Back from their recent mission to the DRC, Janice Kamenir-Reznik and Naama Haviv will be speaking at the firm, with attending employees receiving .75 MCLE credits.

Posted by Rev Isaiah M Seyeze, from Rwanda

Dear Janice, Naama, John and Diana,

I am literally wordless when trying to consider the blessing that came to me from working with you all during the last 10 days! I guess you will ponder the meaning of my few expressions. You’ve challenged me and brought a lot to my work, to my ministry as well as to my life.  Here are my thoughts about what we experienced together…

OBSERVATION, OPINION AND OPPORTUNITIES

This Jewish World Watch mission to Congo is comparable to the Nehemiah’s tour around the devastated and ruined Jerusalem and its protection wall. Though he was well off, comfortable and qualified for his well paying job in the King’s palace, the citadel of Susa, Nehemiah did by no means considered the purpose of his life to simply stay in that comfort. He, instead, risked to “pray with his feet” (quoting from the Rabbi I learned about from you) and he traveled to Jerusalem to assess the situation by himself. It is what Nehemiah saw that gave him the burden and vision of a new, restored and peaceful Jerusalem. I strongly believe the same for Congo.   

What I Observed

The trip was a journey of seeing painful facts but it occasionally gave us possibility of listening to living heroes. While, in the Rwandan genocide memorials you can see dry bones, in homes and hospitals of the eastern Congo you will see bleeding bodies and rotting bones! I will always remember the young man we found agonizing in his sickbed of Heal Africa Goma Hospital, a victim of war, whose “intestines were decaying as a consequence of typhoid” he explained, and had been waiting to find a ‘Good Samaritan’ who would donate a measurement of necessary food that could help his body to be ready for surgery. He had already waited too long! Furthermore, it will hardly go off my mind, the self-accounted story of this young woman whose entire body was fresh white fire scar. “I was raped in the presence of my two children by Interahamwe who also set fire on my house and my head and clothes caught fire when trying to save my children. I spent several weeks in a coma and don’t even know where the only survivor of my two children is!”  It is bitterly heart-breaking! None of us could contain his/her tears. Not even myself, while I was translating her story.

These two patients of Heal Africa Hospital are just examples of hundreds of young men and adults who have been disabled and lamentably impoverished by the eastern Congo pandemic of civil restlessness, and hundreds of thousands of women and girls whose genital organs have been irreparably destroyed by FDLR demonized troops still established in the region. The same victimizers, Interahamwe, are known to be the main causers of HIV infection through rapes in the whole region. We’ve been introduced to   hundreds of infants born of HIV infected mothers. A large number of those babies had already died because no one had taken the initiative to save those innocent lives- not everyone could get to Heal Africa.

Additionally, we irresistibly were shocked after an effective and profound description of the long ago dead judicial system of Congo by Heal Africa Judicial Clinic Project implementers. The situation is in such a state that not only the Congolese judicial authorities have failed to protect the interests of its citizens, but its corrupt police are also working on the side of sexual abusers and other vandals because of bribery and corrupt scandals. “To some extent, the system is nonexistent” said the presenter. On the other coast of Lake Kivu, similar stories of  the displacement of millions of families, of those incapable of initiating and sustaining agricultural programs, of hundreds of young children chronically malnourished, of tens of hundreds of  fistula-surgeries operated on women victims of abuses, of cases of rejected wives or/and mothers because they were raped. “These and many other atrocities are much for me to bear while trying to assist our patients” said Dr Mukwege.  The communities, through the few voices we were able to listen to, they are crying out for help.

In My Opinion

I guess, after the genocide that fell on Rwandans in 1994, eastern Congo stands as a good sample if someone needs to learn about atrocities. But I don’t mean that atrocities are there to teach us lessons- they are surely undesirable. They should rather awake and compel us all toward quick and human actions for the victims. “I can hardly imagine that 6,000 FDLR forces are the only ones displacing 15 million families, killing close to 6,000,000 people and raping 500,000 women for the last decade and more; there must be other support behind them” sustained Dr Mukwege. And I believe that there is some support of the evil. But the good will not prevail until the humanism which is in all of us has compelled us all to join hands to fight against the evil. Or we are, by omission, part of the negative forces-because there is no no man’s land in between!

