A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [42]
Plus, corruption is baseline here. Suspicion is ubiquitous. The feeling that you’re being ripped off is as inherent in the Congo as are women carrying loads. Why wouldn’t it be? The Congolese people have been ruled in a nearly unbroken lineage of kleptocracy. After the Belgians left, in 1965, Mobutu Sese Seko, the quintessential corrupt African dictator, came into power. Mobutu siphoned off at least US$5 billion from Zaire into his personal coffers during his rule from 1965 until 1996. People here don’t trust those with power or pass codes to big bank accounts. That includes charities.
The pervasiveness of suspicion here registered the other day when I had tea with Jean Paul, my friend from the UN. He leaned in close and announced, “I would love for you to expose Women for Women!”
Bewildered, I asked, “Expose them for what?”
“The sponsors send a hundred dollars each month. But the women only get ten dollars! It is being stolen! It’s criminal!”
Jean Paul is wonderful; he’s naturally passionate about his country and protective of his people. But I had to stop him right there. “No American sponsor sends US$100 per month to one sister. Women for Women is transparent about funds. Sponsors give twenty-seven dollars per month. Each sponsored woman gets ten, which is confirmed by signatures of two staff members and the participant. Then five dollars a month is put in a savings account, so that she gets sixty dollars when she graduates. The remaining money is used for her education, the letter exchange, and program costs. There are no secrets or intrigue.”
Jean Paul was quiet for a moment. I changed the subject and the conversation drifted to the Interahamwe, where he continued down that slippery slope of zero-credibility conspiracy theories. He claimed one of the top Interahamwe leaders was his good friend when they were both students in Rwanda. They stay in touch. While Jean Paul railed against the Chinese, I got the funny feeling he actually thinks the Interahamwe are A-OK. “The story of the Rwandan genocide as it is told is not what I saw,” he says.
If he is leading up to saying that the Interahamwe are the victims of the Rwandan genocide, well, I’m not joining him for a stroll down that country lane. I cut the meeting short. The next morning, I ask Maurice, “Is Jean Paul sympathetic to the Interahamwe?”
“Yes, Lisa. Very sympathetic.”
Sweet. So I’ve hired the brother of an Interahamwe-sympathizing Women for Women hater. I’m off to a great start. . . .
I’m taking nothing for granted, so I decide to keep an eye on Maurice, to make sure he’s not showing any bias.
A SISTER, FURAHA, slips into our meeting late, the last to arrive. She hasn’t picked up on the tone of the meeting, the cues to join the campaign for more cash. She begins to talk, but starts weeping. “I came from Ninja, a village eighty kilometers from Bukavu. They killed most of my family. It was done monthly—one month they come and kill some members, another month they come and kill other members. The last member was killed in November, three months ago.”
“Furaha,” Maurice says, noting the irony in her expression of devastation. “In Swahili, it means joy.”
I had imagined that presenting gifts bags—mostly for my sisters’ children—would be a fun, lighthearted moment. But I feel only dread as I drag out the green gift-sacks adorned with stickers, cringing as I make excuses. “I wish I had more to give you.”
They smile and dance with gratitude. I give each of them a big hug and we say goodbye.
I ask the four sisters that my mother is sponsoring to stay after the meeting. We call my mom in America at two in the morning, her time. She picks up, foggy but delighted. We put each of her sisters on the line; in an awkward attempt to connect, they speak into the language-barrier void. Maurice steps in to translate. A heavyset, earthy grandma, who looks remarkably like my mother, takes the phone.