Day 5

So it seems that I may still be a little nervous about being here.  Last night, walking back to our room from the sitting area our hotel, I came around a corner, saw something unexpected and jumped. Turned out it was my shadow cast against a wall. I guess I am afraid if my own shadow.

We are doing everything right. We are taking our Malaria pills, keeping the deet on, watching what we eat, although we are starting to get a little adventurous.  We are actually considering buying a live goat to bring to out hotel cook to slaughter and cook for everyone. Apparently it is the best meat, according to a dutch gentleman at our hotel.  We are staying at Chateau/Compound hosted by Dr Joe, one of the world renowned doctors who specializes in surgeries and rehabilitation for rape victims here in the Congo. We have dinner with him and other guest here at night. He is an amazing man with a very warm and friendly personality. Some of the other guest are amazing, too. We just met a girl staying here from Belgium that is working with the EU, going around to the battle grounds throughout Congo and picking up shell casings and spent bullets and then doing the forensics in them to determine the guns and trace them back from manufacturing through its entire distribution to determine how they got here.  Amazing.

The interviews we had today included a number of heart wrenching stories. Please excuse the graphic nature, but I believe it is essential to the understanding  One was a young man who told us of seeing his father being shot and killed, and the image of his body falling back and landing on the ground is one that never leaves him.  He also described his two older brother that were held in the streets by rebels. They systematically chopped off their arms with machetes, then their legs and finally their heads. He described the trauma of carrying his brothers bodies from the street, at age seven.  We also spoke with a girl who was raped by a number of rebel soldiers left unconscious after the event, she woke up in the hospital and require multiple surgeries over numerous months. The damage that these men did to her is just beyond any level of evil one could imagine. 

I have been writing sentences and erasing then for about an hour now and can't seem to either put the right words together nor keep from tearing up, so I will move on to easier topics.

Tomorrow we are going to Dr Joe's hospital where he treats the victims of the rapes. We are beginning with a devotion that he leads with the women. We will also be going to some of the schools of the kids we interviewed.

We just found out we were granted a pretty tough to get interview with a very influential person. So, on Wednesday we need to take a 3 hour speedboat ride across the lake to meet with him. This will take a day out of our schedule, but well worth it. A great opportunity we just can't miss. 

To bed for now and then back to work early tomorrow.