Bone Woman Book PDF

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Pizzella 1 Olivia Pizzella Dr. Hartnett-McCann The Bone Woman 3/5/20 1. Koff uses the term "double vision" to describe how she views the bodies she excavates – she looks at them as both objects of scientific evidence and loved ones of grieving families and friends left behind. By both objectifying and humanizing the corpse, allows Koff to excel at her job, but sometimes she is unable to maintain a balance between the two views. Koff remarks on her early missions she would often find herself smiling. She said people would ask her how she could smile amongst mass graves of scattered bones (34). She replied her job wasn’t about death, for which she could do nothing, but about bones, teeth, hair, and clothing which she could do something. She felt like she was serving the deceased and their community. She felt by identifying the deceased they were then able to be buried, and therefore, they were laid to peace. When working on evidence she found stories like the man with the prosthetic leg, house keys, and church records, giving stories to the bodies, and humanizing them. This forced her to work harder on their behalf. The joy and thanks from families was her driving force to continue missions. But like Roach and Melinek, Koff found it difficult to work on children. Like the others, she found it easier to process parts as parts, but whole bodies and bags full of children decomposing and full of maggots was hard to process. Unable to maintain a balance of scientific evidence v. healing families of loved ones with dead children, Koff became good at knowing her limits and taking breaks in order to pull herself back together and refocus. When in Bosnia, double vision hit Koff. She found it hard to not look at dead bodies as missing relatives. It caused her stress, stomach issues, and sleepless nights. It was then Bill told her to take off the next day.

2. Evidence was a hectic assignment, even more exhausting then Koff anticipated. The smells, the maggots, the decomposing human tissue attached to clothing and releasing a gas that tore through

Pizzella 2 her throat, nostrils, and stomach took a toll on Koff. The days were spend bending, kneeling, crouching, and being physically exerted. But the items she uncovered were fascinating – id cards, pins of the President, and records o house sales (61). The significance of these items began to play on Koff’s mind. She realized these people took them because they expected to survive. They thought they were escaping and would eventually return. The items they took told a story about each person’s life and Koff was listening. It was then that she realized her mission must not only be about the dead, but she must focus on helping the living people associated with the bodies in the graves. There were no longer stories of how people died, but stories of how they lived, what they hoped for, and what they believed their future would be. Evidence like bones, spoke from the grave, personifying the lives that could have been.

3. After reading Witnesses from the Grave, Koff was determined to help with the efforts and wanted to gain the skills needed. She went to graduate school to study forensic anthropology. She knew since age 7, when collecting dead birds and burying their bones that she had an interest in the field. As a child she traveled the world with her parents on missions and archeological digs. She longed to examine bones in an effort to understand what happened before and after death. She longed to have a role in human rights investigations. Her motivation was to be a voice for the dead. She said perpetrators believe they have silenced their victims forever, but bones talk. That’s what drives her, “kicking of the bad guy’s ass,” when its least expected (9). Traveling and working on the sets of her parent’s films kept her focused on her goals and Witnesses from the Grave inspired her to pursue her dreams. She said one photo in the book sealed the deal. Clyde Snow standing up during a trial of officials responsible for the murder of thousands of people, showed a slide of a skull with a bullet in it. The skull was a mother who just gave birth and her baby was now missing. The evidence helped

Pizzella 3 convict the murders – though they thought they’d heard the last of the woman, her bones told the story of brutality.

4. At the end of the day, Koff and her teammates needed support from each other, even if unspoken (104). Even if they never spoke about it, they understood one another’s experiences of the day like no one else could. But Koff tells us trauma excites her (154). Often times she wondered how working with dead bodies didn’t cause her to feel tragedy (154). And though she sometimes felt emotionally drained, she found it easy to process bodies and evidence like an assembly line. She found it easier to stay jovial and keep conversations light. Personally, I think her emotional disconnect is what allowed her to continue mission after mission and eventually become a leader. But many colleagues did not conform to the objectification of the mission. Koff often spoke of waking up to find team members, unable to hack working in mass graves, had abandoned the missions. Throughout her countless tours of duty numerous team members couldn’t survive the emotional or physical toll of forensic anthropology. And though passionate and strong-willed, even Koff at the end of her last mission admitted she was happy to be going home.

5. After witnessing the insurgent shooting in Rwanda, Koff realized her team was not doing enough for the people living in the community who were searching for their loved ones. She became keenly aware of this when she unearthed a priest. The priest’s niece became persistent in wanting to view his remains. Like a mortician, Koff did her best to prepare the body for visitation. She put the priest in a fresh body bag and zipped it up so that only the skeletonized head was visible. Koff said you can never be prepared to see the skeleton of someone you love, but it is easier if you can picture them asleep. When the niece came, she wasn’t prepared for the skull bones, no lower jaw, just his head resting on his teeth, that she encountered. The niece collapsed, sobbing before reaching the remains. Seeing this made Koff sick. She knew more had to be done to help the living heal. Her

Pizzella 4 humanitarian efforts through out her missions became focused not only on identifying remains but bringing closure and peace to the community.

6. Teamwork was critical to back up each other’s findings, separate the duties, maintain the environment, and access each other’s companionship and emotional support. But more than that, to be a successful forensic anthropologist requires many characteristics. Focus, drive, passion, determination, organization, strong-will, physical, mental, and emotional strength, and an ability to easily adapt jump out at me. Regardless of each person’s clinical training, characteristics must be instilled in a person, for they cannot be taught. One must have strong communication skills, an ability to work under stress, social skills, a positive attitude, and a story-telling ability. Forensic anthropologists must be kind, compassionate, and have a psychological training imbedded in order to not burn out. Not only must they deal with the dead- the bugs, smells, and sights- but they must also deal with the living. This class has truly opened my eyes to the powerful woman behind such compelling work.

