Nation full of unbelievable stories

My next (fearful) adventure was taking a domestic Congolese flight wednesday morning from Beni to Goma. But it all went well and I arrived safely at the regional office for World Vision in Eastern Congo. It's rather strange to walk (or: drive) through the lava landscape that this town is made of, with burned cars and trucks still lying around as silent witnesses caught by the flood of mud, rocks and fire that covered this place in January 2002. The vulcano (the Nyiragongo) is still active and in the evening you can see the top glowing.

On the last day in Beni I had a very special meeting with a young woman whose son is 'general' of one of the militia groups roaming the rural country side around Beni. He was born while his mother and her husband were leaders of this group.
After her husband's death, killed by his own men, the woman went into negotiations with the government about demobilisation of the group. When she got back from the talks it appeared the militias had hidden the child from her. He was then 2 years old.
She hasn't seen him ever since. Every attempt to try and see him, has been blocked. The rebels keep him away from her because they are afraid that she will take him with her and they believe he has certain spiritual powers which were given to him by his father. World Vision has taken interest in the story and want to help. Baraka, the child-general turns 7 this year. His name means 'blessing'.

It's one of the many many unbelievable stories you hear when you are travelling through this nation. Everywhere you go you meet people who have traumatic life stories to tell cause they've been experiencing (the affects of) war, (natural) disasters, diseases.
This morning I'm planning to visit some of the camps for displaced people (IDP's) close to Goma and this afternoon I am invited by a group called 'Heal my people', which offers help to women who are victims from sexual violence, to celebrate International Women's Day with them.

Women working towards lasting peace

I’ve been only three days in this country and I’m already overwhelmed by the complexity of its problems and challenges. Did the elections in 2006 and the different peace agreements between government and militia’s seem promising, since then the situation on the ground is still very explosive. In some parts of the country the situation has definitely become more stable but in the Ituri area where I am, the violence has continued. Although the original root was the fighting between two tribes, the Lendu and the Hema, these days it's mainly small groups of rebels who do not want to hand over their weapons and continue to keep plundering, killing and raping.

There is the risk of over simplifying the problems, but facts cannot be over simplified: The multiple wars in the last ten years have cost the lives of at least 4 million people. And just in the Kivu-province alone about 800.000 people are displaced. Being in Bunia, with all its NGO’s and the UN planes flying over on a regular base, I wonder if there’s ever gonna be an end to this tragedy. No human can fix this, that’s for sure. However, it’s great to meet two women who in their own ways with their unique gifts are trying to bring relief to the Congolese people.

Marian, a doctor from the Netherlands, has been in Congo for the last 16 years. She witnessed the trauma of the different wars that destroyed the country. Sometimes she was evacuated, other times she was not. She had friends killed like flies, she saw her work destroyed. But at the end she always decided to come back. To continue distributing medication and bringing healthcare to people in remote places. Trying to explain Marian cannot say anything else but “I have this deep love in my heart for the Congolese and for this country”.

And then there’s Valerie, a Congolese woman. With her husband and ten children she survived the multiple wars that ripped her country apart in the last decade. After the last one, in 2003, she decided she was going to do something. With the help of a Dutch donor she started an organization for vulnerable women; women who lost their husbands, who didn’t know how else to survive but to sell their bodies and go into prostitution, teenage mothers. Nowadays she and 15 volunteers are helping over 55 women to earn a living through an agricultural and a sowing project. Valerie offers skills training and support. “I feel compassion for these women who are like me”, she says. She also visits schools where she gives sexual education to children from 10 years upwards.

Her main struggle is finances for transport and to be able to pay her volunteers at least a small fee for the work they are doing. Maybe if the UN could give a portion of their annual budget of 1 billion dollars, needed to keep the DRC-mission going, to a woman like Valerie, that would be a real contribution to lasting peace.