Joint action can be initiated from top down or bottom up at a time or both ways at the same time. To radically uproot the culture of impunity and “the law of lawlessness” that have found their home in DR Congo, the international community and especially developed and influential countries can pressure Congo from the outside. It is perhaps the beginning of the solution toward the end of FDLR since their leaders are being arrested. I just heard it from BBC Great Lakes broadcasting this evening. By means of ways of economical and political embargos if nations care, they could make national leaders and their stakeholders more aware of the necessity of a responsible government, good governance and the rule of law.

It is clear that the DR Congo government has done very little towards the social welfare of the people at least in the East because there is no evidence of their efforts in poverty alleviation and the improvement of infrastructures of health. Insignificant resources have been directed to peace keeping and security enhancement with no impact as far as I know! On the contrary, disunity and open conflicts have characterized both the army and the civilians alike for a decade now.  And this state of the matter has made the economy and health worse than ever before.

Opportunities for Partnership

Like Nehemiah who was driven to a vision of restoration, people of faith, Jewish and Christian communities alike, have no excuse to remain inoperative and idle. For, there certainly are people who are trying to put solutions in motion. There are non-profit making and nongovernmental organizations sacrificing and investing in people’s life in DR Congo. There are even local Institutions such as Churches and hospitals where hope is one of the “currencies” that can be traded upon there. Hundreds of thousands of people run to humanitarian organizations for help. But the most interesting thing is that the majority of truly relieved people and truly sustainable programs that show true impact in the lives of people are being implemented by faith-based institutions.

Some examples of successful local institutions are: Communautés des Eglises Pentécotistes en Afrique Centrale (CEPAC) located at Kadutu, the SAYUNI Parish. We have heard stories of restored families, transformed cultural mindset and resurrecting economy of business. We have witnessed microcredit schemes as the most successful approaches stir up social welfare from ashes. Women for Women, Moriah Africa and Heal Africa some of international NGOS  are doing so well in that area of Eastern DR Congo. Women leaders in Bukavu have proven to be instrumental in fighting illiteracy, trauma counseling, capacity building, microfinance, psychosocial recovery, cultural change for good (for women rights recognition) and many more social transformation indicators.  GASAP, another Local NGO we visited is creating a sure path to unity and reconciliation among local communities from the grass root.

All in all, there is hope for a brighter future for Eastern Congolese if those laboring to birth it travail together. Long live visionary national and international leaders serving in the eastern Congo.  Long live  the readers of this piece and the vision that you will be impregnated with by walking around Eastern Congo though visiting this web site.

Rev.  Isaiah M Seyeze
Tel: +250 788 59 6395
e-mail: indukize@yahoo.fr

Greetings JWW blog readers.  My name is Mike Ramsdell.  I have had the privilege of capturing this “Congo journey” in still and moving images.  I am pleased that Janice has asked me write a guest blog for two reasons.  The first is so I may shamelessly plug my most recent film – THE ANATOMY OF HATE: A DIALOGUE TO HOPE. (You can learn all about it at www.anatomyofhate.com)  The second, and admittedly more important reason, is to speak about the one thing my travel partners have not spoken of – themselves.

At the risk of repetition, it is important that I define the scope of meaning when I refer to “my travel partners”.

 13 days ago, having never met John or Diana, and having had very little interaction with Naama and Janice, we boarded an Airbus – destination:  the center of Africa.  From that day to this, we have flown the span of the Continental United States, the North Atlantic Ocean, Western Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and the northern half of Africa … twice.  We’ve driven the entire circumference of Rwanda as well as significant snaking journeys into the belly of the North and South Kivu Provinces of Congo-Kinshasa. We’ve boated the entirety of Lake Kivu, one of the largest fresh water sources in Africa, the long way.  And we’ve walked endless mountainsides, village roads, agricultural fields and the border of Rwanda and Congo-Kinshasa … twice. 

For most of the trip, we 3 men on the trip shared a room – Isaiah, the Tutsi minister born in Congo who served as our interpreter,  John the head of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, and myself, a Lebanese-American filmmaker.

Our days would begin with our faithful scheduler, Naama, kicking our bedroom door at 6 am and politely telling us to get the hell out of bed.  We would.  The three of us stumbling from under our mosquito netting, like the perfect preface to an off- color joke – an African, an Arab and a Jew stumble around in their underwear….

At breakfast much coffee was consumed.  Perhaps because it was phenomenal coffee, perhaps it was because of an addiction to caffeine, or perhaps because it was the only thing on the table.  Whatever the reason, it worked – conversations and Blackberries began to hum at a frantic pace.

