C O M M U N I T Y
© Annie Barnett Photography
The Risley family of Woodside, from left, Austin Risley, Eric Risley (husband), Dillon Risley (standing), Michealene Risley and Christopher Risley.
Woodside woman faced terror in Zimbabwe Continued from page 17
floor, Ms. Risley says, contains a pool full of sulfuric acid. “When Mugabe and his thugs wanted you to disappear, they threw you in the pool. Even your bones disintegrate in that,” she says. A call finally came from the U.S. Embassy. “Jane Howell introduced herself and said: ‘You need to get out by the weekend or you’ll be raped or killed.’” She told Ms. Risley that no one, not embassy officials or the human rights lawyers her husband had hired, would be allowed to see them for the first 48 hours of detention. Late in the day, Ms. Risley and Ms. Carara were told to follow the female agent down a hall. “I suddenly realized we were in prison,” Ms. Risley says. There were both men and women held in the filthy facility, with feces everywhere and holes in the ceiling. Prisoners appeared to be diseased or dying. “l learned very quickly that if we were going to survive, we would have to bribe people,” Ms. Risley says. They were forced to take off their bras, shoes and socks, and hand over their possessions. Guards wrote down how much money she had on a paper and gave it back to her with an eraser, allowing her to transfer money by simply changing the amount on the paper. Bribes got them in to a 5-foot by 5-foot cell with six other women. The cell had one light bulb, a small bench and an unlocked door. The women in her cell began to tell her their stories. One woman was having asthma attacks. “She was terrified because her three kids were home alone.” Most of the women had been arrested because they had illegally crossed the border to get food for their children. One woman had been beaten by her husband so
badly she was unrecognizable. In the middle of that endless night, Ms. Risley says, “I started weeping.” One of the women said: “Why do you weep? Why do you cry?” “I said, I cry for you, for your lives.” The woman, Ms. Risley says, seemed unable to understand why Ms. Risley would care. “It’s OK. This is our lives. We’ll be OK,” she was told. “I think that was probably the most profound moment of my trip,” she says. “Here I was sitting there with all these women who just wanted to feed their kids. We’re all moms. We just want to take care of our kids.” Tears come to Ms. Risley’s eyes as she remembers the scene. “That night I saw two men having sex. I saw a guy being tortured. I stepped on feces and I was urinated on from the fourth floor.” The bribes she had given to the first guards had to continue at each shift change and she began to fear she’d run out of money. The first meal she had came at 11 a.m. the next day, when Ms. Makoni sent in food, enough for most of the prisoners. “We just fed everybody,” Ms. Risley says. That afternoon, Ms. Risley and Ms. Carara were taken into the hallway and told, “We can get you out of the country tonight if you will agree to pay the airfare,” which was only the equivalent of $130. “I said just get us out of here,” Ms. Risley says. While Ms. Carara went back to the house with Betty Makoni to grab their things, Ms. Risley was taken to the airport. The Zimbabwean officials took her new laptop computer, but they gave her back her films, which she carried on the plane. “I couldn’t figure out why they would let me take my film,” she says. She later found out that a Facebook friend of the film project had
helped free them. Ms. Risley had been posting information about the project on Facebook. When they were arrested, she had been able to warn a colleague to take everything off the page. He replaced it with: “Michealene and her assistant have been arrested in Zimbabwe — please pray for them.” An international reporter in Greece who had been supporting the project on Facebook saw the note and called a contact at the CIA, who called Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe. The reporter was soon told, “She’s coming out and she has her film.” Ms. Risley and Ms. Carara flew to Johannesburg that night. “I had never been dirtier in my life,” Ms. Risley says. “I took three baths when I went to the hotel.” Eric Risley told his sons about their mother’s imprisonment only after she had been freed. Would she do it again? “I most definitely will take on hard issues, but I would do a lot more due-diligence in a risky area before I would risk my life and my family’s happiness,” Ms. Risley says. For now she is working on a book about the project, which will be titled: “Tapestries of Hope, the Story of One Survivor’s Journey to End Violence against Women.” She hopes to release it as an e-book
‘Tapestries of Hope’ at Kepler’s “Tapestries of Hope,” a documentary by Woodside filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley, will be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20, at the Roy Kepler Pavilion in Kepler’s bookstore in Menlo Park. The 77-minute film is about Betty Makoni, founder of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe, which helps girls who have been sexually abused and fights the myth that having sex with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS. The network has now spread to help girls around the world. Ms. Risley will introduce the film and talk about making it. She is also the co-author of the Kepler’s bestseller, “This is Not the Life I Ordered,” which can be purchased at the event. Tickets are $12 each. Kepler’s bookstore is at 1010 El Camino Real in Menlo Park. Links ■ tinyurl.com/Risley-163 to order tickets at $12 each. ■ tapestriesofhope.com for information on the film. ■ girlchildnetworkworldwide.org for information on the Girl Child Network Worldwide.
