A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [27]
It’s not that I can’t be independent; it just isn’t my preference to be alone. If I had the choice of going to dinner by myself or with a friend, I would choose the company. If we needed to prop shop at Target, I was always happier to go with Ted. The preference became a habit, full days of work-lunch-work-dinner-bed-work that rolled into years of zero space. Soon enough, friends were more likely to remark on our model partnership than my independence. Occasionally, with a quick slip of the tongue or one too many glasses of wine, we were introduced as Tisa and Led.
I walk back across the Orchid grounds armed with only a flashlight. The paranoia is contagious. As I fumble for my key in the dark, a guy strolls by with a four-foot axe. I freeze, sizing him up. I’m upside down with no perspective. Should I be scared? Exhaustion wins. With resignation, I let it go. I hope he works for the hotel.
I put all my equipment on the charger and go to bed.
IN THE MIDDLE of the night, I am up again. I never adjusted the time on my computer or my cell phone and I’m unable to figure out the conversion, plus or minus daylight savings. I don’t feel like making journal notes, so I lie awake until close to dawn before drifting back to sleep.
Shouting crowds, humming from a nearby street, wake me. Are those riots or a celebration? It’s impossible to distinguish, though I try to tune in. Newly elected President Kabila is in town. Must be a rally. I listen for a long time, as if listening closely enough could filter my first day through a sieve and give me the definitive answer I’m craving to the question, Is it safe here?
People said that once I got to the hotel, I would make fast friends. Over a breakfast of fruit and toast with strawberry jam (exactly like my mom used to make), I sit between an officious French woman and the Congolese Army commander with his women. A few other guests are scattered around in groups. No one here talks to each other. Everyone must have a story, but they don’t seem interested in getting into it with others. I don’t feel like getting into it either. Instead, I watch the helicopter take off from a landing pad by the water. It belongs to a mining company headquartered here on Orchid’s grounds.
I’ve made many calls for a guide and translator but they’ve all been dead ends. After breakfast, I meet Jean Paul, a UN staff member. He’s booked on UN business, but he brings his brother Maurice, a mild-mannered man in glasses who wears a spotless, pressed T-shirt tucked into ironed, belted jeans and polished shoes. Maurice teaches English in Rwanda and has a gentle aura; he is more soft-spoken and understated than his brother. His school is on break, so he’s available. They’ve also brought a driver. Serge is more of an un-tucked guy’s guy—stocky and bald, with an understated cool. He doesn’t speak English, or at least won’t admit to it. I hire them on the spot. Maurice and Serge will be with me every day of my journey in Congo, and along with Hortense, will be at my side to translate every story, every moment, every interaction I have in here with non-English speakers—and in this French and Swahili-speaking land, that’s almost everyone. They’ll work for US$10 per day. A steal.
But first, I have to do an errand. I ride alone with Women for Women’s staff driver to Bukavu’s main drag; we pull over across the street from a cell phone shop. We both sit in the Range Rover, unmoving. I need phone minutes. One of us has to get out of the car.
I haven’t seen a westerner on the street. One of us has to leave the bubble. If the driver goes, I’ll be left as the lone guardian of the Range Rover. If I go, I’m walking alone, exposed, across the street, without an escort, without security, out of compound bounds. I feel like I’ve been asked to strip and go grocery shopping naked. I motion to the