From there we would pile into an array of vehicles:  a small van, a few station wagons, or at times an NGO caravan.  The roads in Congo are reminiscent of a river-bed, long ago dried – replaced by lava flow and red clay cut through the world’s largest post-apocalyptic homeless shelter, where the only things which have survived are Chinese motorcycles and goats. Sometimes our vehicles had windows which opened, sometimes not.  (And although I readily admit I contributed to the odor to an embarrassing degree, there is something quite indescribable about the smell of a taxi that has been packed full of humans and baked in the equatorial-sun for the last 30 years.)  The trips on average were an hour and a half in length.  During these trips conversations ranged from the definitions of Genocide and the feasibility of the previous days visits, to family anecdotes and useless trivia.  All amidst a blur of power bars, text messages, and road block shakedowns.

We would arrive at our destination - a village, a hospital, a refugee camp.  At times uplifted by the faces and stories, at other times the horror cut to the bone.

From there we would pile into the vehicles and do it again, and then again.

Around 6 pm, we would start back home in our square-wheeled vehicles for dinner.  This was followed by hours of email attempts, photo uploads, and driving conversations about the day’s experiences. Then back to the rooms for a bucket shower and a few hours of sleep before the sound of Naama’s voice started the joke all over again.

At the end of such travels there are two possible outcomes – either you never speak with your travel mates again, or you are bonded to them in a way words and images fail to express– no matter how capable the auteur.  A simple silent expression, a wordless moment, confirms that these strangers have now become woven into your experiential fabric in an inextricable way.  Or more appropriate to the work we have seen –we have now become a “Collective.”  A team united – working together for a communal benefit. 

And what a collective it is….

Diana – the world traveler, whose kind smile and motherly voice was as comforting to those of Africa as it was to those of us from the US. Her tireless notations, questions and insights were an act of inspired will, as I’m sure she didn’t sleep a full night for the entire trip.

John – a man who wouldn’t complain under torture.  His profound command of pragmatism and compassion is a balance not many can walk and even fewer can so capably articulate. In short, he is an incredibly wise man.  To have John as an ally is to have an advantage.

Naama – a warrior who one day, I am quite sure, will back Genocide into a corner and kick the living hell out of it, making it beg for mercy and promise to never, ever show it’s face on this spinning rock again. I thank God for Naama.

And Mama Janice – a woman who was never short on prayers, hugs, snacks or tears.  She is a force of nature with only two speeds – on and off.  Her compassion, her intelligence, and her will have no linguistic or cultural boundaries.    Her ability to motivate and focus, while never hesitating to meet the emotional and empathetic demands of the situation, is nothing short of amazing.  In just a few days Mama Janice changed many lives in Congo.  And I have no doubt that before she is done, she will change many, many more.  Mama Janice – the Starfish are more grateful than you will ever know.

If this sounds as though I am boasting about Jewish World Watch – please know that I am.   And not just about the four representatives with whom I had the pleasure of traveling.  I am boasting about the thousands of you who have contributed and supported this incredible organization with time, money and action.  I am boasting about the profound Rabbi Schulweis whose vision and wisdom catalyzed this small but fervent group of people in work that is, by anyone’s measuring stick – Godly.   And I am boasting about the men and women at Jewish World Watch who are working tirelessly and passionately to bring the words “NEVER AGAIN” out of the esoteric emptiness of intention– into the Samsara of reality, where “will and action” must cut the path for prayer.

I traveled through Africa with five individuals looking for hope.  And although many wonderful people with incredible stories proved hope in Congo is alive and well, I have left Africa with this collective as my most profound hope. The six of us, proof that it is not about the God we pray to, but the Peace we work for. I am certain that if enough of us heed the words of Leviticus – then we can leave our children a world we have so long aspired for and will “NEVER AGAIN” have to offer an explanation to our God or ourselves – as to why millions of our human collective were murdered in horror as we stood idly by.

“DO NOT STAND IDLY BY!”

God Bless and Shabbat Shalom, 

Mike Ramsdell
www.anatomyofhate.com

How strange to be out of Congo. As Isaiah, our incredible translator, and I walked across the border he showed me the river that marks the boundary between the two countries here: on one side, chaos – a young man shaking down every old lady carrying insanely heavy loads up the mountain side, everyone crowding the immigration window at once – on the other, relative order, neatly organized single-file lines, gas stations, power lines. How strange to be on that other side again.