7. There was no teamwork, living conditions were stressful, even the cook wasn’t getting paid, yet everyone kept eating. Koff had no privacy or alone time. Days in the field were long and tiring and often disheveled. Going back to the house at night proved no better. She longed for home and its comforts and conversations. She never had a day off and always picked up everyone else’s slack, even finding herself having to be the team driver. She missed running water and phone calls. She got no rest and teammates assumed and expected of her. She felt out of touch and cynical (149). She forgot who she was and operated as a robot. She barely remembers what brought her pleasure. She was miserable. She chalked it up to exhaustion and lack of alone time, but what she eventually realized was that the mission was wearing her out physically and emotionally. The team had

Pizzella 5 manifested itself into inconsiderate, lazy, uncooperative players who took advantage of her. She was completely drained, and a break was long overdue.

8. On her second mission to Rwanda, Koff connected more with the community. Humbert, a friend she had met, took her on a drive one day to an orphanage. Here there were children of all ages. They performed songs and dances and Koff says her cheeks hurt from smiling so much (111). Humbert brought the children balloons, an idea he said he had while back home in Belgium. Koff connected to Humbert, because like him, Rwanda was always on her mind. Koff met the two woman who ran the orphanage and thanked them for the beautiful job they were doing and the chance to let her visit and see the performance. Koff realized she was visiting orphans from the genocide- she had already met the dead. It made her sad to see the aftermath of homeless children. But their singing and dancing made her fell close to them, as their energy gave her new hope. Koff realized that despite the war-torn tragedy in Rwanda, these children had a future. This made her feel lighter. She realized the need to continue taking care of those still living. It ignited her passion again and made her not want to leave. Koff felt reprogrammed. It was a direct contrast from how she felt when she left Kibuye. Leaving there made her relieved. But feeling relieved to take a break made Koff feel guilty. Seeing the children in Rwanda, happy and hopeful, made her realize her guilt was misplaced. People can and will survive post-genocide. And even though their futures were uncertain, they were still happy and hopeful. Koff realized her missions weren’t only about how people died, but how they continued to live.

9. The government murdered their own people out of self-interest. Killings were to avenge hundred-year-old battles, take out political opponents, and over the billion-dollar mineral export industry. People died because of religious beliefs and over farmland, but the real issue for the mass killings was sustainability and power (262). Money, as the Bible says, is the root of all evil. The

Pizzella 6 mass graves were full of crimes against humanity in an attempt at wealth. Fertile land and oil were behind the death of noncombatants and innocent civilians. And some were simply killed to be killed, while others were named to be killed. Lives were taken on bribes and propaganda. Extremists and money-hungry murderers had no regard for humanity.

10. Koff experienced a significant transformation from her first to last mission. From having to worry about sleeping arrangements, to stressing over lack of teamwork, to smells, heartache, missing home, and landing the job as boss, Koff’s worldviews, philosophies, and emotional thresholds altered throughout The Bone Woman. Koff never truly became desensitized to the things she saw- the mass graves, the bodies, the children, or the grieving families- but her passion for her work kept her pushing forward. When it came to teamwork, Koff was often exhausted as she found herself consistently picking up the slack for those that did a poor job or simply abandoned the missions leaving the team short-handed. She found it was necessary to support others not only in the field, but emotionally, whether such support was or was not spoke. Burnt out and needing to refocus, Koff took time to go home in between assignments. And she felt guilt in doing so. It wasn’t until her spirits were renewed by the children in Rwanda that she understood her missions weren’t about the dead, but also about the living. Eventually, Koff gave up on teamwork and terrible leadership. Meetings stopped happening and people stopped communicating. Koff came to realize that the dead were cool, but the living were starting to suck. Time and pressure were against her and the amount of work was unstoppable. She started to lose herself. She let herself get worn out and emotionally involved. She went home during each new mission to recharge and returned to the graves in different countries with a new sense of hope. But even as the years went by, the smells, sights, and toll continued to play on her. The rain the tents, the sanitation, the pooping issue, it all built up and built up until Koff really felt like maybe she should call it a wrap. But as the

Pizzella 7 bones told their story from the grave, Koff found in uncovering them, that the bigger story was of the living. She once again found her passion and drive and focus. After suffering her first nightmare in Kosovo, yet she got through it and though she found it deeply emotional she was strangely proud (211). As assistance-chief she found better working conditions and better teams, better supplies and a better schedule. It was here that she also found a broader view of the world. She started recognizing the dead as woman, children, noting bullets, wounds, and taking into account more than teeth and bones. Koff finally felt like things were coming full circle for her. Artifacts were affecting her differently. And she actually started missing the old tents and terribly miserable trips of the old days. Even though she now had better equipment and more workers, she craved the feelings from her first days on the job. She realized now that she looked forward to her work, but was always happy when she was leaving for home. One thing she said that never compromised was her feeling of accomplishment. And at the end of the day isn’t that all that matters?

11. I would absolutely find it difficult to live the way Koff had to. I have become so spoiled in my upbringing, that my passion for work probably would not outweigh my need for things like running water, toilets, and sanitation. But I am young, and my immaturity about things like that might be outgrown. I want to be a vet, how awesome would it be to study in the jungle? But would I really want to do it for a long period of time? High-level experience always makes you stand out, but the simple amenities in the U.S. are not guaranteed in other countries. I compare it to vacation. I love going, but I am always glad to get back home.

12. Truth does not bring back the dead, but it allows voices to be heard. As we have learned through this course, bones talk. They bring truth to the courtroom, history to the books, and peace to families. Considering you would die a natural death, what story of self would you want left behind?...