All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [188]
These lessons shouldn’t be taken in any way as a criticism of WFWI’s life-changing and society-building work. They do so much in such extreme circumstances. But I think it takes all NGOs working in partnership to provide a complete solution to the exceedingly complex and varied series of life-challenging problems that confront the poor.
After our session, we went back on that lush, soft grass for more dancing, clapping, hugging, and smiling. At the very end, I led a passionate salute to Zainab Salbi. Her name rang through the air in a series of mirthful waves, sung by beautiful, clean, fresh-smelling, literate, skilled, empowered standing-tall Congolese women!
Passing back into Rwanda was simple. There were no mysterious delays, no attempts at extortion or graft. The breeze off the lake began to blow freshly again, and the leaf cover from beautiful old trees provided shade as we made our way back to our hotel. I spent a whole hour in the bath that night, trying to scrub off grit that seemed to go deeper than my skin.
Then I settled in to process the day’s many compelling events. As soon as I began to check voice mail and go online I was deluged with messages: At Dario’s race in Talladega, Florida, some other driver, well after the yellow flag had come out, still managed to plow into Dario’s car. To dramatically illustrate the crash, an image of the incident immediately popped up on my laptop screen as I signed on. Oh. Sigh. The life of a race car driver’s spouse! Dario, his mum, and someone from the team had already left messages to reassure me that he was okay, although his ankle was broken. Dario and I spoke. I can tell everything I need to know by the sound of his voice, and I believed him when he assured me he was all right. Even so, his injury would be putting him out for several races, so our conversation became about that, and what it meant for his ongoing learning curve in stock cars. People cannot stop asking, no matter how many times I answer the question, whether I feel scared about the elements of racing, and the answer is always “no.” I decided early on not to be afraid, because that would be a terrible way to live, with fear about things I so obviously cannot predict, influence, or control. My husband said he wanted me to keep my head down and carry on with my remaining time in Africa. I have seen him through far worse than broken ankles, and I appreciated that he did not doubt my concern and supported me to finish my trip.
Relations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were still icy, so there were no direct flights to Kinshasa, our next destination. It took twenty-four hours, including an overnight layover in Addis Ababa, to fly just over one thousand miles, the equivalent distance between Washington, D.C., and Miami, Florida. We skipped the whole VIP line when we finally arrived, as it actually draws negative attention in the form of additional requests for bribes. The ride from the airport was long, and I saw a typical poor African capital out the window, crowded with nearly ten million souls struggling, often creatively and inventively, to make it through each day. Our hotel had red carpet and low ceilings—not a good look—and there were places where they’d patched the wallpaper with matching squares. Overall, the hotel struck me as ragged and depressed, like Kinshasa itself.
Papa Jack’s security contact at the U.S. embassy told him, “If anything goes down, just stay put at your hotel. They run out of bullets fast around here.”
Indeed, there have been semiregular coup attempts, assassinations, and random eruptions of militia violence in Kinshasa ever since the dictator Mobutu was overthrown in 1997. Robbery, pillaging, and rape are epidemic, and few venture outside after dark. I was immediately on my best conflict zone behavior, putting the chain in the door, looking in the fish-eye with each knock (as if that would really help, but whatever, one does what one can), minding Papa Jack every step. He was physically staying very close