Rwanda certainly isn’t LA, but it definitely isn’t Congo either. And though I spent the first few days of our trip wallowing (I think understandably) in despair, overwhelmed by the pain that I saw everywhere, I must admit that in the end it is hard to leave. Congo is a remarkable place, and working with its incredible people I know that the Jewish World Watch community will be able to make a profound impact.

For a change of pace, here are the things I love and/or will miss about Congo:

1. That “mama” is the term of respect for women and that “papa” is the term of respect for men. To me this means that family is the center of society here, that a woman’s capacity to build life and create a home is recognized and honored.
2. The unbelievable and arresting beauty of Congo’s landscape. I don’t  think any of our pictures (even though Mike has an incredible eye) can do it justice. Between the vast blue of Lake Kivu, the towering volcanoes, the rich, fertile soil and the mountainsides patchworked with gorgeous pastureland and criss-crossed farms, this is absolutely the most beautiful country I have ever seen, ever. Sorry Turkey, Brazil and Ireland – you have been bumped.
3. The very real and very profound capacity of the Congolese people to take charge of their own communities. We have had three incredibly uplifting days in a row, visiting community-based projects that show how the Congolese, despite obstacles thrown up in every direction, step up for themselves – building their communities with no help or hand out from their government. Incredible and beautiful women in sewing collectives, widows and single mothers receiving microloans and running small businesses, a community that has built itself three schools – parents chipping in whatever they could, even just a little bit of wood, to keep programs running. These people are amazing.
   
4. Congolese faith. It will never cease to amaze me that the men, women and children of Congo can undergo such horrors and virtual abandonment – and often outright betrayal – by the government that should be protecting them, but still raise their arms to God and praise. Our experience at the Heal Africa chapel last Sunday was incredible, six separate choirs raising their voices in blessing and healing in the midst of such unbelievable pain. Not one word begging God for relief – just praise and acceptance that they must work and carry on to see God’s blessings. I don’t think I could do that.  On our last car ride in Goma, careening down to the port to catch the boat to Bukavu on Goma’s treacherously potholed and lava-covered roads, I asked our friend Ziko if the Congolese made their tires out of some special indestructible material. When he said no, they were just regular tires, I was shocked. After five full days of driving down these churned-up streets we should have blown our tires at least twice a day, every day. Ziko told me “You know, we are all children of God, under His grace.” I told him that possibly God should be focusing on higher priority issues than Congolese tires (like perhaps the roads? Or the nonexistent government infrastructure that can’t get them fixed?), but I see his point.
5. Dr. Mukwege and Panzi hospital – perhaps the most well-known center taking in survivors of sexual violence (an average of 10 rape survivors every day) in Congo. Dr. Mukwege is a pioneer of fistula repair surgery, a dedicated force working to, quite literally, put the women of Congo back together again. I expected Panzi to be a place of sadness, the women there having experienced atrocities that I don’t ever want to think about, let alone suffer. Instead, Panzi is a place of healing, a place where dignity is restored and women are made whole – it is astounding.
6. Our translator, Isaiah. Though he lives in Rwanda, he is originally Congolese and has been with us from the second we landed in Kigali, so I’m claiming him for Congo. He is amazing, a truly incredible thinker and a profoundly sensitive soul. Plus, he has six kids of his own, has taken in eight others and his wife still seems to love him, so that should tell you something.
7. Activists: Congolese, European, American, you name them – there is a community of strong, committed people dedicated to ending the atrocities in Congo and leading the way towards recovery. They try to absorb the pain of everyone they see around them while staying strong enough to get to work. Those that live in Congo struggle day in and day out to make a small difference in the lives of those around them and struggle even harder to reach even further. If you are reading this, you are part of this community – expect a call from Jewish World Watch very soon.
8. This is not so much about Congo itself, but about our trip: I have loved, and will truly miss, traveling with everyone on our team. We have come together as a group supporting each other when it was hard, shrugging our shoulders together when it was ridiculous, and bursting into laughter together when there was just nothing else to say or do. With  Janice, John, Diana and Mike on Congo’s side, honestly, I think we’re incredibly strong.
9. Also not about Congo specifically, but still: I love my job. I don’t know how else to say it – I love my job. I work in a place that supports everyone, not just me and the rest of our amazing staff, but the entire community to work towards a better and more peaceful world. How many people can say that? Thank you Rabbi Schulweis and Janice for building an amazing organization, and Tzivia for giving me the opportunity to do this work. I am aware of how lucky I am.
10. Last, but definitely not least: Goats. They’re everywhere – tied up in fields, grazing on the mountainside and, best of all, being led down the road by a rope like little dogs. If my wonderful husband lets me, and doesn’t think our dogs would be terrorized, I think we should get one.

