Muzungu! Muzungu!

Today was an eventfull day, and I’ll do my very best to cover the highlights, but they were many and not very far between.
Anthony picked me up around 6 am this morning and together we drove through the mist that I’ve learned is typical for this part of Africa and into the jungle-covered mountains of Nord-Kivu.
We were heading towards Kichanga. A small town about 5 hours drive north from Goma, through some of the most stunning landscape and treacherous road I have ever encountered.
Kichanga is the town where the notorious warlord Laurent Nkunda and his army, the CNPD had their headquarters before Nkundas arrest in March this year, and it is one of the areas of Congo where rape and violence remains most endemic.
For the first time I felt that I was entering a warzone.
We were enroute to visit a transitcenter for female victims of rape. There they would be examined and it would be determined whether or not they would need surgical aid at Keyshero in Goma.
Kichanga is basically a giant village. The roads are dirttracks and the houses are little more than huts.
Approaching the center, a small, white wooden house just off Kichangas main road, I realized that the women there had been alerted to our arrival.
Greeting us where around 20 women, dressed In what I had previously assumed were festve garments, but having spent a few days in the Congo now realize is merely the Congolese woman’s impeccable sense of dress, and singing a song of welcome. Over and over they chanted “Karibou!”, which Anthony told me means “You are most welcome”. It was an experience not easily forgotten.
The transit center functions as a transitcenter, but it’s main function is that of a counselinghouse for victims of rape. Since they started in 2002 they have had thousands of women come through their doors, and have been able to return most of them to their communities. Not a small feat.
I had the honour of meeting all the women there, and was trusted with their fates. Some women had been there as many as three times. Sometimes having barely made it home before they were savagely raped again.
But once again what struck me about their stories, and what remains with me tonight, is not the horror of their fate, but how these women, who have been so degraded and so hurt have lost none of their dignity and femininity. They are truly to be admired.
I wandered around Kichanga for a while. The streets were filled with people and there was obviously some sort of celebration in the making. Someone told me that the chief on the Congolese army was visiting, and the town had prepared a parade. The army was out in force, and I was astounded by the sheer size of the weapons the young boys were brandishing. What also struck me as slightly odd, was the fact that the soldiers protecting the escort, the ones patrolling the street, were not armed with pistols, as one might expect, or even assaultrifles. For some tactical reason unbeknownst to me, it had obviously been decided that the efficient weapon for keeping a crowd at bay are rocketlaunchers. Hundreds of people cheering with a dozen or so RPGs pointed directly at them at virtually point blank range was truly a bizarre sight.
When I returned to the center, they had prepared a fiest for us with exquisite Congolese food. After dinner, I was presented with my departinggift. A rather large plate of fresh fish, and a very much alive goat. Needless to say I was taken aback, and thought for a moment that it was all a joke. It wasn’t, and the hapless goat was loaded into our car. It is currently patrolling the courtyard of Hope In Action.
It turns out a good goat is worth about $100, and can provide a family with a livelihood for an entire year. Needless to say, the gesture made by these women was titanic, and I know of no way I can ever repay them.