The history and economics of the armed groups here are
fascinating. And horrifying. I’d already heard too many stories of women
being raped in front of their husbands, children, or parents as a terror
tactic, not out of any personal feeling of desire or even hate. And now I've seen pictures of a village of
smiling children born of rape.
My teammates have seen and experienced things that I cannot
imagine. They are the generation that
grew up in the aftermath of the massacres in Rwanda and multiple civil wars for
power within the country. I’ve heard and
come to near tears over their stories, but I still can’t believe it. There’s a total sense of normalcy because…
people go on. It’s what we do. If the Great Lakes region isn’t the greatest
example of the mind’s strength in healing itself, I don’t know what is. One minute they’re giggling and making silly
jokes and immersed in their smartphones, the next second they’re talking about
violence, rape, and death. Because it’s
normal.
One of our speakers was the leader of an organization that
works with the repatriation of FDLR (previously Interhamwe - Rwandan
soldiers implicated in the genocide). We
viewed images of victims post-conflict and heard stories that would have
required at least a week of preparation and warnings of triggering in the West. Here, the young adults who’d seen many of the
same things IRL just took it in their stride.
In fact, one particularly hideous story was in tune with some sort of jazzy (possibly marriage) celebration in the streets below. While I don’t believe that minimizing trauma
is the way forward, there is something to be said for encouraging life after
trauma instead of returning to it like a sore tooth. Maybe the difference is that the whole
community has suffered and there is some unspoken solidarity in that?
As far as I can see, the armed groups are the biggest
disaster in this area. The fact that
they are likely supported by presidential candidates and increase in number in
the months leading up to election is an even bigger disaster. We went through pages and pages and lists and
lists of identified armed groups, where they are concentrated, and what kind of
support they provide to their beloved country (which may or may not be the one
in which they currently reside, kill, extort, rape, etc.). They all seem to be fighting for the
Liberation of the Democratic People’s Protection in Freedom and Happiness and
Unicorn Poop and other such virtues, but all seem to be failing miserably. There’s even an armed group of pygmies
running around somewhere – and why not?
They are incredibly marginalised and terrorised by armed groups and
civilians alike.
These locaux groups – so called because this is
plural of local in French; I discovered this after weeks of assuming everyone
was just calling them loco – are incredibly well-organized and
well-run. They have incredible
communication and know the presence of foreigners in their areas even from the
thick darkness of the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world.
The Mai-Mai, apparently sorcerers, are just one of the many
groups born out of a desire for ‘defense’ against invading armies, but there
are also Rwandan movements that target the FDLR for the genocide, and Islamist
rebel groups from Uganda (ADF-NALU) in the far north. Each of these groups seems to stay carefully
out of each other’s way and concentrate in areas of abundant natural resources
(mines, wood, gold, etc.) to fund their operations. They also terrorize villagers and refugees by
extracting outrageous taxes (one called la-la-salaama, meaning the price
to sleep well required from any village which hopes to live with
relatively fewer assaults from its neighbouring army). They kindly avoid kidnapping or killing white
people in order to focus their efforts on ‘helping’ their own people (and
presumably to avoid the involvement of powerful foreign governments).
One of our missions works with the disarmament and
repatriation of the most entrenched army - the FDLR - in the hope that, offered
another way of life, soldiers will take it. This mission now desperately needs funding as previous efforts have been rerouted to Syria - prayers for the new funding proposals are high on my list right now (this is a subtle invitation). But life in the forests doesn’t sound all bad. Another way the FDLR (with their women and
children hidden away in the forests that they apparently know like the back of
their hand by this point) make money is to grow and sell marijuana.
Their biggest customers:
This country’s national army.
They are woefully underpaid and under no real control (unless they’re
required around election time) and seem to cause worse harm than foreign armed
groups. So the FDLR grow and sell
cannabis to their enemies in order to stay in a country that is not theirs, and
also find a way to get a rip-roaring trade of contraband weed and alcohol back
to their home country of Rwanda.
If I could put this in perspective, this would be like
Britain buying weed off Nazis in Poland – somewhat demoralizing.
This whole discussion was awash with jokes about where we’d
be placed and which specific armed group would do what with us – all by the
Congolese as the foreigners have very little idea of the various villages in
this gigantic country, much less the millions of amoebic armed groups. If they’re willing to laugh about it, after
having seen what they have, I can’t help but join in.
Carrottop and Captain (our co-facilitators) have done a
great job in trying to acclimatize us to the atmosphere here with important
speakers and thought-provoking discussions.
I can’t say that I’d be happy with an army of young adults invading my
home and not doing things the way I want, but Carrottop and BFG have been extremely
gracious (and have escaped whenever they had the chance). I think there was some difficulty within the
group as they were bored of living between the compound and the office and wanted
to see gorillas and volcanoes – I can’t deny that I’d enjoy gorillas and
volcanoes, but I’m just so pumped to be here that I’m staying quiet on the off
chance that they realize I don’t belong and boot me back out of the
country.
Also, washing clothes is an adventure. Keeping a writhing toddler from attempting to
rip out my hair and/or my nose ring in the heat of the market is an adventure. Rain is a big adventure! Learning to live with seven to nine new
family members when all you want to do is order them around like a field
marshal is the biggest adventure as I grew up sharing space with three (or
fewer) family members. I have a hard
time being surrounded by people and encouraging them to work together to work
together for the benefit of all. I am
especially feisty when I see how easily the women get to work to clean up the
table and the kitchen while their male partners usually relax (they’re getting
better after three weeks of nagging). If
both partners are happy with their tasks, I guess I’m okay with it, but it
seems like the girls just go ahead because they ‘know’ the guys won’t help and
they want to get their tasks over and done with. Something in me boils and I have to fight the
urge to grab the men by the ears and drag them into the kitchen to see that
working together is beneficial to relationships, sanity, and life in
community.
…Thoughts like this keep me very occupied, so I’m fine with
coming home together at the end of every day, sharing a meal together, and laughing
ourselves silly over each other.
My American teammate recently said he was happy to eat everyone
(he meant anything). The next day,
I confessed my love for one of my Congolese teammates when I’d meant to say
that I loved piment.
“Even the cook knows I love you!” I bellowed to a suddenly
silent room.
By the time I realised what I’d said, everyone was already in
hysterics. While I silently praised God
for creating me without the ability to blush, my ‘beloved’ congratulated me on
being brave. One teammate envied his
readymade citizenship to Canada, and another dedicated James Blunt’s ‘You’re
Beautiful’ in our honour.
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