Of Books and Street Kids

If you read my blog you know.

I write about life in Congo, and I write about SHONA.

And that is all fine and good. After all i am living in Congo, and working with SHONA.

Except that it occurs to me that my friends usually blog about their families, and particularly their children.

I seem to blog with the same frequency and perhaps the same passion about the craftspeople I work with. It is true that our lives are intertwined. SHONA is a very personal project for me, much more than a job (Although unfortunately it pays much less than a job! At least in purely financial terms.)

And i like to imagine that someone out there finds these topics interesting.

But sometimes I need a break, in which I remember that this is not the only world out there, nor is my work here all that I am.

And so I sat down here to write a different sort of post today. A fellow blogger recently posted a review of the books she read in 2008. I thought i would steal her idea and do the same. Books are often my way of relaxing and transporting myself to another world (along with out ever growing dvd collection)

And then a fight broke out in the street below us. The street is full of street children who on a daily basis manage to be involved in a fight. But it rarely remains between the street kids. In this case I have no idea what started the fight. But i looked out the window to see a street kid take off running, chased by a teenager with a large rock in his hand. Another street kid fell to his knees wailing loudly (a common occurence) at which point an adult man picked him up, carried him to the other side of the street and began kicking and hitting him, and eventually picked him up and threw him. At that point another adult man came to argue with the first, telling him not to beat the kid. By now a whole crowd had developed with everyone shouting their opinion and the two adults fighting. The street kid remained wailing on the sidelines. Eventually the crowd calmed down, I don't know what the end result was, the crowd eventually dispersed, but I can still hear the street kid wailing as i write this.

and tomorrow there will be another similar incident, and tomorrow and tomorrow...

So as you can see, I have not written about the books that I read in 2008. The fight distracted me and my thoughts have yet to return. Indeed there is a much larger world out there, one which I sometimes desperately need to remember, but sometimes the world at my doorsteps is just too loud.

The tin shacks of GOma

This is Roy's house. As you can see it is literally surrounded by lava rock. The outside walls are made of old tin sheeting, and the inside walls are made of plastic sheeting in most places, and ripped up cardboard boxes in some places.

The lava rock has been more or less cleared from inside the house, leaving a dirt floor, with occassional rocks jutting out. There is no electricity and no water. The "jerry can" containers in the forground of this picture are used for carrying water to the house, a job done mostly by the girls in the family.

The house is divided into two rooms. The "living room" is shown in the picture above. The second room is a bedroom, the same size as the living room, where Roy and his wife sleep with eight children. They own one single mattress.

I show you these pictures not to make you feel bad for Roy. Everything is about context. Roy's family recently moved into this house. For them, it is a step in the right direction. Their last house didn't have enough tin to cover the walls or the roof, and it was in a worse location.

I show you these pictures to give you an idea of what life looks like in Goma. The average person in Goma lives in conditions similar to Roy's.

And yet there are whole neighborhoods that look like this. There are places where the skyline is full of the sloping roofs of these "McMansions".

If something burns me out in Goma, it will probably be this. It is this daily encounter with human nature. The ability of man to build a mansion next to a shack. Morever the ability of man to surround his mansion with a wall, buy a large water tank and hefty generator, and never have to deal with the reality that there are no public services in Goma.

Where does the idea of public services come from? The idea that there are some roles that government should fill, and some needs that are so basic, they must be addressed. In the US we are often afraid of "Big Government". I know that these days people are thinking heavily about Obama's big spending, and about the level of debt we will incur. And we should think carefully about such issues. I also know that the proposal to spend billions of dollars is motivated by a concern for the economy rather than a concern for public services. But everytime I hear about that money I can't help dreaming about all the railroads that could be built, bridges that could be repaired, libraries that could be stocked, parks that could be maintained and the like.

I can tell you that there is not a single park in Goma. Nor a single waste removal company, nor a single sidewalk. I would like to believe that it is in human nature to come together and try and make the place we live better, even if there is no government to do it. I would like to believe in a commitment to the public good. But I can tell you, that it is much easier to build a wall and fix up your own compound. And, when left to our own devices, I'm afraid that is what we tend to do. There are an awful lot of walls in Goma. In fact if you look carefully at that picture of the McMansions you will see the very same lava rock that covered the land outside of Roy's house. In this case, someone has taken the time to pick up all those lava rocks. They are using them to build row after row of walls.

