Fifty-some hours of travel back to the Congo after my whirlwind of a fun and intense “vacation” in Minneapolis, San Francisco and rural Minnesota. Eating food from all over the world with people, enjoying Caribou coffee, friends and family, jogging alone around the clean lakes by my old house. Paying over $4 for a simple coffee in the London airport.
My new coworker, Chelsie, and I arrive to Goma from Rwanda in a crazy thunderstorm, our taxi driver evading fallen trees on the road, driving through muddy fields to find an opening back to the main road, windshield wipers speeding like crazy to whisk away the torrential drops battering our car. We cross the no-man’s-land border by foot in the now sprinkling rain, pay a total of $4 to the four porter boys who are grateful for work in this weather and greet my border friends, flying through the paperwork for our visas without a problem. We wait tired and somewhat frustrated in the darkening evening by the border crossing for over 40 minutes until the driver arrives to take us home.
We pile in with about 8 other HEAL Africa staff into the vehicle, tossing our luggage inside. I am happy that I did not forget Swahili (as I feared) during the 3 weeks I was gone; instead, it’s almost as if it settled in. I catch up with the driver and some of my friends, all of us laughing and excited to see each other again. They update me on how Nkunda has been shelling the refugees in Masisi Center… my memories go back to the people I met there, the destituteness of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of lives compacted into a small geographical area.
I arrive home and am instantly inundated by guests’ needs. Practically hallucinating from exhaustion, I answer questions, concerns, collect rent payments and more until well after 9:30 that night, trying to shower and pass out before the lights are shut off. Sleep eluded me. I had been moved to another room during my vacation. I tried to calm my speeding thoughts as I sought sleep and readjustment to life in Goma yet again.
I leave my beautiful home by the lake, the morning sun glistening happily on the gentle waves by the flower garden. I drive over the lava rock and bumps, that familiar jostling of my body and feeling of dust invading my eyelids.
Joyous cries of “Cristina!” greet me as I walk past the smelly, bare-essentials transit center for fistula patients. They crowd around me, touching my clothes and my hair, “You are back! You were gone for so long. What is the news of your family?” They eagerly show me the scraps of African material they are sewing together into the body parts for the baby dolls at Healing Arts. “You know,” they tell me, “we are almost done with the order of 1,000 baby dolls. What will we sew after that?” I tell them of plans to make banana leaf jewelry and other items. The newer women that arrived during the time that I was gone eye me from afar. Their glazed-over eyes slowly warm up at the strange sight of a mzungu talking with them familiarly. They begin to laugh with me- and sometimes at me- along with the women who know me better. They like
to tell me, “You, we know you well.” They love to laugh at my attempts at expressing more complicated thoughts in Swahili, and giggle whenever I get any phrase right. “Cristina loves to dance!” they chuckle to each other whenever I shake to the music in the sewing room.
My heart is at peace again. “I love these women,” I think to myself, “I didn’t realize how much I would begin to see them as friends.” During the days that pass, we joke together, I hear their stories, learn more about their children back at home, their extreme poverty. We pray together and sing songs about Jesus with the pastor who stops by to greet them. Oddly enough, I feel comfortable, albeit the smells of smoke, urine and dirty babies with ringworm. Even as I write this update, I sit comfortable by the lake with the breeze and the slowly-setting sun gleaming gently on the water.
A week flies by between the ups and downs, stresses and joys, lack of sleep and exhausted rest, wealth and poverty, successes and challenges: I am back in Goma, and most of the time, it makes me smile.
My new coworker, Chelsie, and I arrive to Goma from Rwanda in a crazy thunderstorm, our taxi driver evading fallen trees on the road, driving through muddy fields to find an opening back to the main road, windshield wipers speeding like crazy to whisk away the torrential drops battering our car. We cross the no-man’s-land border by foot in the now sprinkling rain, pay a total of $4 to the four porter boys who are grateful for work in this weather and greet my border friends, flying through the paperwork for our visas without a problem. We wait tired and somewhat frustrated in the darkening evening by the border crossing for over 40 minutes until the driver arrives to take us home.
We pile in with about 8 other HEAL Africa staff into the vehicle, tossing our luggage inside. I am happy that I did not forget Swahili (as I feared) during the 3 weeks I was gone; instead, it’s almost as if it settled in. I catch up with the driver and some of my friends, all of us laughing and excited to see each other again. They update me on how Nkunda has been shelling the refugees in Masisi Center… my memories go back to the people I met there, the destituteness of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of lives compacted into a small geographical area.
I arrive home and am instantly inundated by guests’ needs. Practically hallucinating from exhaustion, I answer questions, concerns, collect rent payments and more until well after 9:30 that night, trying to shower and pass out before the lights are shut off. Sleep eluded me. I had been moved to another room during my vacation. I tried to calm my speeding thoughts as I sought sleep and readjustment to life in Goma yet again.
I leave my beautiful home by the lake, the morning sun glistening happily on the gentle waves by the flower garden. I drive over the lava rock and bumps, that familiar jostling of my body and feeling of dust invading my eyelids.
Joyous cries of “Cristina!” greet me as I walk past the smelly, bare-essentials transit center for fistula patients. They crowd around me, touching my clothes and my hair, “You are back! You were gone for so long. What is the news of your family?” They eagerly show me the scraps of African material they are sewing together into the body parts for the baby dolls at Healing Arts. “You know,” they tell me, “we are almost done with the order of 1,000 baby dolls. What will we sew after that?” I tell them of plans to make banana leaf jewelry and other items. The newer women that arrived during the time that I was gone eye me from afar. Their glazed-over eyes slowly warm up at the strange sight of a mzungu talking with them familiarly. They begin to laugh with me- and sometimes at me- along with the women who know me better. They like
to tell me, “You, we know you well.” They love to laugh at my attempts at expressing more complicated thoughts in Swahili, and giggle whenever I get any phrase right. “Cristina loves to dance!” they chuckle to each other whenever I shake to the music in the sewing room.My heart is at peace again. “I love these women,” I think to myself, “I didn’t realize how much I would begin to see them as friends.” During the days that pass, we joke together, I hear their stories, learn more about their children back at home, their extreme poverty. We pray together and sing songs about Jesus with the pastor who stops by to greet them. Oddly enough, I feel comfortable, albeit the smells of smoke, urine and dirty babies with ringworm. Even as I write this update, I sit comfortable by the lake with the breeze and the slowly-setting sun gleaming gently on the water.
A week flies by between the ups and downs, stresses and joys, lack of sleep and exhausted rest, wealth and poverty, successes and challenges: I am back in Goma, and most of the time, it makes me smile.
3 comments:
I love you biso
what a great blog cristina! I wish I could have spent more time with you when you were home. thanks for sharing that you made it back, send my love and prayers to Goma! Emily Schatzlein
Cristina, I'm so thankful for your love for the individual people of Congo. It's so important for all of us to read about people like
Eugenie and Evira (did I spell it right?) and the good things HA is able to do for them. Otherwise the struggles of the Congolese seem so overwhelming. . . where might one begin to do any good? So thank you for reminding us of the individual stories and for doing God's important work.
Joy (from the UR)
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