A while back, i blogged part of a story sent from my friend Devon who is working in the Congo. She sent me another bloggable post today so i thought i would share. If you have the means, it would be great to help her program out. $50 pays for 2 students in the school there. They are applying for grants, but those take a long time and thus any support that you can offer would be fantastic!

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working with these women continues to be an entire life of itself: births and deaths, sickness and true healing, new arrivals and going home, and being together at every different hour of the day: all those early morning chores, heat-of-the-day lessons, rainy afternoons stuck in the church singing songs, social hour evenings, and worship at sunset. I’ve started a new project to take down the each of their stories: just interviews and photos. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with them yet, but, for so many reasons, it just seems important that they be recorded. Maybe that will finally be a use for my blog.

But just one now the girl I interviewed today is seventeen, quiet now, but with teh most beautiful voice. When her village was attacked, she was abducted by the Mai Mai, raped and beaten. Apparently angry at her for crying, they tore out her eyes and left her on the road. People from her village found her and tried to bring her with them as they fled into the forest but she was unable to keep up, so they abandoned her again. Eventually she was found and taken to one of the docs counselors out at a rural clinic. From there, she was brought into the hospital but there is nothing that can be done for her eyesight and she is also almost deaf, from injuries to the head that got infected. She has no idea whether any of her family survived and has been terrified to leave docs, not knowing where she can go. but lyn, through the network of services and people she works with here, has found a hotel owner who will pay her to do basic kitchen chores and a room in a widows cooperative where she can live; there are kids there that can bring her too and from work. Its so much more than any other hospital would do for a patient and yet I still dread the day when she’ll leave this community of women who are all healing each other to live on her own. I’m selfish, but i hate to have them leave; though the actual goodbyes are always uplifting, with the whole tribe out singing and celebrating, a mix of being happy for the woman who is leaving and, i think, the hope that it brings them for themselves.

the gsf project is coming along beautifully. my connections with people and places from my last visit haave helped me immeasurably and every step just seems to be falling into place. feels charmed, or meant to be. more on that soon.

politically, we had a little scare when the RCD (rwandan party that used to occupy this area) pulled out of the transitional government. almost comical to have jo aka. my dad, head of docs, senator, just a general congolese “big vegetable,” called away from dinner because one of the two govenors of a town was using his personal army to defend an arms cash from the other govenor. everyone is in duplicate here, as the organizing theme of this transitional period is to let the past lie, invited everyone to take part in writing the constitiution, and not oust anyone, even as a new system is set up in its place. a UN presence combined with a figurehead leader so far are managing to keep everyone in line, with the hopes of having the second congolese democratic election (the first being in 1960, with independence.) a new friend here is looking for the funds to start a civil education program to prepare the community for elections but where do you start when so many people can’t read, most of the country is inaccessible by road (there are fewer roads now than there were in 1960), and there are over 200 political parties, all oriented locally or tribally. but this guy is amazing and if he does manage to put together a project, i’ve offered him the gsf school in the evenings to hold his classes. its amazing the gravity of an open physical space for events, trainings, programs, possibilities.