August 24, 2005

Mony Dojeiji and her 5000 km Walk for Peace -
Part II

Here is part 2 of Mony's story who went from being a Microsoft sales executive to completing a pilgrimage on the world-famous Camino de Santiago, which made her decide to complete a 5000 km long Walk for Peace for 13 months through 13 countries. Click here to access part I of her fascinating story.

8. From Italy you continued on into the Balkan countries. Please comment on your pilgrim experience there. I believe that Croatia was a particularly unforgettable experience for you. Please tell us about your experience in the other Balkan countries.

We walked through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia/Hercigovina, and Serbia/Montenegro. Our experience in Croatia was the most intense. The people here embraced us totally. We were in the newspapers and on television. Their hospitality and desire to help us was incredible. Our message seemed to resonate especially strongly here, in a country recovering from their own war. It was also there that Alberto and I separated. He walked ahead to Medugorje, in Bosnia/Hercigovina with the agreement that I would only be a few days behind him. Medugorje is a village in Bosnia/Hercigovina where it is said that the Virgin Mary appeared to five young children about twenty years ago offering messages of peace at a time when the country was strife with war. The messages of peace continue to this day with a new message announced every month. Alberto wanted to arrive for the next message while I couldn’t walk that fast. We ended up being separated for over a month with no way of contacting the other. We only managed to speak twice during that entire time. He called me once to let me know that he had arrived safely. And I managed to finally contact him, after days of failed attempts, the evening before I was about to arrive in Medugorje.

Circumstances seemed to conspire to keep us apart. I fell ill a few days after we separated with an infection of the lymph nodes under my arms. I was told I may need surgery to drain them since they were badly infected and the doctor didn’t know if the antibiotics would be strong enough. In the end, they did work but I needed over two weeks to recover from it and to regain the strength to walk again. I was taken care of and welcomed by an incredible community in Brodarica where the priest of the local church took me into his home, brought me to doctors and medicine, and where the nuns there oversaw every step of my recovery. They appeared as angels in my way to help me at a time when I was alone.

Money in Albania

That experience of being looked after and protected on my way gave me the confidence to continue walking alone. For Alberto as well, it was important for him to know that he can walk without me. We always felt more confident together knowing that a couple would be accepted easily and given accommodations. It was more difficult for people to trust in a young man walking alone and give him accommodations. His experiences were not always easy but he found angels along his way, just as I did, who stepped in and helped him when he needed it most. It was a valuable lesson for us being apart and one that reminded us that we enjoyed walking together but we didn’t need to do it. We would always be taken care of.

9. After the Balkan countries you went through Greece to Turkey. Please comment on this portion of the trip. What made the Turkey portion unique and different?

The Turkey portion was unique for several reasons. Physically, we were walking in Turkey in the summer, in temperatures of well over 40 degrees Celsius every day. We started walking at 5:00 in the morning so that we could finish by 10:00 at the latest, before it became too hot. The heat sapped all our energy and left us feeling drained most of the time. Emotionally, we had also started our romantic relationship. It had started at the end of Greece but intensified in Turkey. As in every new relationship, it brought out the best and worst in both of us. Culturally, we had left the Christian world and entered fully into the Muslim one. All of these factors combined made us turn more inwards, to focus more on ourselves and to only see only the negative in our situation. As a result, we attracted more negative experiences that directly reflected our beliefs. Because of judgments that we had about the Muslim world being more conservative and un-accepting of two single people walking together, we didn’t seek help in mosques, nor did we try to engage people as we did earlier in our walk. We were walking along the touristy Turkish coast, and felt that people saw us more as tourists than as pilgrims, and didn’t really care about our message or what we were doing. We felt they were more interested in our dollar value than in our true intentions. So of course, we attracted exactly the situations that reinforced those beliefs. It was an incredible lesson in watching how our thoughts and beliefs directly influenced what we attracting into our lives. It was exactly as we had been saying all along – we had the power to change the world through our thoughts and intentions. Once we saw what was happening, we could step away from it and try to heal the prejudices and misconceptions that we had about this world. It was when we did this that our experiences totally turned around and we were finally able to see the true heart of the Turkish people.

10. Please comment on the final portion of your route. How did you get to Jerusalem? You also referred to a unique coincidence (that maybe wasn't so coincidental at all) related to the 12 gates of Jerusalem. Please comment on some of the other "coincidences" you experienced on this trip.

The final portion of our trip was into the Arab world. We walked through Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The Lebanese-Israeli border was the only border we could not cross on foot. It was physically closed with land mines and barbed wire blocking our way. We had to take a plane from Beirut to Cyprus, then to Tel Aviv. From there, we took the train north to Haifa to begin our walk again. We were deeply frustrated by this because we really felt the message of peace needed to cross at this specific border, site of so many hostilities and conflicts. But it wasn’t meant to be. From Haifa, we continued along the coast, then cut inland towards Jerusalem.

