Street roots
June 7, 2013
Eve Ensler will be a part of the Voices
Lectures this fall at the First
Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park
Ave., in Portland. Ensler will 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Oct 2. More information
is available at voicesinc.com.
cold medical process: It was this journey we
were going to go on together. I think that
makes all the difference.
R.R.: A t one point in the book, you mention
you were a group leader in a homeless shelter.
What do you recall o f some o f the trauma the
women experienced?
E.E.: I worked in a homeless shelter for
around eight years, and it was a profound
time of my life. For me, many things stand
out. One is how many women I met who had
been violated or suffered insane violence,
which was a huge reason that their
trajectory had gone downward. But there
was also the incredible unwillingness of
people who were outside the homeless
community, to understand that (homeless
people) were on a continuum of poverty and
R E U T E R S /J A N A A S E N B R E N N E R O V A
exile through an economic system that is
Eve E nsler embraces a woman in the crowd during a global rally “One Billion R isin g ”, which is part o f a V-Day event calling for an end to
progressively making more and more people
gender-based violence, in B ukavu February 14, 2013. V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, said
poor. It was fascinating to me how people
organizers.
distanced themselves from homeless
people, because some (people who aren’t
homeless) know it’s a slippery slope,
just begin to see the metaphor and see the
that matters. I think this global
R.R.: Here’s where questions get difficult.
because there is no real system of economic
connective tissue that runs through one’s
disassociation, this global bifurcation, is
How did you see that violence manifest in and
justice or containment, so any of us can fall
what is at the root of allowing so much to
body into the world.
on the women there?
off at any moment. So people don’t want to
continue, whether it’s insane poverty or
be near homeless people because they feel
R.R.: Is there a way for other people to
economic injustice, or racial injustice or
E.E.: Because we’ve now built this
they’ll “catch it.” That was what I was struck
connect deeper into the body o f the world
climate change. We’re not feeling what’s
amazing place with them called City of Joy,
with over and over and over: how homeless
going on. And I think the question is: How
without having an illness?
I’ve heard many, many stories of women
people become contaminated and isolated
do we get back into our bodies so we feel it?
who have been violated in the most
E.E.: I hope so, and that’s what the book
and “a thing,” rather than just someone who
atrocious ways I’ve ever heard, during this
is saying — right? — where we don’t need to
R.R.: Could you talk about how you
13-year-old war over minerals of the Congo.
lost their home and don’t have money, for
get
to
a
point
where
discovered
that
you
had
cancer
and
the
journey
Over minerals (and mineral ores) like coltan
whatever reason.
that that took you on?
we destroy the earth
— which go into our cellphones and our
Whether it be
before we appreciate
PlayStations and computers - and copper
economic investment
E.E.: Well, what I talk about in the book,
it or have our bodies
and gold, which get pillaged by the West,
or losing work or a
in the chapter called “Somnolence,” is that
die before we honor
China and the world. Those minerals are -
tragedy. It taught me
" I t was fascinating to me
there were signs about my cancer long
them. I think there
taken (when) militias go into the villages
a lot about this whole
bow people distanced
before I ever did anything about it. I’ve
are many pathways
where the mines are, and they rape the
capitalist structure
themselves from homeless
talked to so many people who have had
into your body and
women and have fathers rape their
and how easy it is for
cancer or sicknesses. They see things are
many pathways into
daughters and sons rape their mothers, and
people^ because some
people to lose their
connection. A lot of it
wrong, and they don’t do anything. In the
everyone be raped, in general. They destroy
(people who arenas homeless) way.
has to do with being
same way we understand that climate
the families, they’re fractured. And the
awake here and being know I f s a slippery slopef
change is happening, and we’re not doing
families flee, and the militias move in, and
R.R.: How is City o f
anything. And the same way we see that
willing to come out of because there Is no real
they take over the mines with the
Joy doing?
people are starving all around us, and we’re
the somnolence.
multinational corporations.
system of economic justice
not doing anything. I think the signs got [to
Hopefully the death of
So we’re seeing the coming together of
or containment^ so any e l ns
E.E.: Wonderfully.
be] too much: There was blood coming from
my somnolence will
the worst forces of the world — this
can fa ll o il at any moment,
I was just there for
my body, and it was like I had to deal with it. help other people to
capitalist greed and sexism and racism and
the month of
And by then it was late, really late. I had a
wake up. That would
So people d©n?t want to be
colonialism — which is destroying the
February, and it is
huge tumor about the size of a mango inside be the idea.
