A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [54]
I follow Hortense behind the memorial. “They buried them here,” she says, pointing to a wild patch of yellow cosmos. “Seven hundred and two people were killed. They buried them in four graves.”
Three more mass graves, overgrown with weeds taller than I am, are just beyond the sunny wildflowers. Hortense repeats the story, boiling it down to basics. “They told the people there was no more war, gathered them, and killed them all.”
As we continue down the main road, spanking new huts on freshly cleared plots, paid for by refugee resettlement projects, are beginning to creep into the landscape.
We pull into Baraka, which has the distinct feel of a Wild West frontier town. Its wide main drag is a dirt road lined only with NGO offices. Congolese soldiers with guns linger on every corner, bored, just hanging out.
We dump our stuff at the spotless UN guesthouse. It is decorated in UN blue and white, with spare, utilitarian furniture; it feels like the kind of austere vacation cottage you might find on a Greek island. When I ask a group of UN staffers about security in the region, a young European woman answers. “The FDD [a Burundian militia] and other foreign militias are gone,” she says. “There is a Mai Mai general on the peninsula who’s been making threats, but just rapes and looting for the moment. No attacks yet.”
I sit quietly for a moment in the spare, whitewashed community room, balancing my gratitude for a clean place to stay and the generosity of my hosts with the implications of what she has just dropped into our conversation. I contemplate this young, wild-haired woman, with her slightly sweaty, disheveled look and the crusty demeanor of a seasoned European aid worker. As a staff member of the UNCHR, her task is to encourage refugees to return from Tanzania. She is currently working on a video project she can use to convince people it is safe to return home.
“You don’t consider rape a security threat for returning refugees?”
“Rape here is so common,” she says. “It’s cultural.”
Wow. I say nothing but allow the weight of her comment to settle in the room.
NEXT, WE HEAD out for our meetings.
As we pull up to the Women for Women center in a village south of Baraka, we are greeted with an archway of flowers. I’m presented with a little bouquet of marigolds, gathered in a rusty can, and a goat. A goat! That’s what—forty dollars? I’ve gotten lots of chickens and eggs, but this is remarkably generous. This may be the best birthday celebration I’ve ever had. Just one little snag: I’m a strict vegetarian.
I joyfully receive the squealing, upside-down little gal, grabbing her bound feet. I set her down. “Thank you so much for this wonderful gift! I am so grateful for your generosity, so proud of you all, that I am presenting her back to your group as a celebration of our friendship. I have only one condition. You must never hurt the goat. The goat is blessed. The goat is sacred. Never, ever kill this goat.”
One of the participants leads the group in a cheer and dance. We settle into a large circle, shaded by ancient trees, and shoo away eavesdropping teenage boys. Almost all of these sisters have just returned from Tanzania, where they lived in refugee camps from eighteen months to ten years. Freshly resettled, the women boast about buying new plots of land every month with sponsorship funds. “We can buy a farm of twenty square meters for twenty dollars,” one says.
I’ve developed a quick survey to take at these meetings. How many have suffered a violent attack on their home? Had a relative killed? Lost a child? The women are always open. But I have never asked about rape directly at these forums. Maybe if I’m nonchalant, it’ll put them at ease. I try to slip it in as part of my survey. “How many of you have been raped?”
A few hands go up then quickly retreat. It’s a group of fifty, but only three women keep their hands raised. They stare at the others defiantly, stretching