While I was waiting for Laurent to come, sitting outside, reading, a woman came in to see me. She didn’t speak any French, and I no Swahili, so we called the housekeeper, a very nice, helpful woman. The woman’s name is also Suzanne, and she had come to thank me for giving her $20 sometime in the past when she had an injured leg and needed money to pay the hospital. I said I thought she had the wrong person, as I have only been here twice before for short times, most recently a whole year ago, and don’t remember ever giving money to her. She was adamant: “Yes, it was quite a while ago, I remember you, we were on the street outside the clinic, you were with another person, I asked you to help me, you gave me $20, we discovered both our names are Suzanne, and I have been asking people ever since if you have come back. Now I am in good health, I have learned to make batik cloth (she was wearing a lovely example), I am fine. I just want to thank you.” And she presented me with four eggs. I thanked her profusely and in great confusion. We chatted a while with the housekeeper; the two Suzannes each have six children, Mama Emilie has seven. Then I said that, because I don’t cook here, perhaps she could take the eggs back to her children. (Cultural faux pas, yes.) No, she said, through a USAID project she had received some chickens and now the children raise them; it was in fact they who sent the eggs to me. I confess I was still mystified and waiting for her to ask for something. When she reached into her purse I thought, “here it is, an unpaid school bill she needs help with.” But she pulled out the certificate she received from a group called “Women to Women” when she learned to dye cloth. She just wanted to show it to me. A bit later I kind of brought the conversation to a close and she left. I still think she had me confused with someone else. Will she come back? What a strange encounter.
Pleasant morning walk with Laurent through down town to the COPARE office. Good meeting, with three administration committee people there. Details of decisions in trip report. ***Request: help them find more partners/clients to compensate for decreased MCC funding. ***Remind Dave Pankratz of impact he made here. ***Would this be a good place for Leya and Tatiana to do a short-term assignment. Would like to hook them up with the dynamic Sifa on the ad.comm.
COPARE people had many stories of how “detractors” undermine their work: people/groups who don’t recognize that COPARE was at the base of their own work or trained them, etc. Long list of woes. When I suggested our new relationship with COPARE could be more like that other donors, responding to project requests or contracting with them for specific tasks, Mme. Sifa said YES, that’s the way it should be. Laurent said they could probably work that way except that they need the certainty that they can pay their rent. Their office is in an excellent location near downtown, and has constant electricity (it went out for about an hour while I was there), which they need because they work night and day. They seem terribly afraid that we will not work with them anymore, that, like the other “detractors,” we will leave them and claim our own fame.
Every time I’m with Laurent I have to listen to long, loving accounts of how wonderful it was when Fidele and Krista were here (ten years ago), how the money and relief aid flowed, how important COPARE was in the whole peace/justice arena then. I tried to present Menno-Paix as building on MCC’s long-term relationships in the Kivus: ECC and COPARE, hoping that these two institutions will provide the strong base for development of MCC’s new presence here. COPARE does not like ECC and began to complain: Why would MCC give so much to support ECC and cut back on our support for COPARE? I reminded them that so far all our funds to ECC have been from FDMR, strictly designated only for relief to IDP’s. ECC gets only the usual 5 to 10% for administrative support from these grants; we provide no other support. And that is just what we are asking COPARE to do: submit grants to a variety of donor agencies, including but not only MCC, and support their office through the administration lines of those projects.
“That’s right!” said Mme. Sifa, who runs a women’s organization. “We are not handicapped people. We can pay our own bills!” Laurent looked annoyed at that comment. COPARE has just landed a $24,000 PNUD project to do conciliation (?) training. Laurent was reluctant to let me see the protocol, but when I saw it I pointed out that they are getting quite a few thousand $ for admin. expenses, a new photocopy machine and computer, lots of office supplies, four months of salary for L, and a variety of other benefits. It amused me that the first half of the grant which we sent to COPARE this year was used to pay the full year’s rent, the full year’s salary of Pierre to his family, all the $ budgeted for office supplies for the whole year, etc., leaving only remaining salaries and $ for the two projects which are not yet done but will now, they say, become part of the PNUD project. Hmmmm. . . .
After a lot of discussion, hand-wringing, and many amazing success stories about COPARE’s work, we agreed on plans for next year. (Report)
As we began to talk more about the political situation, Laurent closed the door and told his interpretation of what is going on: The international community and President Kabila have decided that eastern Congo should be controlled by people (Tutsi) from Rwanda. It will still be Congo but Rwandans will be in control and will teach “good governance.” President Obama has approved this plan, saying only that somehow the fighting and atrocities must stop. So the question is: Why then is the DRC government including Hutu soldiers in their unpaid national army and sending them to chase the FDLR? Is the idea to create such chaos that the Rwandan army will have to intervene and mop things up? The FDLR people have lived relatively peacefully with people in the Mwenga and Shabunda territories which are now being disrupted. The FDLR controlled the mines in the area, and people got used to their little roadblocks and arrogant ways. Perhaps once the FDLR are chased into the forest, Rwandan-backed troops will move in, MONUC will move with them and the east will be dominated by groups which support Rwanda. Kabila will get his cut, the international community can continue to denigrate Congo and praise Rwanda, and the minerals will continue to flow out without Congolese control/benefit: in effect, the balkanization of Congo without changing borders.