indigenous Congolese. I think that’s the
near homeless people
me. So I think it was profoundly shocking
glorious. The
landscape: You see this beautiful world and
because
they
lee!
tb
e
y
ll
R.R.: There’s a
and yet that feeling when you know
bougainvillea is thick,
country and earth, and’then you see that
person in this book: Dr. "catch I t / r"
something’s wrong, so it’s not completely
the majority of the people can’t even live in
and the roses are
shocking. It’s like when someone just rips
Handsome. You
the bush anymore, the forest, because the
higher than me, and
mentioned that it only
off the veil of denial.
forest has become the most dangerous. So
the women are
takes one sentence from
Bukavu: It used to have 50,000 people, and
unbelievable. They’re
R.R.:
You
write
and
talk
so
honestly
about
a
doctor
to
give
patients
now there’s a million people. There are no
just miracles. They
dignity.
Could
you
expound
upon
that?
it.
How
difficult
was
it
to
tell
your
truth
about
jobs and no work, no structures or streets or
come, and they’re destroyed; they have
your illness?
police, and no law, no water and no
nightmares and diseases. They have dread,
E.E.: In the course of my treatment, I
electricity. Everyone’s there just because
they have despair. They become the most
E.E.: Well, I think when you get cancer,
had really good care and not good care. And
they’re terrified to live in the bush where all
beautiful, empowered, inspired, joyous
it’s a process of coming to terms with what’s really good care has to do with the doctor or
the raping and murders occur.
beings who are off to lift up the
happening. I think your brain just can’t
the nurses or whoever is actually seeing you
What I’m interested in is how many of us
communities. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve
believe it. The minute someone says to you,
as a human being. So often people just get
- and I think it’s men and women - leave
ever been as proud or inspired by anything.
“You have cancer,” it’s like someone has just into kind of doing their job, doing it
our bodies, based upon trauma and pain.
said, “You’re dead.” And then you have to
effectively, and looking at your body as if it
For me, I’ve tried so many ways to get back
R.R.: H ow’s your health now?
begin to gather the forces. I had just never
were an objective thing. For me, that
in: whether it was, at a young age, drugs or
moment with that doctor was such a
read a book where anyone had told me
promiscuous sex, then eating disorders and
E.E.: Today I have three years clean (of
profound moment, because I was in a state
really what it was like to have cancer, and I
performance art. And then, eventually, “The
cancer), and I’m alive. And every day that
of utter humiliation, utter terror, utter
wanted that book. I wanted someone telling
Vagina Monologues,” talking to as many
I’m alive is a gift. A huge gift. It’s absurd
nausea, lying on this table, not knowing
me what it was like to have (ileostomy) bags
women as I could about their bodies and
where the cancer was, knowing I had this
and what it was like to lose control or what
that I’m alive, and I get it, and I get that I
discovering why this worldwide epidemic of
tumor inside my body, inside my colon:
it was like to have an infection where you
have the privilege of having health
violence is at the root of why so many
inside me. I was just utterly crushed. And in
became the Gulf of Mexico. That was the
insurance, which afforded me treatments
people have left their bodies. The Congo
walks this gorgeous doctor, and I think, OK,
book I needed, so I guess that was the book
was the further extension and the most
and medical care that 99 percent of the
this
could
be
the
end
of
the
world.
His
I
wrote.
extreme manifestation of that violence. And
planet aren’t afforded. So I try to do as
So much of what happened to me was
walking around that table and
then getting cancer, which was the thing
much as I can every day in service as my
coming
into
my
body,
into
the
body
of
the
acknowledging
me
and
acknowledging
my
that, oddly and ironically, landed me smack
debt of gratitude.
world.
So
when
I
had
(an)
infection,
it
was
work
and
my
being:
Everything
changed
for
in my body. I just became body.
happening simultaneously with the Gulf (oil) me. It all felt like I could handle it, and I
So that’s really what I’m interested in
could go through it because he had made a
Rosette Royale is the assistant editor o f Real
now: how we get back into our bodies, which spill, and literally there were days where I
felt like I had oil in me and pelicans dying in
connection with my heart. He had
Change News. Reprinted from Real Change
is the connective pathway to our connection
me. It was both horrifying and amazing to
connected me with his heart. It wasn’t .this
News, Seattle, Wash.
to the earth, to each other, to everything