Alissa Everett Photography

May is here and it is time.  I will be holding workshops with Abigail Disney and Leymah Gbowee, from Pray the Devil Back to Hell.  From seeing the film a year ago, proposing to Abby that we bring the film to eastern DRC, meeting with women leaders and holding preliminary screenings to see if the atmosphere was right, we are finally at holding workshops, strategy sessions really, with women leaders, activists, female politicians, police, army, humanitarians and journalists in Goma, Bukavu and Kinshasa.

If you don’t know this film you should.  Click here for the trailer - Pray the Devil Back to Hell

It is a powerful, important documentary piece, not only on an under-reported women’s movement, but it is one of the first pieces of its kind to shine a true light on African women.  Most media portray African women as victims, suffering, illiterate, dirty, barefoot, pregnant with a bucket of water on her head.  This film shows the other African women, the intelligent, articulate, groomed women who are up to something in the world.  These are true faces of African women with spirit, dimension, dignity and pride.  They are strong and very able.

Me with Goma ladies from the “Voices of Peace” workshop.

Despite my exhaustion after traveling some 48 hours, I head straight to the HEAL office where my meetings begin.  Freddy, the guardian at the front gate greets me in his wife-beater from behind his mirrored sunglasses.  At first glimpse of his shaved head and building muscles, one wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, but then he breaks out in a smile, or maybe a handstand on his crutches and he remains forever seared in one’s memory.  HEAL Africa  is beginning to feel more like home than either New York  or LA.  Many of the HEAL staff are now friends, greeting me with surprised smiles, kisses and “when did you return?”  or more telling,  “were you traveling?”

Mama Virginie is the matriarch of HEAL Africa and my ally in contacting my invitees, ensuring their attendance and the proper protocol for the workshop.  Not only does she hold a full time job at HEAL, but she is a widow, an active participant in her church, cares for five children, and created AMAVESA, an organization to help widows in Goma.  Such are the women of the Congo.

Mama Virgine at the “Voices of Peace”  Goma workshop.

11am and I am crossing the border from Rwanda into eastern DRC again.  Faces are familiar and I joke about the constantly changing border policy with the woman who checks my passport.  This time my $35 buys me a 7 day visa for Goma alone, stamped into my passport.

The border activity seems to pick up on each crossing, more women with merchandise moving to and fro, more foreigners without NGO affiliation speaking little French.. are tourists really coming to Goma?

The town is safe now, save for the growing number of homeless youth pickpocketing on the streets.  Growing and changing, Goma is developing and modernizing.  Civil war in the rural areas or not, the West is coming.  Supermarkets have more products, new restaurants are opening and even a brand new club complete with swimming pool, day beds for lounging, two DJ booths, a restaurant and a bar.  The goal is outdoor day club parties by this summer.

The driver from HEAL Africa picks me up, he brings my letter of invitation and procedures move smoothly.  My first visit a distant memory of being stranded at the border after dark, having to be saved by Jo Lusi (HEAL Africa’s founder) in scrubs straight from the operating room.

Rather it is sunny and bright, and I am back for the next stage of my “Voices of Peace” project, the workshops.  Workshops on women in peace-building with my carefully cultivated women leaders from each sector of society.  We will have 30 women leaders in each Goma, Bukavu and Kinshasa, ministers, national assembly members, journalists, heads of religious associations, students, police, military, civil society and activists.

The women are coming together to watch the film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, and spend a day and a half with its star, the Liberian peace activist, Leymah Gbowee, and its producer, Abigail Disney.  The goals of the workshops are to provide a platform for conversation between women leaders, facilitate their creating unified goals of the women of the Congo that take them out of their divisions, and finally a strategy to fulfill them.

Congolese women marching in the rain on International Women’s Day. Goma, DRC. March 8, 2010.

Congolese women marching in with anti-sexual violence signs on International Women’s Day. Goma, DRC. March 8, 2010

Congolese women marching on International Women’s Day. Goma, DRC. March 8, 2010

International Women’s Day in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a big deal.  The eastern part of the country virtually shuts down, NGOs prepare, and Congolese women mobilize to celebrate their official day.  Huge parades are planned and women from all around descend on the town.

In Goma, the main roads were blocked off by 7:30am, yellow-bibbed traffic police whistling and giving directions, women in their brand new Congolese panges made their way to meeting points for the march.  The women identify themselves in groups, workplaces, associations, political parties, etc. and each group purchases matching fabric so that their members can have a tailor make a unique, but matching African outfit.

I arrived just a day prior to the event and was invited to march with HEAL Africa.  One of the mamas handed me a weighty stack of bright yellow, orange and gold fabric and pointed me the direction of Healing Arts, HEAL Africa’s sewing project for women at the hospital for treatment, to have my outfit made.  The head seamstress, Anne Marie, smiled as she took my measurements and promised she would have an outfit for me by the morning…

And in the morning, there it was, a tailor made top which fit perfectly and a large piece of cloth to wrap into a skirt locals call a pagne.  African clothes are beautiful and regal with bright joyous colors and swaths of fabric.  Stunning on dark African skin (for who haven’t tried them), they are mediocre at best on us pale white Westerners.  This year’s vibrant yellow, orange and gold left me looking a bit jaundice, but the women loved it, so off I went and joined the parade.