All of this is to say that Congo is a beautiful, curious, fascinating place. The Congolese people are strong and do not deserve (as if anyone would) to be preyed upon – and certainly not in the brutal and intensely destructive way that this conflict has progressed in the last twelve years. With the right mobilization and enough noise, we have every opportunity to help Congo and the Congolese move towards a more just, free and peaceful society that can begin the important work of recovery.

Let’s go.

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. 

 As I write this we are on a boat on gorgeous Lake Kivu going between Goma and Bukavu.  It is a very comfortable boat showing a Steven Segal movie—just what we all needed, more violence.  But this is stupid, mindless “entertainment”.  The scenery outside is exquisite.  It feels like we could be in some beautiful vacation spot.  It is a moment to decompress. 

 Instead, I talk to Giorgio, Director of Operations for International Medical Corps (IMC) in Eastern Congo.  We discuss the complexity of the political situation here.  I am trying to make sense of it all. 

 If the humanitarian situation feels desperate, the political one seems completely impossible to untangle.  There are various armed groups that continue to rape and pillage the country.  There is the CNDP, former soldiers of the ousted rebel general Nkunda, now members of the Congolese army.  Then there is the FDLR, comprised of Rwandan Hutu rebels who escaped into the Congo after the Rwandan genocide.  There are also the Maimai, who are local militias created supposedly to protect their communities, but instead have morphed into terrorist groups.  And then there is the FARDC, ostensibly government loyalists, but made up a various poorly integrated former rebel groups.

 The situation is so complex and goes back so many years.  Added to this there are the constantly shifting loyalties and allegiances of the different bordering African countries—Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Angola, Rwanda, and Namibia.  These allegiances change depending upon perceived self interest. 

 The final layer onto which all of this must be laid concerns the minerals which make Congo one of the most natural-resource-rich countries in the world.  All of this destabilization leaves different mineral mines in various hands—none of which benefits the people.  That is the tragedy here.  I am told that 70% of all the mineral resources in the world are here.  It is also one of the most beautiful countries in the world.  And none of this benefits the people.  Many tell us that the situation here is getting worse.  A village was burned recently in North Kivu and last week IMC had to evacuate all their staff from Baraka due to fighting in the area. (Although I was told that they are going back today.)

 I ask everyone the question of what needs to be done to move towards peace.  No one gives me an answer.  I come away with the feeling that until someone much smarter than I am can figure out a solution, or the various parties decide that enough is enough and the bloodshed and violence must end, all we can do is try to provide as much help and assistance to the innocent victims of this immoral war as possible. 

 While we are here we hope to identify programs that not only provide immediate assistance, but ones that help to change the culture of impunity that exists here.  Perhaps then the true beauty of Congo will be allowed to flourish.

We are taken by convoy on an impossible 3 hour drive, high up in the mountains where the Congolese Tutsis control the terrain.  The “roads” are indescribable.  Half the time our vehicle is gliding through the mud and the other half it feels as if it is almost on its side.  Torrential rains fall, the wheels of our Land Rover spin in the mud at one moment and get caught in a crevasse of the boulders that purport to be part of the roadway.  When Naama and I are not holding each other for dear life (no fear of violence, just of the lack of infrastructure that would have provided roads suitable for driving—but, it is definitely starting to feel like the violence and infrastructure failure are two sides of a single coin) we look out of the windows to see magnificent mountains, valleys and rivers which give new definition to the word “green.”  It’s Maui on steroids.