Mony and Alberto in Jerusalem

Our entire pilgrimage was a series of synchronicities, coincidences, and people arriving when we needed help. We do not believe in coincidences, but that all has a Higher Purpose which often eludes us, but that is always for the greatest good of all involved. We arrived in Jerusalem on December 24, 2003, Christmas Eve, completely unplanned. We walked to the old part of the city, which is surrounded by high ancient walls. We knew there were twelve gates, not all open, and decided to simply follow the road that led to the first gate on the way. We found ourselves in front of a huge arch called Bab Al Khalil, the Gate of Khalil. An Arab friend we had met during our walk had told us that the name Khalil meant Albert in English (or Alberto in Spanish). So after thirteen months of walking, we entered the Old City of Jerusalem through Alberto’s Gate! We were also fortunate enough to be able to go to Bethlehem that very evening and to be in the city where it all started. In a way, we were coming back to the beginning.

We also had another unusual coincidence during the last leg of our pilgrimage. During the entire walk, we always carried signs announcing what we were doing. In Israel, our signs said the word Peace in English, Arabic (Salam) and Hebrew (Shalom). The very day that we put on the signs, the letters started to fall off as we were walking. We tried to paste them on again, but it didn’t work. It was as if we weren’t meant to carry this sign to its final destination. It was a difficult thing to accept because for me especially, I felt this was where the sign was most needed. But upon later reflection, we realized that the outward message of peace had served its purpose. It had touched those who needed it. But now it was time for us to go inward, to focus on the inner journey of peace, to bring that energy into Jerusalem with us. We realized that the only way to bring peace into such a troubled area was not to shout it from the rooftops, but to live it in our everyday lives, in our actions towards the people who are like us and unlike us. The work of peace is an inner journey, people changing themselves and their attitudes and beliefs about their neighbors and the world they live in. They can then come to the world from this place of peace, acceptance, tolerance and openness. When they can be that peace that they wish to see, is when they can affect the most incredible change. When they can see the other point of view, when they can forgive themselves and their neighbors for their mutual acts of atrocity, when they can truly listen and have compassion for the other, that’s when true peace can be created.

11. Please tell us about your experience once in Israel. What places did you visit, what thoughts went through your head?

We really didn’t venture very much outside Jerusalem itself. We were only able to enter Bethlehem on Christmas Eve because the Israeli government had given permission to allow tourists and pilgrims to enter on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Normally, the city is barricaded and access is limited or completely restricted. We felt very fortunate to have been able to enter. Likewise with the West Bank and Gaza. There was no way to enter. We also wanted to experience first-hand what life was like here. In Bethlehem, we had the Palestinian experience. In Jerusalem (and on our walk from Haifa to Jerusalem), we lived the Israeli experience. It’s easier to understand the Palestinian experience because it’s what we’re most exposed to in the media.


Mony and Alberto

There is no question we felt the hopelessness, the helplessness and the pain of the Palestinian people. But what most opened our eyes was the Israeli experience. I was accustomed to seeing only one face of the Israeli people, that of the aggressors. What we saw was that they were also victims of their choices, hostage to their fears, allowing those fears to rule every aspect of their life. Young men and women, most under the age of twenty, were walking around with machine guns patrolling squares and open areas. On the trains, on the buses, machine guns were in full sight. We couldn’t walk into any restaurant, shopping center or public place without being submitted to a search of our bags and metal detectors. Even walking into a McDonald’s, we had to clear security. In the old city of Jerusalem, police with full body armor patrolled the streets. I kept thinking, this is not normal. They’re putting on a face of normalcy on a situation that is clearly not normal. Like their Palestinian counterparts, they were living in terror and under the constant pressure of being blown up just by going about their daily lives. They’re equally convinced that all Palestinians want them dead, as of course the Palestinians think of the Israelis. Their political choices reflect this deep fear and paranoia. One journalist described the situation as ‘shoot and cry’ and then ‘vote and cry’. It seemed an apt description. For the first time, I felt the pain and sadness of the Israeli people and understood that they only allowed their leadership to act as it did not out of a desire for revenge or to obliterate the Palestinian people, but out of the deep terror that if they don’t defend themselves and attack first, they will be killed. As in many situations, their aggression was masking a much deeper fear.

What gave me incredible hope, and what the media does not report on, are the ordinary people, Israelis and Arabs, working for peace together. There are many Israelis and foreign observers putting their lives on the line, acting as human shields to protect Palestinians as they go about their daily lives. There are so many peace organizations working to bring about change at every level, social, political, cultural and religious. We read stories of ordinary people defying stereotypes and getting to know their neighbor, often united in their losses, in their grief, but also in their hopes for their children. There were daily protests by mothers, grandmothers, and all those who have lost loved ones and were seeking change. Young Israeli reservists refusing to do military duty and facing imprisonment and severe sentences. This is the face that most people do not see and what left such a deep impression on us.

