October 2011
2 posts
John Fishel - Looking Back on Congo
It has been almost two years since my last visit to Africa. Traveling a second time with Jewish World Watch has been something I looked forward to doing since 2009. Having been involved with the organization almost since the beginning has been a privilege. During the past two weeks I have pondered what I could write that would be meaningful and express why I believe support of the organization...
Ben's amazing photos of the journey... →
September 2011
33 posts
Janice Kamenir-Reznik- Coming Home: A New Year, A...
I am exhausted, having just completed the two day journey from Congo back to Los Angeles. My heart and mind are full of the people we met. The images of the women in the village welcoming us with joyful song and dance parade through my thoughts, as do the women laying in their hospital beds trying to recover from their fistula surgeries.
I see the courtyard full of orphans and abandoned...
Jewish World Watch- Thoughts on Our Journey
This journey to the Congo has not been easy. Not physically. Not mentally. And certainly not emotionally. There is so much to be done, it becomes overwhelming. I can understand the burnout that occurs among relief workers, and NGOs. Sustaining oneself during this process is as important as caring for others, and few really develop the staying power to last over years. It’s tough. Really...
Pascal Bashombama- Thank You JWW and Together We...
At around 7:00 pm on September 13th, I was at the airport in Kigali. I had driven there from my home in Goma, DRC to wait for the people I had never seen but had heard about. Suddenly a lady came up to me because I had a logo of JWW on a piece of paper I was holding. She said “You should be Pascal” with a smile on her face; the whole JWW team was behind her.
We introduced ourselves...
Stephanie Liss- Bukavu
Child Soldiers - Another woman’s perspective…
“… Are you mother…?”, he asked me, as he moved his arms across his chest as though rocking a baby. There were six boys together, and each of them called out to me, “ mother…?” Sadly, I told them ,”No. I am not.” And as sad as I was to say those words, even sadder were they to hear them. “Mother,” was a word they had not spoken in a very long...
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Diana Buckhantz - Praying With Our Feet
We are on our way home. It has been an amazing trip. Throughout this trip, we have discussed the complexity of the problems here. It does seem as though Congo is in a better place than when we were her last time. It seems that there is less conflict although it is by no means over. The conversations between ourselves and with the organizations we have met revolve more around the evolution of the...
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Benjamin Arnow - Change Is In The Air
Tonight we fly home. Over the past two weeks I have heard so many stories of unimaginable pain and suffering from the people of Congo. I have also seen an incredible strength and determination to make things better. As a member and supporter of JWW for the past few years, this trip was an opportunity for me to put a face on the stories I had heard from afar. From the comfort of home. A chance to...
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Diana Buckhantz - It's Hard Being A Mother In...
It’s hard to be a mother in Congo. If you have a daughter, you live with a constant threat that she may be raped. If you have a son, you worry that he may be kidnapped by the army or one of the militias and turned into a child soldier. All mothers everywhere worry about being able to feed their children or having the ability to send them to school but mothers here have worries we can not...
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Diana Buckhantz - Reporting From Bukavu
Faraja is 22 years old. She is petite with haunting dark eyes and a quiet demeanor. She speaks softly so I have to strain to hear her. Looking at her, she appears to me to be somewhat timid. I could almost imagine that she is another victim of the conflict in Congo. But when she speaks, I understand why she is here. “I have always wanted to be a journalist. Even as a young girl, I would...
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Stephanie Liss - Rape Ward
We know of the rapes and the horrible acts of sexual violence against the women and children here in the Congo, but knowing of it is one thing – to bear witness to the aftermath is quite another. Even though we are at the end of this part of our journey together, I understand that we are here not only to help and to offer comfort and solace, but to bear witness to these crimes. As sister...
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Janice Kamenir-Reznik: What Are We To Do?
Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that I am not often at a loss for words. But this week, having sat face to face with more than 100 boys, aged 8-18, who had been liberated from various Congolese militias within the past 90 days, and indeed, I am speechless. “I was on my way home from school when the Mai Mai fighters jumped out of the bushes, grabbed me and carried me deep...
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Benjamin Arnow - Waking Up
It’s 5am in Bukavu and the sun is just starting to rise over Lake Kivu. There it is again, that body of water stretching far into the distance, sitting quietly. Today is our last day in Bukavu and tomorrow we take the fast boat back to Goma where we will cross the border back into Rwanda to spend a few more days. I woke up this morning with lots of thoughts spinning around. There has been a...
8 tags
Stephanie Liss - The Prison
We have seen the women, and we have heard their stories. At times it has been enough to simply feel the depth of pain in their eyes, and as I share these moments with them, I wonder – “ Who are these men who have so little regard for the life of a woman? For the life of a child? What would I feel if I were to look into their eyes, and what would I see…? These questions were frightening to me...
Janice Kamenir-Reznik - Dreaming
The after school program, Generation Hope, organized by the most amazing Mama Esther Ntoto, buoyed my spirits and filled me with optimism about the possibilities for Congo’s future.
We walked into a large tent in which 140 children of all ages sat on chairs as they participated in an uber-animated game of Scattergories…in English! Generation Hope-Future Leaders of Congo provides...