A thundering crack shakes me out of my bed.  The black sky flashes with light, a rumble and another crack, so loud, my heart races.  A cool breeze rushes in, the metal door frames and single paned glass designed for hotter climes.  I curl up in my mosquito net, under my single blanket wishing for warmer clothes listening to the rain pounding down and waves splash on the shores of Lake Kivu.

I’m trying to sleep, but jet lag has the best of me and I watch the storm through the night.

Tomorrow is International Women’s Day and I am invited to march with the women of HEAL Africa.  After will be my first screening of Pray the Devil Back to Hell to the female HEAL staff.  I’m honored and inspired to be showing it on their day of celebration.

The Women

Women in Eastern DRC are organized.  There local, Congolose-based organizations working in almost every aspect of society, assisting war victims, rape victims, orphans, widows, street children, people living with AIDS, and the handicapped.  They provide health assistance, legal advise, rape counseling, agricultural projects, small business training and loans.  They are further organized in associations of organizations and each of these host activities, including demonstrations and marches, protesting sexual violence and the war.

Sometimes, these organizations and associations communicate.  Sometimes, they do not.  It is in this sheer number of organizations and redundant efforts where lies one of their greatest weaknesses.

My meetings are focused on the leaders of these organizations and associations.  I am learning from their experiences and to ask their thoughts, advice and assistance.  Each are powerful women, intelligent, dynamic, engaged and enthusiastic.

Each and every person immediately sees the potential of screening a film telling the history of women in a similar situation to the one here in the Congo realizing their power, rising up, taking a stand, and changing their situation.

Many of these groups have been mobilizing groups of women for years, demonstrations and marches on key dates such as International Women’s Day, yet nothing has been long-lasting.  When asked why, the women tell me that they are divided.  Too many different organizations working toward similar goals, divided by ethnicity, power struggles, financial gain, etc……

Society is divided in the Congo.  From the village level to the upper reaches of politics.  Division has been a primary tactic of those waging war against the population.  Keep them divided and keep them powerless.

Rape is their primary tool.  Rape a woman and she becomes an outcast.  Rape a woman and her emasculated husband becomes a cuckold.  Rape a woman, her husband leaves.  Families are broken, women are subjected, men are disempowered. The very fabric of African society is now torn.  Women have to focus on feeding their children, men on struggling to find something to do to make them feel like a man again.  No one has time to complain, to organize, to get angry.  Everyone is trying to survive.

2pm on a Saturday afternoon in Goma.  Sitting at the Hotel Nyira with one of the city’s most reliable internet connection and a decent cappuccino listening to Barbara Streisand.  The rain and the generator simultaneously begin.  Rain drops pelting on the leaves of my luscious surroundings, a low hum of a motor, a lone chirping bird and occasional roar of a UN plane flying overhead.

I’m on a short break between meetings.  The days are busy, hardly a spare moment to breathe, let alone write.  Phone calls, meetings, women leaders, international NGOs, journalists, activists, MONUC (the highly debated UN peacekeeping force in Eastern Congo), the momentum grows.

On the surface, screening a film in Eastern DRC is logistically challenging, but relatively straightforward and innocent.  This film, however, is the uplifting and inspirational story of a broad-based civil movement.  If it has the impact I think it might, it could provide the catalyst for one here.

The timing is good.  Women in the Eastern region of the Democratic Republic are tired.  After 15 years of civil war, over 6 million dead and hundreds of thousands of women raped.  They are tired.  Tired of the rape, abuse, torture, murder.  Tired of being unable to provide food for their children.  Tired of the violence.  Tired of the war.  And ready for change.

I apologize in advance for the delayed uploading of these posts… between meetings, travel, exhaustion and incredibly slow internet connections I didn’t keep up.  Here are a few images and some words… let me know your thoughts.

Life in the DRC

The border crossing is easier this time.  The bureaucrat behind the wooden desk smiling and friendly as he examines my papers - last time he almost sent me back to Rwanda.  The sun shines good luck on me, 8 days visa for only $35.  This too changes with our bureaucrat’s mood.

And I cross.  Congo beams as strongly as the African sun:   a guard with dapper, checkered loafers, women in bright colors, exuberant “bonjour and jambos,” potholed roads, thick with volcanic rock, motos honking, white LandRovers in traffic, dust, chaos, the Democratic Republic of Congo.  The country is not polished, it is not controlled, it is lawless in many senses, rife with heinous criminal acts and civil war; yet the Congo is alive.  It is a living, breathing being that refuses to submit, refuses to be destroyed and is determined to survive.  And for this I have returned to the Congo.

I have returned to bring a film.  Abby Disney’s brilliant film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, about the Liberian civil war.  In 112 minutes, she tells of unknown heros.  Of common women who are fed up with a civil war, with the rape, the murder, and the chaos.  Fed up enough to act.  They demonstrate.  For four years, they demonstrate, growing in size, power and influence, they demand audience with warlords and with the former president himself and demand peace talks which lead to democratically held elections and the first female president in Africa.

The story inspired me, it created possibility.  And I knew it would create possibility in the women of the Congo as well.