Toilet Facilities
I’d been using the indoor facilities at the workshop site. To say it was “indoor plumbing” would be a stretch. Typical of most of the indoor spots in both countries, it had a toilet, but not one that flushed. There was, however, a large tub of water and a jug that one uses to pour in some H2O after one has finished. On the third day, I noticed that I had been the only one of our group using this indoor site. When I asked about it, it was explained that the others had been told to use the outdoor, traditional toilet to save on the cost of water. To tell the truth, I was happy to have been excluded from that announcement.
The UN Presence in the Congo
Peacekeeping is a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace. UN peacekeepers—soldiers and military officers, police and civilian personnel from many countries—monitor and observe peace processes that emerge in post-conflict situations and assist conflicting parties to implement the peace agreement they have signed. Such assistance comes in many forms, including promoting human security, confidence-building measures, power-sharing arrangements, electoral support, strengthening the rule of law, and economic and social development.
It’s understandable, then, how an uneducated and desperately poor population could misunderstand the UN’s role, especially when there is such a seemingly huge economic gap between the UN’s personnel and the general population.
No Governmental Support for Initiatives
Unlike in Rwanda, where the government does take responsibility for some of their major infrastructure projects and does occasionally offer some assistance for local initiatives, there is no such governmental support in the Congo.
Some industrious people, tired of waiting for the government, have taken matters into their own hands. Here are two examples, one that shows incredible entrepreneurial spirit and one that is a perfect illustration of non-violent direct action.
In a neighborhood typical of the one I wrote about earlier in which the electricity was spotty at best, one of its residents decided that he no longer trusted, or wanted to wait for, the government. He purchased a huge generator, hooked the neighborhood houses up to it, and now everyone has electricity when they want it. His neighbors pay him (instead of the national electric company) enough to keep the generator going, plus something for him to maintain it.
In another neighborhood where the road had been scraped flat (not a small undertaking) in preparation for paving, the workers had said they would be back to surface it in a matter of days. Weeks went by with no further action on the road. In the meantime, noting the very unusual occurrence of a flat road, drivers were
Their Final Sentiments
Before I left the seminar, the group presented me with several gifts:
For my funder in the States, a card signed by many of the participants and a large volcanic rock. There was a hole in the rock into which they had placed a little flower, representing the seed of peace they said I had planted in their harsh environment.
I also received a card, and a handmade caftan from some tie-died cloth.
Here are the translations of the inscriptions in our cards. It’s clear that their gratitude was immeasurable, although I learned at least as much from them as they did from me.
Translation/Transcription of the Funder’s Thank You Card from Congolese Workshop Participants:
1. We thank you to have made it possible for Jan Arnow to come and share her knowledge. We have been blessed by her presence. We promise to put what we learnt in practice. May God bless you in all you do.
2. I thank you for having sent Jan Arnow to come and tell us about Interfaith. May God provide you with His peace.
3. May God bless you from the workshop Jan had with us with our input in the Congo. May peace come back to the Congo with your contribution (of Jan’s time here).
4. We are very thankful to the messenger that you sent to give us these instructions that are constructive. May the everlasting God strengthen for you this spirit of brotherhood with Africans.
5. Thank you for having sent this messenger of peace to our country, which is characterized by divisions of communities, insurrections and hatred. Thank you for thinking about this outside country. May the peace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, together with your preaching, get all nations.
6. I am honored to greet you and thank you for the good act of sending us Jan Arnow to come and teach us about this very valuable material for three consecutive days. I am so much satisfied and wish you a great prosperity in your activities of charity. Thank you.
7. We are very much thankful and grateful of how you sent us Jan Arnow as a messenger for peace in Congo, our country. Thanks to you.
8. It was so nice to hear from Jan that you made her trip to D.R. Congo possible. Her training on interfaith relations has been very inspiring to us. We thank you very much for your generosity and good will. May God bless you.
