A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [107]
I ask the group, “How many of you have taken in orphans?”
Seventeen out of twenty-one raise their hands. Eighty percent. Even in this group of women who live in Kaniola.
Those Who Kill Together may come knocking. They may chase these women from their homes, burn their families alive, take them to the forest, rape them, rob them of everything, leave them with no means to support themselves. But then these women see a child who has no one and they take that child in.
As I describe Run for Congo Women, they squint and lean in to hear clearly; a few lift their eyebrows. Several mumble quietly to themselves, “Please, may you continue this work.”
We go around the room. “We were living in Kaniola. We left after my husband and my child were killed, burnt in the house. . . .”
I don’t need to collect more horror stories. I already have enough to fill volumes, and most I will never share. As each woman talks, I look into her eyes. How do I spin each sweet face that hangs in desperation? How do I turn her into a talking point? I can’t. And I don’t want to anymore. I picture their long walk home to Kaniola. I picture myself on a plane. I don’t want them to go home tonight. I don’t want to let them go.
A woman speaks. Her tall, slender frame and pronounced cheekbones give her a majestic beauty. She wears a dress printed with religious scenes from the Last Supper. While she speaks, she instinctively places her hand on her heart. I hear the word Interahamwe.
As Hortense translates, the lady dwells on her memory. She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her tattered jacket. “At 8:00 PM, we saw the flashlights. We went to hide in the bushes as usual. Women went to the stream, men to the cassava fields. We only heard the men screaming, but we couldn’t do otherwise. They killed two of them. I held my baby in the stream; he was about to cry, so I took grasses. . . .”
She turns her neck, pressing hard against the cement wall, crying. I get up, abandoning Hortense’s translation, which trails off behind me as I walk across the room.
“I heard the cry of the men. It wasn’t easy for us. . . .”
I put my hands on her shoulders. She looks at me. Sisters mumble behind me. I can’t hear the translation. I’m not listening anymore. The specifics don’t matter.
I look in her despondent, deep-set eyes and say, “I’m so sorry.” She doesn’t know what I’m saying. She doesn’t need to know.
I don’t know how to stop the atrocities. I don’t know how to make people care.
But looking in my sister’s eyes, we seem to have carved out something between us that none of the madness can touch.
Invisible threads.
I take her hand and lead her across the room, making a place for her next to me, resting my hand on her back for the remainder of the meeting.
I discreetly dig in my purse and count to make sure I have enough. I do. I distribute one crisp five-dollar bill to each of them. I’m so embarrassed. Five dollars is nothing. Peanuts.
Yet, you would think I’ve just handed each one a US$10,000 check. They leap to their feet, erupting in a Congo-style fete d’amore, like the hundreds of women I’ve met before have done.
I take a photo of each woman, as though this will help me lock her away somewhere safe.
I choke back tears. I don’t know what they’re singing, but it reminds me of the only Swahili song I know, the one sung to me in endless repetitions at the meeting with the Panzi group and again on the peninsula, when Hortense leaned over to me and said, “Do you hear that? They are singing your name. The song goes: Hey, Lisa, stay with us! You are a child of Congo now.”
I put down the camera as my sisters grab me by both hands. They pull me into the celebration. With tears in the corners of my eyes, I dance with them. Women doubled over in pain just a few moments