 When we arrive at the International Medical Corps clinic in Kausa, a village  where 17,000 Congolese Tutsis live and control the land, John, Diana, Naama and I were stunned by many things. First, we were stunned that we had safely arrived.  (To myself I did say a sort of “shehechiyanu” blessing thanking whatever spirit had safely guided our drive.)  We were stunned by the torrential rains and by the sheer beauty of the cliffs.  We were stunned by the welcome speech which Sebastian, the IMC clinic director gave—he welcomed us with a booming voice, words rehearsed, as if he was giving a speech in front of the United Nations to dignitaries who were powerful enough to change the very direction the earth is spinning.  And then after Sebastian led us to the birthing room where two women had just given birth, we were once again stunned to find out that nearby lay a young teenage girl who had been raped just a few hours earlier.  We do not feel prepared or equipped to speak to this young woman lying just behind the door. They open the door and the beds in the small room are full—one with a young woman who laid silently, her head covered under a blanket.  Next to her lay a woman who had been severely beaten by her husband, and in the middle was a woman and her very young baby—something about rectal bleeding…we did not ask.  We then proceed to the small covered porch where a hundred or more male villagers and their village dignitaries are seated to receive us.  Several of them give nice speeches about how grateful they are to IMC and how without IMC they would have no care at all for their people.  Now they have nurses, some very basic medicines, a few hospital beds and a birthing room. 

 They are right to be grateful to IMC—it is a miracle, given the terrain, the political climate, the war, the weather, and so many other variables, that IMC has actually built and staffed a medical clinic on this remote cliff.  I suspect that they might not even realize how lucky they are to have people with the extraordinary humanity and quality of Giorgio, head of the IMC Eastern Congo team and Lorenzo, the Projects Manager for this and other clinics, living here and working here and risking their lives here to bring services to remote places like this

 I am then, as I am so often on this trip, invited to say some words and to offer some prayers or thoughts.  So, I thank them for welcoming us and agreed with them that they should feel gratitude to be working with IMC and its spectacular staff.  I wish them peace.  Then, after I completed my 2-minute “thank you for inviting us” speech, I felt a rage building inside of me.  I had already relinquished the floor, but I ask if I could address the community one more time.  I am not quite sure what I am going to say, or if it is even appropriate for me to express myself in this context, but I decide that my conscience requires me to say something honest to these men in light of everything we have seen over the past four days, and specifically, what we had seen 2 minutes before in the room right next to the porch on which these men comfortably sat.

 I am so shaken as I speak, that I do not have full recollection of what exactly I said, but it went something like this:  “We congratulate your community on the birth of the new beautiful babies, and we share your joy in this gift of life.  But, we cannot leave this place without expressing our profound sadness about the violence being done to the women in this community.  The tragedies which lay before your community and your country will not be solved by foreign relief workers or donors alone; these problems can only be solved if the people of your village are willing to take responsibility for your actions and make violence unacceptable amongst yourselves.  When the day comes that your community wants to roll up its sleeves and confront the issue of gender based violence and wants to protect rather than victimize the women, we will be first in line to forge a three way partnership between IMC, the Kausa community and Jewish World Watch.”  

 I simply could not ignore the culture of rape and violence and their responsibility for the 13-year old rape victim and all of the others.

 I am so grateful for the people at IMC and those at Heal Africa, and those at all of the other NGOs who have the humanity and courage to be here every day, exposing themselves to the sadness, grief, and disease.  I am also so grateful to my dear travel mates for agreeing to make this very difficult and trying journey.  Diana, Naama and John are amazing human beings, each of whom is guided by an oversized heart and a supersized conscience.  I am also incredibly grateful to YOU, the Jewish World Watch constituency, which has enabled us to fulfill the lessons of our rabbis and our Torah by not standing idly by while the innocent are destroyed.

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.  They live in squalor and filth with minimal food and only the most basic medical care.  The children suffer from chronic malnutrition, their bellies swollen from starvation.  I know of no words in the English language to describe what we saw.

The children look at us with beautiful piercing eyes.  They want their pictures taken.  They want our attention.  Our visit is a diversion from the endless days of nothingness – no school, no toys.  This is all those Sally Struthers World Vision commercials, except it is real and in front of my eyes.  I am afraid I will burst into tears, and I don’t want them to see the hopelessness I feel.   It is impossible for me to describe my sadness.

 And then, we meet five more women who have been victims of rape.  Two are about 14 years old; two have babies, which I assume were babies of rape.  We do not ask their stories this time.  We don’t want to make them relive their pain, and frankly today we are not certain how much more we ourselves can hear.  But they all want to tell us something.  They want to tell us about what they need.  They want to tell us that we have given them hope.  They want to thank us for coming.  I feel so inadequate. 

 At every project, the staff and community has prepared for our visit.  They greet us with songs and we are meticulously introduced to each member of the staff.  At one remote health clinic, the entire village came to meet us.  Everywhere we go, we are told how our visit has brought them hope.  It tears my heart out.