On the cover: Michealene Risley, director of the documentary, “Tapestries of Hope,” in her Woodside home. Almanac photo by Michelle Le.
in December. Ms. Risley said she will continue to work on issues concerning violence against women, which she sees as one of the most pressing problems of the 21st century. “One out of every three women will suffer rape or violence in their lifetime,”
she says. “How can I teach my three boys to respect women when the world around them shouts out a very different message?” A
Barbara Wood is a freelance writer, photographer and gardener who lives in an old farmhouse in Woodside.
County looks to reduce greenhouse gases By Barbara Wood Special to the Almanac
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esalinization plants, bike paths, electric vehicle recharging stations, native meadows instead of front lawns, local agriculture and walkable communities were all part of a vision for a more energy-efficient San Mateo County contributed by participants in a workshop in Redwood City last week. The workshop, held Aug. 9 at the Fair Oaks Community Center in Redwood City, was the first of three planned to help the county try to figure out how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in unincorporated areas to 1990 levels. The reduction, mandated by a state law passed in 2006, must take place by 2020. The effort is being helped along by a federal Department of Energy grant of $350,000, which is being used to develop what the county is calling an Energy Efficiency Climate Action Plan. The information gathered in the process will be used to update parts of the county’s general plan and zoning code with policies and programs that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Matthew Seubert, the county planner who is heading the program, called ReCharge San Mateo County, said the county has already found some ways of
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The county has adopted “green” building ordinances that encourage practices that cut energy use, and any new public buildings must conserve energy. Some public buildings now have solar panels and the county has banned polystyrene food containers in unincorporated areas. County employees are encouraged not to drive to work alone and there is a county-wide recycling program. Nora De Cuir of PMC, the consultants who have been hired to help with the ReCharge project, promised that the result of the study will not just sit on a shelf. “In day-to-day activities in the county, it will be used,” she said. The ReCharge program concerns only unincorporated areas of the county. Incorporated cities and towns must come up with their own plans to meet the state’s requirements. PMC has already determined the amount of greenhouse gases that existed in the county’s unincorporated areas in 2005, the base year for the project. They measured carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases (such as hydrofluorocarbons) and came up with just under a million metric tons of the gases. They also determined where those gases come from. The big-
gest sources were transportation (52 percent), commercial energy (17 percent) the landfill (13 percent) and residential energy (10 percent). That leaves the county with the goal of trying to figure out how to make its transportation, building, water, waste, and energy systems more efficient. Completion of the ReCharge project is scheduled for October 2012. Ms. De Cuir, the PMC consultant, said that decisions about which methods will be used to reduce greenhouse gases will include looking at how much each action will reduce gases, how much it will cost, other benefits it will provide, and what funding sources will be available. A
N HOW TO GET INVOLVED ■ Go to tinyurl.com/Recharge163 to get on the mailing list to be informed about the two future public workshops on the Recharge San Mateo County study. The next meeting will probably be held in November in one of the county’s coastal communities. ■ Go to tinyurl.com/survey-184 to give input on the topic by taking a survey. ■ County planner Matt Seubert, who is heading the project, can be reached at (650) 363-1829.
August 17, 2011 N The Almanac N 19