Suddenly we are surrounded by a sea of children.  As we stand there they begin to form a circle around us and move in closer and closer.

 Janice and I came outside after seeing an impressive women’s sewing collective.  We are in a remote village called Kamisimbi, two hours outside of Bukavu in the hills.  We have been brought here by Gila Garaway, an Israeli/American who heads an incredible organization called Moriah Africa, to see the women’s empowerment program she helped start. 

I don’t sleep here, even with sleeping pills.  I wake up after a few hours, images of the day racing through my head, trying to make sense of all I have witnessed and heard.  This morning I got up at 4 am.  I just couldn’t stand it anymore.  I preferred to get up and busy myself with packing to leave for Bukavu.  It wasn’t long before Janice and Naama were up also, trying to get pictures of the sunrise—some beauty amidst all this sadness. 

I thought it couldn’t get worse.  Yesterday listening to Renee and Sabine tell the stories of their rapes I felt my heart begin to splinter.  But today my heart was shattered.  Today we visited one of the last remaining IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps where 3500 refugees live – men, women and children who are either too afraid or too ill to return to their villages. 

I was haunted by their faces. Renee with deep scars carved into what was once a beautiful face, eyes with a depth of sorrow I had never before witnessed and hands pink where her flesh was burned off. When the Interahamwe came, they burned her house after seven men raped her. She ran back inside when her eldest son slipped through her hands. As she clutched him in her arms the burning house fell down upon her. Her youngest son had already been killed by the militiamen.

Congo is unlike anything I have experienced.  I can barely process what I have seen and heard today.  The poverty and desolation are unimaginable.  There is such a waste of human potential.

As we drive through plush verdant fields and towering mountains on our way to Kigali and the Congo border, we pass men, women and children walking and riding bicycles.  The scenery is spectacular. Children wave with bright smiles.  The women carry baskets and packages on their heads.  Life seems easy, slow, peaceful. 

I am a public relations consultant and as such I am always the one pitching the story.  I am much more comfortable to stand in the background or sit on the sidelines promoting the good work and adventures of others.  It is strange to think that this time I am part of the story itself.