 These truly are forgotten people ravaged by decades of war and conflict.  It feels as though, with the exception of extraordinary aid workers like those from the International Medical Corps, the world has closed its eyes.  But then, I remember that we are here and with every group, we have promised to take their words and images back home.  We have promised to let people back in the US know how the people here are suffering.  How they have been and continue to be decimated and violated by war and poverty.  Maybe the world has not closed it eyes, maybe they just haven’t been opened yet.

I have been thinking during the last four days about the definition of a woman of valor, something we talk about in our Jewish tradition. Our time in the Congo has demonstrated to me, once again, the anomalies of life on the African continent. This is my sixth visit to Africa but only my first to the Congo.  The experience has, as previously reflected, demonstrated the heights to which a visit to Africa can take a casual visitor – the extraordinary scenery and indomitable spirit of the people; but also demonstrates the depths of despair which a visit to Africa can occasion.

 This afternoon following a short visit to a camp for Congolese displaced by the war, I watched the emotional impact on my three companions on this extraordinary visit. They were overcome by the sense of hopelessness and despair faced by over 3000 people living in squalor and disease. Together we have gone from the heights to the depths that are Africa.

On Friday Janice had lit the Shabbas candles and said the prayer in the presence of our Christian hosts and their friends. Most had spent years in the Congo as doctors or nurses or other critical professions in a nation lacking the basic expertise among their own nationals. What makes a women spend twenty years creating a school of nursing in the Congo? Why would another from Great Britain create with her Congolese husband a hospital and service center for patients often at risk of death from normally benign diseases ? These are just two of the women of valor that we have been privileged to meet.

Of course, most of the women of valor are themselves Congolese born. Their commitment to their nation and the welfare of its people are reflected each day. The young physician who is responsible for treating patients with the HIV virus, many with full blown AIDS, often due to sexual violence, was a no nonsense example of the strength of women here.

Listening to two women, the victims of horrible atrocities, tell their tragic stories of abuse has been shared by my fellow travelers in their blog. But I watched the counselor, who provides psychosocial support to a woman beaten, raped, horribly scarred by a conscious effort to burn her alive, and left for dead, quietly sit and hold the hand of her young “client”.  This too is a woman of valor who daily is a human life support to those who have suffered beyond anything experienced by any of us.

And there is the director of operations at one of the human service agencies providing a range of care for men, women and children who would never survive the cruelties of this place without that lifeline. This morning she sat in front of me in a church service we were invited to attend. It was a joyous morning where our Jewish delegation was welcomed and the congregation expressed their thanks in song and dance for the small things which most of us take for granted. I watched her smile broadly at the rows of young children sharing plastic chairs as their mothers celebrated life. These children  of serious ill and abused mothers in her charge are a symbol of her daily work.

Among others in attendance was her colleague who took us out to a village twenty miles outside of the city in which we are staying. This woman of valor introduced us to women in a safe house, who through her efforts have been removed from abusive environments. Additionally she introduced us to midwives, who in a creative project have started an agricultural collective for expectant mothers so they could receive proper medical care and a degree of independence in a society in which women are often objects for abuse. Watching her and the women she has mobilized it is hard not to be moved by these women of valor.

Finally as we spent another exhausting day traveling to distant places on non-existent roads in often dangerous areas due to the constant state of war, I could not help but be moved by the women from Jewish World Watch who are leading this extraordinary journey: Janice, Naama and Diana. Our community is blessed to have women of valor, who are prepared to take the time to come to this faraway and sad land to learn and to meet their Congolese counterparts and who are determined to return to Los Angles to mobilize our community to action on behalf of the women of the Congo.

When your translator is in tears, you know you’re in trouble.

This morning we met with two women, both of them survivors of rape. Both captured and violated by the Interahamwe – the FDLR militia, some of whom are former perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. One woman was pregnant – she said that she had accepted the situation, but it didn’t look like acceptance in her eyes. The other woman had lost her child, and had sustained burns over her entire body – her community had rejected her.

I’ve never felt more overwhelmed or hopeless, and I’m just an observer. To be honest with you, I haven’t really known how to unpack these last few days – the stories we’ve heard are unbearable. They shouldn’t be true. They should be fiction, nightmares. What do you do with this knowledge? What can you possibly do to help, to repair?

After our meeting, our team stepped out into the sunshine in front of Heal Africa’s Jubilee Center. We waited for our truck to get gassed up for our next trip out. We struggled with our emotions.

