-politicized immigration has become. It is what politicians and pundits call a "wedge issue".

At one point he said "they're not bad people. They just want to work." and then "no offense, but you don't see white people in the fields picking crops. They don't want those jobs."   Read more...