By all accounts I shouldn’t be making this trip. My mother keeps tracking me down to tell me that she is “opposed” to it, my father sent me several emails reminding me that “Congo is not Cancun” (thanks for the reminder, Dad), and therefore, perhaps I should reconsider. But most importantly, most pressingly — perhaps I shouldn’t be making this trip because I have a five and a half month old daughter at home.
Will Lena miss me? Will she cry in the middle of the night and I won’t be there? She has her Daddy, who she obviously loves, but will she still somehow know that I’m gone? Worse yet, what if she doesn’t miss me? What if she has a fabulous time and has no idea who I am when I get home in two weeks?
Everyone I talk to asks the same thing: But what about Lena? And I only have one answer — that it’s because of Lena that I’m going. Since I had Lena, the women and children of Congo, the mothers and the daughters — they are even less of an abstraction to me. That they are suffering keeps me up at night even when Lena is (miraculously) sleeping. That Lena, by sheer circumstance of birth, is not at daily risk is a treasure — but that the Congolese are subject to constant threat is a stain on all of us. Congo has unbelievable potential to be a peaceful and strong country — in the strength of its people, the depth of its culture, the richness of its resources. I look forward to someday telling Lena that I did everything I could do to help — that our family does not stand idly by.