A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [82]
Maurice arrives and joins me. Perched on the edge of his chair, he hands me a scrap of paper. It’s a note scribbled in French, directions of some kind and a couple of names. “Jean Paul has sent this for you,” Maurice says. “The UN in Walungu has a woman who just returned from the forest.”
Normally, I would not go on this kind of goose chase, especially in Congo. Especially in Walungu. But today I have nothing better to do. What the hell, let’s visit the UN and try to track her down.
We drive through Walungu, past the church and the Women for Women compound on the edge of the town and then deeper into the town center. It is crawling with Congolese military. They are everywhere: meandering down the roads with guns casually dangled over their shabby uniforms, hanging out in front of shack restaurants, chatting with girls. Few are occupied with any meaningful task.
“This makes the Congolese very tense,” Maurice comments. “So many soldiers, just . . . around.”
Jean Paul’s directions are vague. We cruise up and down the main drag several times, ask at the UN office, then stop at a playground nestled in the middle of a military camp, where Congolese army officers play with local children on teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds. A sign boasts this playground was constructed as a gift from Pakistani UN troops, who appear to make “hearts and minds” a priority.
We pull up to a small cement compound and Maurice runs inside with the piece of paper to get any information he can. Serge and I wait in the car, watching a Congolese army officer stumble down the road dead-drunk, yelling at himself and everyone around him. Maurice returns a few minutes later with news. The man we are looking for is away, but he will be back in a few hours. In the meantime, the UN majors manning the station would like to say hello.
They invite us into the brick compound and we meet the majors, who have been stationed here for a little over a month—one from Nigeria, one from India, and one from Uruguay. They are welcoming. Major Vikram, the major from India, is particularly friendly after I warm him up by sharing my India travel stories; I spent time there when I was in college. He offers us chai and biscuits as the men collectively answer my questions after an informal briefing. I am not allowed to film. I try to ignore the fact that one of my hosts is wearing only boxer shorts. After all, I have disrupted their Sunday morning.
They offer me a copy of the report taken on the woman we’re hoping to track down. By reading the report, I get the real story. It wasn’t one woman abducted, but three girls, two of them fifteen and one of them seventeen.
On Wednesday, Interahamwe came to their compounds in Kaniola and took them to the forest, but apparently the Congolese Army rescued them.
This story is a first. Rescued? By the Congolese Army?
Both Major Vikram and Major Kaycee, from Nigeria, disappear for a few minutes. A laminated map on the wall catches my attention. It is a map of a range of hills, with villages and hamlets on one side of the range, Kaniola included. On the other side are Interahamwe camps.
I am shocked. I’ve always imagined the Interahamwe as elusive bands of men roaming vast tracks of the Congo forest, evading the UN and international eye. Surely, I assumed, the reason the international community has allowed these guys to slaughter, torture, and maim civilians is because it’s a complicated territory, like mountains-of-Afghanistan complicated. But this map isn’t complicated at all. On one side of mountain ranges, villages. On the other, Interahamwe camps, neatly marked and color coded with flags and Xs to note how many combatants live in each camp. No secret societies or elusive rebels here.
Major Kaycee reappears in full military fatigues—camouflage—with his UN badge on broad display. “Okay,” he says.