by Heather Fortuna
A few weeks ago I was sitting at a table near a swimming pool eating dinner at a newly built and very nice hotel in Kigali, Rwanda. Sylvia, the photographer my work had hired to take pictures of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was retelling her experiences in jest to me and two of our directors.
She joked about the soldier that accompanied her to take pictures, the guard dog that accidentally ripped her shirt, the barbed wire around the house, and the armed men on the streets. I joked back with her about hearing gun shots in the background, thinking she would deny my claim, but she didn’t. Instead, she elaborated by talking about the people she saw that had no hands. “I called my son and he told me I probably shouldn’t visit places where people have no hands” she laughed. I had a hard time really appreciating the humor. What I realize now is that using humor was her way of dealing with the very difficult reality she had just experienced. To laugh about it was her healing and processing mechanism. But it wasn’t for me. For the first time since I arrived in Rwanda five days before, I became concerned. Although I had heard and read about the situation in the DRC, and about the violent rapes of the women that participate in our programs, I knew the reality they had experienced last year as another war broke out was no longer the reality at the moment. Technically, the eastern region was still a war zone but the war had erupted and ended in a few months. I’d been to post-conflict countries in Africa before without experiencing any difficulty, but Sylvia’s stories caused me to question the place I was about to enter along with my own decision to go.
However, my work had flown me halfway around the world to assist in our program operations and I felt a need to be there so the next day I piled into our SUV and began the 6 hour drive north into one of Africa’s largest countries. About half way through the drive I noticed our driver switch tapes of music as the road entered a dense forest. “He always puts in church music when we enter the forest,” Judithe, our DRC Country Director, filled me in. I didn’t ask questions but just nodded my head. I’d heard stories about the rebel groups who lived in the forests because there were women in our programs who had been abducted by them for months at a time. Their stories seemed much more real to me now as I sat in the front seat swaying back and forth with the motions of the SUV on the windy road, staring out the window into the wide expanse of trees. An hour later, my thoughts were interrupted as our driver switched tapes back to his dubbed copy of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits and people began to appear on the side streets again. We had reached the border. Upon arrival, I didn’t hear any gun shots and I saw no armed military troops, just a guard here and there which was normal. At the house where I was staying, the guard dog was well behaved and, although I saw the barbed wire and shards of glass atop the fence to discourage intruders, I felt things had been clearly exaggerated and was relieved. “This is no big deal,” I chuckled to myself, “I saw more corrupt soldiers with their sawed off shot guns in Nigeria.” But what I came to realize was that the void of armed militias and gun shots began to be filled with the cruel reality that comes with the aftermath of war; a reality I had never really seen before.
A few days later, after traveling again to the office on the same very unpaved road, I saw a woman sitting on our tattered couch in the front office with her arms folded. I didn’t see her hands but thought nothing of it as surely they were tucked beneath. I walked past her and upstairs to talk to Judithe who asked me if I’d seen the woman whose hands had been cut off by her attackers. She was in the process of helping her with some questions and began to tell me a little of her story. “Her husband wanted to leave her but the priest told him not to so he stayed.” As I walked back downstairs I casually glanced over at her and smiled but didn’t want to stare. I sat down at my laptop again but soon found my eyes welling up with tears as I thought about her life and the stigmas she faced as a woman in a very poor community who could not care for her family without help. I also thought of the many things I take for granted in being able to use my own hands: brushing my teeth, picking up my bag, typing a report. What would I do if I had no hands? In human rights work, empathy can be a dangerous thing because it can induce second hand trauma. Although seeing this woman would not necessarily cause this, I know of two people who have experienced this debilitating situation in their plight to really understand the many women we work with, and have become emotionally incapacitated for periods of time. It is as if another person’s reality becomes your own and in the DRC this means you live someone else’s nightmare. Because of this, I have distanced myself at times from these issues, despite my deep concern over them. Last year it took me a few days to read through a ten-page trip report from our founder describing the situation of these women. Every time I picked it up my stomach would turn and tears would form, but I could also look up from the report out my office window, take a walk outside, or talk with my colleagues who would quickly lift me out of these women’s daunting stories through a simple conversation. I lived a different reality.
The same day I saw this woman, I walked outside into our adjacent office to talk with a few more staff. On my way there I met Nabito, a widow with 14 children who was attacked by the Interahamwe. She was raped so many times by different men consecutively that she became unconscious. Her attackers finally left but not without cutting her bloated stomach with a knife and breaking her right arm in two different places. They also shot one of her sons in the leg because he refused to rape her or hold her down at their request. I had heard Nabito’s story several times and had seen her picture but didn’t recognize her at first. When the staff pointed out whom she was, I felt like I was meeting someone I already knew and so I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I’m so happy to finally meet you!” I told her. She looked at me and then showed me her arm that had healed poorly, leaving her hand flopping around. The expression on her face said to me, “What do I do with this?” What does she do? Women who experience these attacks are often shunned in their communities because they are viewed as unclean. Not only do they face severe emotional and physical distress but their support networks are also destroyed. In these types of situations I frequently reflect upon how the gospel would affect their lives. But, it first has to be able to. When a woman is not only poor which means she often lives with hunger, but is also emotionally, psychologically and physically traumatized, it’s hard for her to grasp onto anything beyond immediate physical relief in the form of food, medical help, or counseling. Eventually, some are able to move beyond what they have experienced. “Tell my story to others,” said Nabito, “but just don’t tell my neighbors.” Many, however, remain in a state of numbness in order to endure another day. They have been robbed of their spirits; their eyes are empty and their faces are expressionless. The gospel therefore cannot reach them until they receive other forms of assistance but once they do, they can start to rebuild their lives and reclaim their former selves.
I feel like I have seen an incredibly dark side of humanity which is very different from the bubble I live in, in Washington, DC filled with many friends and a very supportive gospel network. Such darkness is not something I wish to dwell on but it is there. Knowing this only helps me to better realize how many blessings so many of us have that we often take for granted — a stable government, a well trained police force, food, security — all things that create an environment in which we can truly live what we know to be true. To me, this now defines privilege, opportunity, and responsibility in a way it never has before.
Heather Fortuna lives in Washington, DC and works for an organization called Women for Women International but also goes to school in Boston. Figure that one out 🙂 Served a mission in Quebec and currently teaches Institute in Northern Virginia.