Before launching Paste magazine, my job was to write about doctors and nurses from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe who were providing health care, education, micro-economic loans and whatever else might be needed to their communities. One of the most memorable was Dr. Tom Olewe, who worked with kids in Nairobi, Kenya’s Mlango Kubwa slum. Years before I met Olewe, I’d been mugged in Nairobi, and the violence of that event—an arm around my throat, my friend knocked to the ground—shook me even though we were both escaped unharmed.
When I returned to Kenya, Olewe introduced me to some of the kids he worked with. One had a recent machete wound to his head. Most had been both perpetuators and victims of violence in the slum. This pack of young teen and pre-teen boys terrorized their neighbors before meeting Olewe. They showed me around the slum, including the “Marekani Baze” (American Base), a vacant lot where street kids huddle to sleep. A stream of sewage trickled by and half the kids were sniffing glue with vacant eyes. One of my hosts, Amon, used to live there before joining Olewe’s business program and returning to his father. Some of the others lived together in a one-room shack because they had no parents to return to. They all told me I’d be attacked in an instant if they weren’t with me in the slum.
The subjects of The Interrupters, this week’s cover story, know violence all too well. The latest documentary from Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Stevie) follows a group of former gang members who do everything they can to stop the killings on the streets of Chicago. They’re part of Dr. Gary Slutkin’s CeaseFire organization. Slutkin believes that violence is an epidemic that can best be treated immediately at the source.
The members of the Gulu Women’s Choir know the violence of an unending war. Their sons, daughters and husbands have been taken away by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda and forced to commit atrocious acts, sometimes upon family members. Their songs are cries of forgiveness, sung into the bush as a welcome for people who can’t imagine they’d be welcomed home. Their plight has been championed by the people of The Voice Project, including Paste’s editor-at-large Jay Sweet and the musicians in the cover-chain from Billy Bragg to Peter Gabriel.
Kenya was my final trip before leaving The Luke Society to start Paste, and as fun as it is, there are occasional moments when music, comic books and video games suddenly feel less important than telling the stories of people like Amon and Dr. Olewe. But there are also wonderful moments when I get to do both. Pop culture can be as significant as it is entertaining, especially when it involves real-life heroes.