Meeting Congo.

Today, I met Anthony Musafiri, the Head Of Hope In Action. He works closely with L’Hopital Keyshero, a local hospital, on a program for female victims of sexualized violence, and had promised me a tour of the facilities. I felt apprehensive and nervous driving along the bumpy and dusty roads of Goma. I would soon be face to face with the Africa of countless newscasts and documentaries. I was worried how I might react, and I was worried about how the women would react to me.
The hospital was a series of squat buildings in a dirty field on the outskirts of the city. Like the rest of the Goma, the hospital looked like it didn’t belong there, and didn’t want to be there.
After finishing a brief interview with the chief of medicine, I was invited to the wards for victims of rape. The wards were located a stones throw away from the main compound, and comprised of two derelict buildings surrounded by dirt.
It is hard to describe when something so completely matches your preconceived ideas but yet so utterly smashes them. The rooms were dirty, dark and stuffy. Cast-iron beds were scattered around the room, and the small windows allowed hardly any light to enter.
Sitting on the beds were women and girls of every age. Some seemed to be around 70, and other can’t have been older than 15.
As I came in they all looked at me with slightly unsettling, piercing eyes. I realized that there was no way I could relate to these women. There was an unbridgeable chasm between us, and there was no common ground.
Suddenly the women started clapping. I still do not know why, but as they did their stern faces opened in smiles, and all at once I felt indescribably sad and elated at the same time.
For an hour I sat with them and took pictures of them. Many of them had their children with them, and some were even there with their husbands. At times I forgot why they were all there. They seemed genuinely happy to me, and I wondered how such happiness could be possible in someone who has encountered such boundless evil.
Now, as I look through the pictures from earlier, I notice that not a single one of them is smiling. It is as if the pictures were taken by someone else at a different and sadder time.
From my balcony in my hotelroom I ca see a boat going back and forth with it's speakers blaring James Brown's "I Feel Good".