I am on the first leg of our very long voyage back to Eastern Congo. Another Jewish World Watch board member and dear friend, Diane Kabat, and I are flying from Los Angeles to Amsterdam and then from Amsterdam to Kigali, Rwanda. It will take us almost 24 hours to get to Kigali. There we…
It has been a long, exhausting and thought-provoking two days of meetings here in N’djamena. We have been meeting with Cord, our implementing partner in the Solar Cooker Project (SCP) in the Farchana refugee camp, as well as with Tchad Solaire, our partner in the Iridimi, Touloum and Oure Cassoni camps. We were also formally…
Suddenly we are surrounded by a sea of children. As we stand there they begin to form a circle around us and move in closer and closer.
Janice and I came outside after seeing an impressive women’s sewing collective. We are in a remote village called Kamisimbi, two hours outside of Bukavu in the hills. We…
I don’t sleep here, even with sleeping pills. I wake up after a few hours, images of the day racing through my head, trying to make sense of all I have witnessed and heard. This morning I got up at 4 am. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I preferred to get up and busy…
I thought it couldn’t get worse. Yesterday listening to Renee and Sabine tell the stories of their rapes I felt my heart begin to splinter. But today my heart was shattered. Today we visited one of the last remaining IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps where 3500 refugees live – men, women and children who are…
I was haunted by their faces. Renee with deep scars carved into what was once a beautiful face, eyes with a depth of sorrow I had never before witnessed and hands pink where her flesh was burned off. When the Interahamwe came, they burned her house after seven men raped her. She ran back inside…
Congo is unlike anything I have experienced. I can barely process what I have seen and heard today. The poverty and desolation are unimaginable. There is such a waste of human potential.
As we drive through plush verdant fields and towering mountains on our way to Kigali and the Congo border, we pass men, women and children walking and riding bicycles. The scenery is spectacular. Children wave with bright smiles. The women carry baskets and packages on their heads. Life seems easy, slow, peaceful. This scene is…
I am a public relations consultant and as such I am always the one pitching the story. I am much more comfortable to stand in the background or sit on the sidelines promoting the good work and adventures of others. It is strange to think that this time I am part of the story itself.