12. What are your 3 most significant memories from this 5000 km Walk for Peace?

It’s difficult to choose only three, but I can summarize the impressions that stand out most in my mind. I think often of the kindness and generosity of ordinary people in every single country we walked in, people who didn’t speak our languages, but who through their simple acts of humanity touched us and helped us on our way. Often, they were people who had nothing and yet shared all that they had. I am touched when I think of the look in peoples’ eyes when they heard about what we were doing, and the emotion and the hope that our walk seemed to inspire in them. We know we touched many people simply by walking past them, and often by putting the power to create change in their world back in their hands, reminding them of their innate power and the significance of what they see as simple acts.

Mony, announcing her Walk for Peace in Italian

Above all, I can’t help but marvel at the incredible synchronicities of this entire pilgrimage, the people showing up just when we needed them, circumstances revealing themselves to make our path easier. This is not to say that all our experiences were easy and that we didn’t pass any difficult moments. We did, but in every experience was hidden a marvelous lesson waiting to be revealed.

13. How has this experience transformed you personally?

I trust more in the goodness of people. I am more patient with myself and others. I don’t see people quite as separate from me as I did before. I see our similarities, our hopes, our dreams, more than I see the differences in our languages, cultures, and religions. I find I’m not so quick to judge others, having been judged myself often as many things – a wanderer, a poor vagabond, an idealist, a dreamer, someone naïve who doesn’t understand the real world and the complexities of peace. I have more faith and trust in the unknown, whether you call it God, the Universe, the angels. The label doesn’t matter. It’s all the same creative, loving energy that guides each of us to our higher purpose, when we open ourselves to it. I have more confidence in the world and in ordinary people making change happen. I see our world changing for the better. There is a higher consciousness that is growing daily of ordinary people like you and me choosing to live lives with meaning and to contribute something positive to the world. Despite all we see on television, which only presents a part of the story, I have more hope for the future.

14. What has happened after you finished your walk for peace? Today you live in Spain. Please tell us about your life in Spain. What do you enjoy about your new home town?

After our pilgrimage, we came to Spain for Alberto’s family to meet me, and then to Canada for my family to meet him. We married in 2003 and had our daughter Sylvana in December of that year.

We are still trying to live the lessons of our pilgrimage in our everyday lives, in how we deal with people and situations. We try to look for the light in every person, not their dark. We know we create situations so whenever something happens that we don’t want, we look at ourselves and not at others. We try to let life unfold as opposed to controlling it, forcing it or rushing it along. It’s difficult to do this in a ‘normal’ world and often we forget everything we’ve learned, but that remains our intention. Fortunately, we live in the deep south of Spain in an area that’s very laid back and where people are open and friendly. The pace of life here is more relaxed, there’s more focus on quality of life as opposed to pursuit of success and material wealth. It’s small enough that we can walk everywhere for all our needs – shopping, banks, doctors, pharmacies. We only just bought a car so that we could travel outside the city and explore the beauty of Andalusia and the rest of Spain and Europe. There’s a focus on family and community which we really appreciate. Families go out with their children everywhere – restaurants, cafes at all hours. It’s common to see strollers with children sleeping in them at midnight. Children are a part of the family’s life and of the social experience. Children learn to adapt to the family’s lifestyle, not the other way around. We’re learning a great deal from this way of life and are adapting very easily.

Mony in Turkey

15. Following this monumental Walk for Peace, what are your plans for the future? How do you intend to integrate this experience into your life from here on in?

We are currently writing a book of our experiences and hoping to have it published late this year or early next year. Our intention is to share the many lessons that we have learned from our pilgrimage with others in the hopes that they are inspired to pursue their dreams and passions. In a way, a pilgrimage is a way of life, it’s not something that ends. It has no beginning or end. It is a continual journey of self-discovery and transformation. And that’s what life really is, for those who choose to embrace change as part of their life. So our pilgrimage continues. We continue to accept and heal. We continue to shed and embrace. We continue to grow and learn. We are attempting to create peace in our world by being that peace in our daily lives, and are trying to bring that into the life of our daughter, so that she is surrounded by that positive energy and grows with the absolute knowledge of her power to change herself and her world, and the confidence to face her fears squarely and follow her dreams and passions.

Mony, thank you so much for your time in describing to us this fundamental transforming experience that took you from a high-powered corporate position in Canada through 13 countries to a more tranquil family life in Spain. We wish you all the best for finishing your book!