 |
 |
 |
News Hekima College Lenten Campaign 2009: “If I go out into the field, look- those killed by the sword! If I enter the city, look- those sick with famine!” (Jr 14:18) Dear brothers and sisters, we have just been presented the difficult situation of our two beloved countries we carry in our hearts, and hold by our heads and hands for this Lenten period in seven “sacred” weeks. I would like to notice that mentioning Zimbabwe, mentioning Congo parades before us PEOPLE: people disappearing; people fleeing, people under suffering. It sets before our eyes families mourning their loved and cherished ones; and echoes in our ears voices, cries and anguishes of children and parents. It denies us the right to laugh or smile. For it is about named and namable men/women, children, youth and aged: human beings struggling with a twofold question: why living? And why not dying? I personally come from Eastern part of DR Congo, Rutshuru territory located at about 70km from Goma Northward. Last November, to name the latest, about 150 people (mostly youth) were killed in a village next to mine. Most of you may recall the names KIWANJA/Rutshuru/ Jomba linked with CNDP rebels that hit the media for more than 4 weeks. A friend of mine, a Carraccolini Brother Schooling at Tangaza lost his younger brother back home. This is my third year of studies here in Kenya. But each year I have an opportunity to go home during summer holidays. What is my personal experience? As you may know, the war in Eastern DRC has lasted about 15 years now. This number “15” sounds less if one is to make a mathematical exercise (counting from 1-15). But if one makes an existential experience of 15 years of displacement, equal to 180 months of starvation and famine, 2475 days of no Health care, 59400 hours of torture and suffering, without counting the lengthy minutes and seconds of despair and hopelessness, the look becomes different: a war of 15 years is too much! It is this reading I got from my elder sister’s experience in the Camp of Internally Displaced People of KIBUMBA about 35 km from Goma, when I visited her last July. Mother of 5 she was living in a 3 m square tent, with her 5 children and her husband. They were there since November 2007 but since February 2008, the Local Relief organizations had stopped their assistance to them, rather forcing them to return home, in order to allow them to focus on new cases of displacement somewhere else. It was their fifth month looking upward for Heaven to open and provide some manna. The endured pain was beyond telling. I could not hold my tears. Another experience I had was of similar emotion when in November 2008 last year I received two phone calls, one from my dad and another one from my elder brother. I was already here. But it was a hot time there. My dad, using the telephone set of a Good Samaritan (because his was already grabbed by unidentified armed looters) was briefing me about the situation. He was not regretting much the fact that the house was emptied, looted by people who will never return and say “Thank you”. Neither was he regretting the fact that he and the whole family had fled. He rather had no strength to hold his tears on the phone, over the experience that regardless his age he was beaten by some armed people asking for more money, that “they insisted” he was refusing to give them. My elder brother, on his part, father of three kids, spent more than 3 months sheltered in a consultation room of the hospital he works in because his house was destroyed by bombs that befell it during the confrontations. The insecurity was unbearable. And this situation of insecurity reminded me of the sad 1996-1998 period of war and violence. I was then in the last years of my secondary school. For two years, sleeping in the bush was the only safer way of surviving, escaping the killing hands of unidentified armed looters whose reign was then. If they came and found you in the house, there were two possibilities: either you give them what they expected you to give, or they leave you if not half dead, fully and really dead. I personally lived under this tense situation for two years. You can’t imagine the psychological as well as the physiological status of a student whose night was spent in the bush and in the morning he is in the class. Because, during the day, villages were inhabited, but from 6:30 pm, only bushes and farms were bedrooms. Could the poor student and all other people as well close their eyes in the midst of an “un –harmonized” music of mosquitoes? And what if that night the thieves had decided to walk through the bushes, and came across their hiding places! It was a hard situation. And I recall two instances whereby on a Wednesday in 1996, tired of bushes, my elder brother and I made a mistake of sleeping in the house. At mid-night, we got the unexpected. Doors were broken at the speed of a lightning, all that we had in the house was taken away, and my elder brother’s life was spared thanks to Divine Intervention. On that night, our neighbor was beaten up until he died the following morning. I was only saved by my being a student that I kept on repeating to almost deaf ears. I cannot forget the three days of mourning and anxiety in 1997 when my father was kidnapped at night, taken to the Virunga Forest by the so-called Interahamwe (currently FDLR) section. It was another Wednesday night, having hoped against all hopes in three days, we saw him mysteriously coming back on Saturday around 3 pm weary and worn out. Experiences of war, violence and suffering of people in DRC are many and multiple. One can go on and on. If I was to go on sharing, some of us would not get enough strength to hold emotions. I chose to talk about my family’ s experience, because it is too close to me, and I am too close to you so that through closeness to one experience you may come closer to one family’s experience, and by extension - to a village’s experience and, even to the whole country’s experience. As you know, according to the current findings released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) about 5.400.000 Congolese have lost their lives directly or indirectly due to war and violence since 1998. This number of deaths makes it the World’s documented conflict since the 2nd World War. Of course, the vast majority died from non-violent cases such as malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia, malnutrition- higher roles of infectious diseases, complications arising from neonatal and pregnancy-related conditions. But these conditions would have been easily preventable and treatable if people had had Peace. So we pray for peace, peace, peace!
Letter from Zimbabwe We are constantly swinging between hope and despair as the government of national unity tries to take root. It’s really a delicate arrangement and depends greatly on good will. We know the players long enough to know how much faith to place in their goodwill. I've been to my home village every weekend for the past four weeks and I have seen a very hopeful crop begin to wilt and look miserable. We have had a dry spell of longer than three weeks on crops, mainly maize, that are near maturity and in desperate need of rain. If we do not get any this week, we are in real trouble. Already, people are starving in remote areas. The transitional period is turbulent on the business front and some businesses which were coping with hyperinflation cannot last a week when that is removed. Dollarisation has seen some kind of stability and prices of goods have actually gone down but this does not mean that people have the US$. But the energy to keep praying and trusting comes from the people. There is a very positive spirit I sense despite a fair amount of hesitation, one foot at a time sort of approach to the new dispensation. Thanks for your assurance of prayers and yes, we do need them now as always. If you would like to support this Lenten Campaign, please send a check to “Hekima College” (Attn. Lenten Campaign: Fr. A. E. Orobator, SJ) P. O. Box 21215-00505, Ngong Road, Nairobi, KENYA. May God bless you! For more information on the Hekima College lenten campaign follow this link |