And then a man came up to talk with us, to let us know that he’d been injured in the war. Running from the Interahamwe as well, he had joined others in a lorry fleeing the village. The lorry’s brakes failed, it flipped, and they were thrown from the vehicle. Some men were crushed by the lorry itself as it rolled down the hill – this man was lucky enough to survive with two broken hands – amputated. I thought I would feel more sadness from his story, that there would be nothing but sadness in this place. I wondered again how we would bear this.

But this man is no victim – he is a survivor, in the truest sense of the word. He has two prosthetics, and he makes his living creating beautiful paintings. With no hands, he still finds the will and the way to paint, and to create beauty in his world.

Today we also met women from the Heal Africa Safe Motherhood project – women who have come together in community associations to ensure that each of them can afford quality prenatal care and reduce their risk during childbirth. They organize education about childbirth and family planning; the women learn accounting and run small businesses or cultivate fields as a collective. They manage their own money; they take care of each other:  the collective helps to care for each woman’s needs during childbirth and maternity. Their husbands help – but the women are in charge. The program is slowly changing the culture, showing that women are strong and powerful contributors to the family and household. They’re gaining respect. They’re making a difference.

This is why tonight, despite this morning’s difficult conversations, I feel optimistic. The women – and yes, also the men – of Congo are strong. They are powerful. And they have the capacity to make incredible change in this place. While people here may need tools and skill-building, they don’t need us to speak for them or work for them – they need us to join with them to make real and effective change.

Today, after meeting Mama Annie and Mama Gilberte, who run the Safe Motherhood project – I feel hope.  I think we can do this.

As she entered the room, my eyes froze on her scarred and disfigured face.  Skin melted like a plastic mask.  I winced and a pain shot through my heart.  I instructed my eyes to move off of her face; but where should they go?  On their own, my eyes darted to her arms bound in gauze, and then to her hands, charred, de-pigmented.  What should I do with my eyes?  I forced them to move away from her damaged parts.  My heart was racing.  I closed my eyes for a moment, and when they reopened, I saw it there, right in front of me.  She was wearing my favourite blouse. It was Carole Little’s collection from 1982, the year I graduated law school.  I bought a whole collection of lawyer clothes.  And then, a decade or more later, when shoulder pads were passé, I donated the blouse (and the suit that it matched) to some rummage sale.  Funny, I have thought of that blouse on many occasions.  I loved the wide shoulder pads, the floral design and the beautiful rust and red tone colors. I never thought I would see that blouse again … and now, here it was sitting in front of me, worn by Renee, a woman about whom I knew nothing, yet I thought I could tell almost everything just from looking at her face.

Renee told us of the day in 2005 that the Interahamwe militia came into her village, guns blazing, entering home after home gang raping the women and setting the houses ablaze.  They entered her home and threw her crying baby against the wall.  Renee was then raped sequentially by seven men while her 1 ½ year old lay motionless on the floor and her 5 year old son stood in the corner.  After the rapes she gathered her babies and hid under the bed hoping that the nightmare would end.  She then smelled fire and saw that her home was ablaze. She became separated from her children in the frenzy of the burning village.  It took years for her to find out that her baby was dead and that her older son was alive and in her village. This is just the beginning of her story.

Her nightmare continued as she ran from the village.  Her body burned to a crisp, her organs destroyed from the rapes, yet finding no one who would help her or take her in, as she was suspected of being Interahamwe.  This wandering, unaided, went on for months and months, interrupted by only occasional acts of mercy, which kept her alive.  Often she was given food, but had no use of her hands so she was starving.  She could find no one to put the food into her mouth.  Once she tried unsuccessfully to kill herself, wishing nothing but to end her misery.  Then, miraculously, Renee was guided to the Heal Africa Hospital where she has lived for the past 4 years, enduring more than 7 surgeries for her burns and fistula repair.  She expresses her profound gratitude to Heal Africa because she is better now – now she can use her hands.  She even hopes that one day she can go back to her village.

We cried together; there was nothing either she or we had to give at that moment, but tears.  The tears were unending and came from the most sorrowful place where only despair resides.  After an hour of sitting together, my swollen eyes settled comfortably on Renee’s face, which I now found to be quite beautiful.  My life and Renee’s are as distant as two women’s lives could be.   Two lives, so different…wearing the same blouse at different times and in such different places.