A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [56]
“Peace” and “stability” here seems to mean that people are no longer slaughtered by the hundreds (mass killing is at least one activity from which the Congolese Army refrains). But women, well, they have to feed their children. If that means the long daily walk to farm their fields and risking rape on the way, the alternative is watching their kids starve.
One woman asks, “Do they also rape women in America?”
I answer, “Women are raped all over the world. It is not as common in America as here. But a number of American women who have been raped have run to raise your sponsorship. Because they know that in some ways, you feel the same. They asked me to especially extend their love to you.”
They nod.
One woman raises her hand and asks, “What can we do to manage and improve so we can support other women?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
An Odd Paradise
KELLY AND I shoot each other looks as if we are kids on a remote corner of the playground, hoping to not get caught.
“HQ will not be happy we did this,” I say, as we step through leaky canoes onto the rusty, faded, red and teal motor-powered fishing boat. I decide to think of it as charming, well art-directed. A weather-beaten skipper and his first mate await us on board, disaffected guys who walk around barefoot and in swimming trunks. They barely say hello.
There is a Mai Mai general on the peninsula who is resisting disarmament and threatening a fight. Christine was clear: Under no circumstances are we to go without the UN boat. We need it for security. The UN speedboat is also fast, while local boats are notorious for capsizing. A few months ago, two Japanese visitors took a local boat and when a storm hit, it sank a short distance from the port. They had to be rescued by the UN.
When we arrived at the port a few minutes ago, Hortense announced, “The UN boat is booked on other business.” She smiled and gestured as though she was revealing a big birthday surprise. “So we’ll take this one, a local boat.”
Cancelling is not an option. We sponsor women in two villages on the peninsula, which is a two-hour boat ride from Baraka—twelve new sisters in one village, five in the other. Hortense has already notified them we are coming. One of them, Fitina, is on my short list to interview. Her enrollment form indicates that seven of her children have died.
It is a stunning day as we roar across Lake Tanganyika—clear, blue skies; calm water. I feel dorky for wearing a life jacket, especially next to our barefoot crew. We sit on wooden plank benches on the boat’s deck, munching on rolls and peanuts, taking in the scenery. Hortense tries to brief me, yelling over the engine.
“When we did our assessment in this village . . .” She trails off, something about rape. I can’t make it out.
“What?”
“Ninety percent.”
“Ninety percent what?”
“Yes. Ninety percent of the women in the first village have been raped!”
The sleepy fishing village is an odd paradise with a crystal-blue lagoon and a pebble beach, backed by cascading forested hills and terraced plots hosting mud huts. It’s a last little slice of paradise not mapped and quartered by Lonely Planet, a place that would be high-end vacation property if it were anywhere but in Congo.
The village women gather to greet us, waving flowering tree branches and palm leaves in the air, dancing in time. As the crew shuts down the engine and we drift to shore, the women’s ebullient singing takes over. They throw cloths on the ground to welcome us and initiate a procession through the village, one that gives me a piercing headache because I’m smiling so wide for so long.
The two celebrations today are nearly identical, as are the villages.
I don’t bring up rape. Neither do they.
Kelly is quiet through the first meeting, as always. I encourage her to join in, but