On Saturday, an oil tanker exploded in Sange, a town just south of Bukavu in the South Kivu province of Eastern Congo. The BBC reports that 230 were killed — at least 60 were children. Nearly 200 others were injured, some burned severely. The situation is devastating: Many were killed in the fire that ensued,…
I returned home less than 40 hours ago. Images of Congo are still fresh in my mind: the children slaving in the Bunia goldmine, the rape victim who told us how her captors held her down in the field by driving a stake through her foot. I am driving to Wildwood school to report on our trip and our work. I am still jetlagged; still, in many ways, dazed from the dramatic contrast between my life and theirs. The images in my mind dance back and forth between the various people we met and the stories they told us. […]
It is ironic that one week ago I was standing at a gold mine in the very dangerous, remote Orientale Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ironic because today I am chaperoning my daughter’s 4th grade trip to Sacramento, our state capital, to learn about the history of our state, including the history of…