((PKG))  IN A CUP OF TEA, HOPE  
((Banner:  Aftermath of War))
((Executive Producer:  Marsha James))

((Camera:  Kaveh Rezaei))
((Map:  Baltimore, Maryland))
((NATS))
((Aaron Hughes, American Veteran, Founder -- The Tea Project)) 
I very much have had a fondness for tea, for a long time. I still kind of consider it something to be almost sacred or special. You know, it’s more something for me to reflect over, or a tool to create a space of reflection and contemplation.
((NATS))
You know, I remember getting up to Camp Navistar, which is the camp on the border between Kuwait and Iraq, shortly after President Bush got up on of an air craft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished” and I was motivated.  I was like, we’re going to go provide some humanitarian relief.  I’m going to help fix some bridges and stuff, and I’m going to go home a hero.
((NATS))
I remember there were these little kids, willing to jump on a semi-truck to get food and water, and I thought at the time, these are the kids we’re here to help. You know, the whole time I was deployed, I was offered tea by the ‘Third Country Nationals’, which is a massive migrant labor force that the U.S. Military depends on that’s basically slave labor, and they come up to us and they say, “hey, we need food,” and then we tell them, “it’s not our job to feed you.”  These were guys hauling our supplies, you know, and despite that, these men that had nothing would turn to us and offer us tea, and then we would refuse it. You know, everyone that we were there to help and liberate, we were simultaneously dehumanizing and abusing, and so, I never had tea my entire deployment, not once.
((NATS))

The contradictions of American exceptionalism and occupation just were too much, and I kind of lost faith in a lot of the things I believed in and I would start to figure out what could I still hold on to.  I got out of the Illinois National Guard and I joined Iraq Veterans Against the War. One of their allies was this group called U.S. Labor Against the War and they wanted to host an international labor conference to talk about worker issues in Iraq in the midst of the occupation.  After I was done speaking, this man jumps up in the back of the auditorium and starts yelling something really loud in Arabic and just looking down towards the stage and I am like well this is it, this guy is going to come beat me up.  Just as he comes up on stage, I hear the translation come through the little ear piece and it’s “I just want to come up on stage and give this gentleman a hug.” And he grabs me, and he hugs me. And I just started to bawl.  You know, this man, he was in the Iraqi military and fought against invading forces. He forced the British military out of his oil fields and there he was hugging me. They brought me off stage and they brought me out of the auditorium and they sat me down, and they offered me tea. Tea that, for the very first time, I accepted.

((NATS))

The Tea Project is an ongoing project in collaboration with Amber Ginsburg. I originally begun the project in 2009 on a return trip to Iraq in order to share all the generosity despite, and to create space for people to sit, sip tea, and reflect about living in a constant state of war.  I asked Amber to join the project in 2013 to help cast one porcelain tea cup for each person that’s been detained in Guantanamo. You know we’ve pushed the project further and expanded it to include all these forms of presentation and installation.
((NATS))

From the middle of my deployment, I’ve committed my life to using creative practices to counter destruction, to counter the dehumanization that too much of our world is consumed by.