Translation/Transcription of My Thank You Card from Congolese Workshop Participants:
1. We thank you for your participatory method and spirit of humanity. We invite you again.
2. We thank you for your contribution and participation of our workshop in the Congo. May the good God bless you.
3. Thank you so much for your sacrifice to our favor for we have gained from you and we received a precious armor, which will help us fight for peace. Please don’t stop here. Thank you.
4. I thank you for the courage and devotion, which have characterized you during the workshop form which we have gained from your side. We make a joyful noise for your humanitarian vision, which we are going to plan to implement in the world: the culture of peace and pacific cohabitation and equality of human beings. God bless you.
5. Thanks and congratulations. Dear Madame Janne: I am so glad to see you arrive in the Congo to train us and give us knowledge which is very much from your experience. May God bless you. I wish you come back as soon as possible so the material that we have learned will be much dug (as in “digging in the brain”).
6. Dear Jan, Your coming to Goma has been a great blessing to us. The seed you have sown will grow up and contribute to build peace in Congo, our country. Many, many thanks to you.
7. Dear Jan, I really appreciate the leadership training concerning Interfaith Relations, during these days. It was so inspiring and it has solidified what we have learned before. We trust that this training will not be the last. Thank you very much.
8. It has been a blessing from the moment I saw you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. I believe this is the beginning of a lasting relationship. May God strengthen you as you work, may His light shine upon you!
Leaving the Congo
Immediately after the close of the workshop, Camarade, Zawadi and Innocent drove me back to the border.
Celestine
To pass the time, they taught me a lot of new Kinyarwandan words, and then we sang songs to each other. They started with their national anthem. I responded with mine. (If anyone had ever told me that I would be driving along a highway in Rwanda doing a fairly good interpretation of the opening of the Super Bowl, I would have bet him or her money against it.) They sang some religious songs, harmonizing in their deep voices, and I sang them a medley of my favorites: Trouble in Mind, Tell Old Bill, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, You Are My Sunshine, Summertime, There Is Nothin' Like A Dame, I Love You a Bushel and a Peck, and Johnny I Hardly Knew You. They gave me what I’m assuming (and hoping) was a wonderful compliment: “You sing like an Ethiopian!”
Sights Along the Way
We didn’t stop along the way like we did on our way to the Congo because we wanted to get back to Kigali in 3 or 4 hours, so I didn’t take pictures of these things. But I thought I’d mentioned them so when you’re reading these, please feel free to render them in full color with your imagination:
- Women in full African dress working on paving the road…by hand
- Mud houses on a cliff
- The Lord is Our Savior Saloon
- A small child carrying water on his head with his baby brother on his back
- A mosque in the middle of nowhere
- Tea and coffee plantations
- A sea of blue uniforms running down a hill as school lets out
- The results of a giant wreck involving two big trucks on a small road
- Children running after the car yelling, “Umuzungu! Ichupa!” which meant, “White person! Bottles!” They were asking for our used, empty water bottles so they’d have something in which to take water to school.
We got back just in time to change clothes, drop off the bags, and head out to Cecile’s house for dinner. As with the other homes I’ve visited, friends, neighbors and relatives were also invited because having a respected guest is a special occasion.
And it was, indeed, a special dinner: pasta, French fries, white sweet potatoes, plantains, roasted ears of corn, rice, stewed greens, some meat and sauce. I asked if they eat this way every night and, laughing, they told me that this was the kind of meal that they make only as a Christmas feast, or when having very special company. It was such an honor to be invited to Cecile’s home, modest though it was, and to be considered such a privileged visitor.
Dinner at Zainabo’s House
The next day was for planning, writing and preparing for my final workshop beginning the following day. And dinner that evening was at the home of another workshop participant and friend, Zainabo.
Zainabo’s little 3-year-old niece was there, too, and as the television was on, we were all half-watching an American soap opera that had been dubbed in French. The hilarious moment of the evening came when this little girl, having seen the leading man try to kiss the leading woman on the television, shouted out in Kinyarwandan, “Don’t you put your mouth on her!!!!” Everyone howled! Looks like this little one might be successful in avoiding sexual abuse when she grow up!
Then, finally, back to my room
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