French Class

Je suis en retard.
That pretty much sums up my experience of learning French here.
(I am late...or perhaps more applicably...I am behind)

I worked on learning Swahili first. For which I am forever grateful. Swahili wasn't too hard, especially the version of it that is spoken in Goma, in which many conjugation rules are simply ignored. Of course, I am far from perfect in the language. But it is what I use to communicate with almost everyone, almost every day. People here are generally thrilled to see a mzungu who is trying to learn Swahili and it is undoubtably helped me form relationships with people here.

None the less, I should really know French by now. But French has a million rules. And no one is thrilled when you try to speak it. They just wonder what kind of mzungu speaks French so badly.

So I know how the SHONA women feel. They also have not learned French. Argentine didn't attend school at all as a child, and the others attended only briefly. It is a hard language to learn. And it is frustrating to start from square one trying to learn a language that you wish you had learned a long time ago.

But languages are keys to so much in this world. Argentine and Mapendo traveled to Rwanda to play in a handicapped sports competition last year. They returned demanding to learn French and English immediately. They had meet all these wonderful, lovely people from Europe who gave them gifts, and wanted to speak to them, but they had no common language. Argentine and Mapendo said it is the worst feeling in the world to want to thank someone and to be unable to. They wanted to thank these generous people for their gifts of crutches and backpacks, but literally did not have the words to do so. Somehow I suspect their smiles translate into all languages.

But you can see them here, half a year later, dutifully struggling to learn this difficult language, determined to build that bridge.

To you this looks like a man sewing...

To me this looks like hope.

If only you knew that this man owns his own sewing machine for the first time in his life. And that he has been given the money to rent a small workspace, and table and chair to go with it. If only you knew how many children this man has, the struggles they have been through, and the conditions they live in.


If only you knew how very good at sewing he is, and how much he can do with this small machine.

I recently added a donations page to our website. I posted it with some serious misgivings. SHONA is about what we can accomplish through the work of our own hands, not about asking for donations. But I had received several requests from generous souls who wanted to know how they could give to us, and I realized that we cannot do it all ourselves.

That is a hard realization for me. I am an only child, a bit hard-headed and accustomed to thinking that I could rule the world on my own. I will do something and fail fifty times before I will ask for help. I'm sure my husband will be happy to confirm that for you! I think he considers one of the most telling examples of my personality to be the way I played a video game with him when we were in college. It was a video game that I knew nothing about, not being a video-game fan myself and I can no longer even remember the name of it. But somehow he talked me into playing it. (Obviously this must have been before we were married!) The first step seemed to involve running and leaping at just the right time to avoid being run over by a boulder that is coming right toward you.
I made a sprint for it and got run over,
tried again, got run over,
tried again, got run over...
I think after about the fiftieth time of watching me run head-long into the boulder without once requesting any advice on how to get around it, my future husband concluded that I might be a difficult woman. Fortunately he married me anyway!

But the point is, I like to do it myself. Even if it means getting run over in the process.

Perhaps it is an American thing. I am all about the work of our own hands. Especially in a culture like Congo that has become heavily dependent on foreign aid, I feel it is important to "empower" people to create their own miracles. You know "teach them to fish".

But I have been thinking a lot lately about how nothing we do ever is truly the work of our own hands. It is the work of a thousand hands that have helped us on our way and shaped us into who we are.

Certainly that is true for myself. Sometimes people ask how I can do "this". I am not like my husband, who grew up out here. He is used to moving around and being a stranger in a foreign land. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut, in one house, and in one school. But it is precisely because my family is so rooted that I feel able to be here. It is because they are at home, that I can be away. Home is still there waiting for me, strengthening me. Without their hands, I couldn't do it.

So I posted the donations page, in recognition that we can't do it by ourselves. The Craftspeople of SHONA have done an incredible amount through their own hands, but they have also received your help, in a thousand ways. As soon as I put up our donations page, I was honored and humbled by a donor who gave Roy a sewing machine, a table, chair and workspace. But she didn't want me to tell Roy anything about her, only that this was a gift from God, not from herself or her family.

And so perhaps nothing is truly our own. Not the work we do, nor the gifts that we give. The clothing that Roy is sewing will bear labels with his name as the craftsperson. But if we were to be truthful, the label would need to be much larger, to carry the names of all those who have brought us this far.

Stay tuned for an update to our website soon with pictures of Roy and his family, and the story of their lives. Perhaps you read my earlier posts about Roy's little girl being molested.

