My world was turned topsy-turvy in August when I had the rare opportunity to climb the mountains of Uganda (Africa) to sit with and observe mountain gorillas. Just a few feet from these magnificent creatures, an estimated 600 in existence, it struck me that just one week prior, I had seen humans in cages. That is, a few days before leaving for Africa, HAI brought into Rikers Island Correctional Facility Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, a play about two Rikers Island Correctional Facility inmates (see article). Writer Stephen Adly-Girguis relied upon his experiences working for HAI at Rikers to create this piece directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

I first experienced irony on the day of the prison performance when, later that evening, I attended a preview of The Seagull, which featured Philip Seymour Hoffman in another capacity: playing a lead opposite Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. The irony was in my seeing a play in the morning for captive audiences and in the evening for captivated audiences; seeing a play in the morning that held up a mirror to the lives of the inmate audience, and then one that held a looking glass back in time to the lives of the evening audience. Overall, I was seeing the power of drama in disparate lives.

These philosophical ironies were overshadowed for me weeks later when en route back home to the States from Africa, in response to an invitation, I visited the Mother Theresa Clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I saw hundreds of children, adolescents and adults dying of AIDS, two per bed, in the most dire of conditions. The visit to the clinic and its conditions drove me to a despair that took weeks to overcome.

Then came September 11th, when most world views were shattered, and still remain so. However, on a subsequent trip to visit family in California, I heard that California inmates had raised over $50,000 dollars, matched by an equal amount from prison guards, for WTC disaster relief here in New York City, including relief for the families of police officers who died in the rescue operations. When asked why, the inmates often said, “We are all Americans.”

As Founder and Executive Director of HAI, entering its 34th year, I once again am trying to stay anchored and steer my agency through buffeting economic and political winds. Never has my concept of human nature gone through such changes and over very “bumpy roads.”