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DAYS 5 and 6:
We’ve entered Goma Prison, gone on site visits to programs in villages outside the city, interviewed a former child soldier and a young woman who was a victim of sexual violence when her village was attacked, taken the fast boat to Bukavu, done site visits at 3 different villages in the hills surrounding this city on the southern end of Lake Kivu, visited the General Hospital and seen 2...
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Diana Buckhantz - IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LIFE!...
It is 8AM as we enter the men’s prison in Goma, a massive concrete structure towering over the stone and cardboard huts that make up the city. The stench is overpowering as we cross the threshold. We are ushered into the courtyard and led to a row of seats in the middle of 1200 prisoners. The scene is virtually indescribable. We are surrounded by men, many of whom perpetrate the sexual...
Stephanie Liss - Sister Africa, Sister Jew
Africa… There is a feeling in the air unlike any other on this earth – places where it feels as though with every breath, you are standing at the very beginning of creation. The beginning of time… Africa… The land rich, fertile, green, and at its core is the soul of its people. They drive the land. Beautiful people. Gracious people. Gracious children, gracious women, for when they look at...
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Fred Kramer - Congo, kangaroo free.
During a discussion when we first met, my beloved girlfriend referred to me as “cross-armed kangaroo”, her way of describing a habit I’ve harbored of closing myself off to certain ideas and potential truths.
Each time I arrive in Africa, I’m forced to wrestle with the fact that humanity here feels different from what I know of it. The kinks of being, at first seem more apparent here.
We ride...
11 tags
Benjamin Arnow - The Lake and Beyond
Here I am again sitting on beautiful Lake Kivu staring out at the water. It is our last day in Goma and tomorrow morning we take a fast boat to Bukavu. It rained hard last night, roads are flooded, but all seems still and peaceful now, at least from where I sit. Not the case all around me. Trying to make sense of it all. The surrounding pain, suffering and loss exists on a scale that is hard to...
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Janice Kamenir-Reznik - Shabbat like no other
It is Shabbat in Goma. A Shabbat like no other…
Today we visited the rape ward at Heal Africa. As we entered, we saw 20 women and girls—14 to 60 years old—laying flat on their backs attached to buckets at the base of their beds by a rubber tube. The stench of the fluids leaving their bodies was potent. As we entered, the mood was profoundly somber.
We began to offer words of prayer, as is...
Diana Buckhantz - Children forgotten
The building has no electricity and no running water but for the 157 homeless young people ages 10-18 who come here to learn carpentry, sewing and mechanics or just get away from the street this is a place of hope — a place to put aside the events that took away their childhoods and left them with little more than scars.
CAMME (The Center to Help Exploited Youth) was started in 2007...
Benjamin Arnow -
Upon our arrival in Kigali, Rwanda on Tuesday I was immediately struck by its incredible beauty. Rolling tiered hillsides, lush landscapes and expansive views. A place like none I had ever seen. The following night we crossed the Congo border in darkness. We had finally made it. I woke up the next morning in Goma and looked out my window to see Lake Kivu for the first time in daylight. Absolutely...
Diana Buckhantz - All the Little Children, Kigali,...
I walked down a damp, narrow, stone staircase. I was not certain what I was about to witness but it felt like a I was descending in to hell. In a sense I was. Down the stairs was a narrow hall filled with the skulls and bones of some of the more than 5000 people murdered in 1996 in this church in Rwanda — Tutsis who had sought refuge in this church, believing that they would be safe...
Janice Kamenir-Reznik
Today we visited JWW funded Safe Motherhood Project. As it was described to us back in 2009, the goal of Safe Motherhood was to empower women by providing them with collectively owned land to farm; the profits from the harvest would be used by the women to enable access to fistula repair surgery for those who have been the victims of violence, and to enable access to pre natal care so as to...
DAY 3:
Africa - an amazing, Congolese run health center and community builder, then a long trip through stunning countryside along Lake Kivu to Kirotche to visit JWW funded Safe Motherhood project, helping mothers to get well and build lives after surviving unthinkable trauma. Life is difficult here, but these Mamas are magnificent in their resilience, their faith and their love of family and community.
DAY TWO:
Kigali, memorials and long ride to Goma,
Democratic Republic of Congo. Today we toured the small churches at Nyamata
and Ntarama where a spree of violence during the 1994 genocide resulted in
more than 10,
000 murders of those seeking refuge. We also toured the Memorial Museum in
Kigali, Rwanda’s (beautiful) capital city. More to follow…
DAY ONE:
We’ve made it to Kigali, Rwanda and everyone’s safe and sound. Tomorrow we’ll travel through Rwanda to Goma, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and really get started. Please, follow along…
A little background...
Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) five-year war officially ended in 2003, but the country is still regularly listed as the site of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Congo should be rich from its gold, diamonds and minerals, yet millions of its people suffer from a lethal combination of disease and hunger caused by ongoing conflict and...
Hineni
…and so, our intrepid crew has landed in Kigali, Rwanda. Tomorrow we will travel to Goma, just across the Rwandan border. Janice, Fred, Diana, Ben, Stephanie and John are all in fine shape following the long flight and looking forward to our mission. We hope you’ll follow along.