About noon Dismas and Flory suddenly arrived, saying there were a lot of new IDP arrivals at the Tchai church (CEPAC) which is near the neighborhood we visited yesterday. So we went off again through the crowded, dusty streets, full of activity, color, extreme poverty, all overlaid with a coat of red dust. The church is built at the top of an incline which once must have had steps but now is an eroded entryway. We turned in and saw hundreds and hundreds of people on all the steps, ledges, in every possible spot. All ages, men and women (especially women; it seemed they had put on their best clothes), crowded, quiet, waiting. We made our way through the crowd to the dark little church office. I couldn’t understand much of anything. We had thought they were all people who were just arriving because there were reports of fighting in Mwenga area. But I didn’t see any baggage and they looked too well dressed and rested to have just arrived. So I asked a few more questions and my growing apprehension was confirmed: most of them were people who heard from people we visited yesterday that a “Mme. Suzanne” had come to bring food and supplies, so they had all come to the church to get whatever it was, and someone had called ECC to come quickly and deliver.
That church is, in fact, the place where many newly arrived IDP’s are registered, and D and F took the lists they had prepared so far to add to the lists we received yesterday. That huge crowd stood outside quietly waiting in the sun, row after row after row of hungry people. D said I should give some kind of “word of comfort” but I refused and said he must talk to them and explain what the ECC is trying to do to help them. So we stood outside and he talked to them.
I think we were all three of us quite overwhelmed by what we had gotten into. The pastor of the church was very nice and understanding. It will probably be through this church that the FDMR aid will be distributed. But it will get to only a few of the people who were there. The money available will provide food, blankets, mosquito nets, soap and medical care for people considered the most vulnerable (babies, pregnant and lactating mothers, elderly, handicapped, child heads of households). Everyone looked very sad as we left, many were patting their stomachs, a few had their hands extended pitifully. Bummer. But, oh my goodness, they could have been terribly angry, could have shown great dissatisfaction as we left in our car, moving slowly through the crowd, leaving them all behind. No one said a word all the way back to the office.
We all worked quietly on the proposal. (Photo 464: Flory reading Seeking Peace, Dismas at computer) After a while I bought everyone cold drinks and went back to my room for a bite to eat, to catch up on notes, and to rest my eyes from all the powerful images. Then back to the office to wait for the proposal to be completed so we can discuss before I leave. They are also getting ready for visits from a World Council of Churches delegation tomorrow and ACT Geneva on Saturday. So MCC is pretty small fry but they are treating me like an important player. I think they like the “responsive informality with personal accountability” style of working with MCC.
Finally we sat down all together and worked with the budget till it fit the requirements; took great pleasure in giving only 7% to ECC Kinshasa. Tomorrow morning they hope to have everything ready on my flash drive.
Laurent came by and we walked to Mama Kindja restaurant; very local, on a steep hillside, a big conglomeration of rooms and cubbyholes and shaded areas. Three of the administration committee joined us. We had fish (as usual, the whole thing with the eye staring sadly up at me) and plantain bananas; ate everything with our hands. They come around with warm water and soap before and after eating. Very nice. It felt funny to be sitting with four men in this busy, quirky restaurant, but it was fun. There were long accolades about Amy Erickson throughout the evening; she often met with them there.
They talked more about the reasons for the violence and confusion in eastern Congo. In general, for them the bottom line is that if the FDLR could be peacefully disarmed things would get back to normal. Everyone could focus on resettlement. That won’t happen unless all the minerals under the soil magically disappear, which is what I sometimes pray for. In the end, I can never make sense of it all, understand enough to sort it all out; and I get the impression that almost everyone else feels the same way but can’t admit it.
Laurent talked a bit about hiring someone to replace Pierre Zihindula (who died a few weeks ago very unexpectedly). I said that was up to them -- if they can afford it with income generated from their activities. He also wants Pastor Mbuyi to get more training in peacebuilding. I suggested Pastor Mbuyi attend Great Lakes Peace Seminar in Burundi. ***Pst Mbuyi to API/WAPI?
They all walked me home through the rocky streets in the dark under a gorgeous moon with chilly wind blowing. Lace hankies sent back to Lauent’s wife and Pierre’s widow. Pastor Mbuyi was at the guest house to visit for a while; still can’t understand why MCC can’t support the church more. Lace hanky sent to Mme. Talked by phone with Anicka in Kahemba, Rose and Chris on Bair Lane. Siggy stopped by for a brief chat. Big, long day.
0 comments:
Post a Comment