At the time I recall being disgusted at what one person can do TO another.

Today I am amazed at what one person can do FOR another.

Perhaps in the end, this is why God chooses to work through human hands. It is a way of redeeming our hands. In a world where we are too often forced to confront the suffering that is caused by human hands, it is a way of reminding us of the good that is possible.



Thank you to all our loyal friends and customers who continue to inspire us.

Coming to Town

The streets are empty. The shops are shut. The power has been ON for 2 days straight.

What on earth could be going on in Goma?

The President is coming to visit. He is rumored to be driving in on the road from Butembo. The road that the CNDP took control of in October. The road that since it reopened has been the scene of robberies and killing. He is apparently on a driving tour, reclaiming the East with his own vehicle.

To what do we owe this honor? Perhaps women's Day? That was Sunday. No, today has been declared a National Holiday for an entirely different reason. The Congo football (soccer) team won the African Nations Championship last night.

My husband and I didn't watch the game, but we marked it's progress quite effectively. We live in a noisy part of town, next to bars and nightclubs. But this noise was unmistakable. The sudden roar of cheering that swells up in the night air, and dies down just as quickly, is the tell-tale sign that Congo has scored a goal. After the game our neighborhood quickly began to sound like one large bar room, mixed with a circus. There were motorcycles celebrating with their horns, street kids celebrating by getting wildly drunk, and the whole world out in the streets celebrating in any way they could. We were sure that gunfire and looting would break out at any second, but it didn't.

So today there is no work. Shops and offices are required to shut. The streets are strangely quiet. Except in front of our apartment where they are lining up cars with flags to welcome the president. And I have the best electricity that I have had in three years.

Kabila is coming to town.

Women's Day March in Congo

As promised, I did not march this year. However the march goes right by our apartment, so I got to watch the whole thing. I must say it seemed much more organized than last year, but perhaps that is just the view from the sidelines.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the event consists of women parading around town. The line stretched for miles. Each group of women buys matching outfits, carries a banner and often carries something to signify their group. For example, the group of women who sell shoes, were carrying shoes on their head...

Here is a taste of the event...



The old women march, without matching uniforms, but with perhaps the most striking effect.

Islands of achievement

Last week was not good.

Nothing was working. Well, except the SHONA craftspeople, they were working fine.

But that is only half the battle. The other half requires selling what they have made.

We recently opened our own online store, which was exciting, and ever since then I have been wading through information trying to figure out how to attract traffic to our website and to our store. This seems to involve completing a million tasks which may or may not ever bear fruit. I spent days registering with search engines, writing metatags, joining forums, and trying to figure out how to get people to link to our website. And I may never know if it made any difference. You just have to throw it out there and hope for the best.

Meanwhile, the electricity kept disappearing. And when the electricity was on, my internet connection kept disappearing. And I kept asking myself who in their right mind tries to run an online business in a place with unreliable electricity and internet speeds that the US hasn't seen for at least ten years.

So I felt a bit isolated.

But today I received an email from a woman who wrote to inform me of her research on "islands of achievement"...and that phrase really resonated with me. Perhaps not the achievement part, but the island part. While working on her Master's Degree, she researched “islands of achievement within failed or fragile states” and she realized that there were a lot of local people around the world rebuilding their lives and their communities in the midst of larger chaos and conflict. After she finished her masters degree she was struck by the fact that many people haven't had the chance to hear these stories, and she started a website to bring people together and tell these stories. She was writing me to inform me that she had just written an article about the SHONA women and it is posted on their website, along with over 400 other stories.

We are an island of achievement! Visit her website, not because we are there (although that is good also) but because it is a fascinating place to see what regular people are doing throughout the world.

Their article on SHONA

The main page of the website: http://hopebuilding.pbwiki.com

And then she informed me that she had compiled her article from an article about us on
ITnews africa.com. We are on the front page of their website right now!. And we didn’t even know it! I guess something I did last week worked after all. Check it out!

www.itnewsafrica.com

I deeply appreciate the willingness of both these website to seek us out and share our story. I appreciate the chance for SHONA to be “seen” by others. I would like to believe that I am humble, but I have to admit that it is really hard to work on something day after day and feel invisible. And I do start to feel like an island.

But what I found most inspiring was the opportunity to visit the beautiful "hopebuilding" website and read the stories of so many others. Because if we are all doing it, then we aren’t really isolated after all. And that is the gift of this website…check it out!