A Thousand Sisters (9 page)

Inside, staff members abandon their lunch to enthusiastically embrace me. “So you are Lisa Shannon!” They ask about all manner of personal details: my home, my cats, the would-be wedding. They have translated hundreds of my letters, seen my photos countless times. A tall, full-figured lady says, “You tell your sister I say hello! We are both big ladies; I am her Congolese twin!”

I'm grateful for the warm reception, though headquarters in Washington made something clear. When staff members from headquarters visit offices in other countries, they stay no more than three days. No way will the staff host my five-and-a-half-week visit. The Congo office is slammed, short staffed. Christine was gracious enough to pick me up from the airport, give me access to their office for Internet use, and assign a staff member to arrange all my meetings with my sisters, which will not start for another week. Other than that, I'm on my own.

That's fine by me. I crack my Moleskine notebook open to my list of contacts, which is neatly printed in the back, a patchwork of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating here. Christine lends me a cell phone. I settle into the second-floor office with metal picture-frame windows that overlook Lake Kivu and spend the afternoon steadily working my way down my list: The International Rescue Committee, International Medical Corp, CARE, UNICEF, The Red Cross, Panzi Hospital, a child soldier center, and conservation groups. I contact all of them by email and phone, and I even leave the compound to make a couple of quick visits to the International Rescue Committee and International Medical Corp, escorted by Women
for Women's staff driver, moving from compound to nearby compound, as if they are secure islands.

Of the NGO's young, disaster-hopping expats, only half return my initial call or email. The remainder say hello, talk enthusiastically of the programs they would like to show me, then never return a call or email again. It will take weeks for me to get it. My credentials, or lack thereof, don't warrant their time. The Congolese on my list, however, all immediately arrange visits so that I can learn about their programs.

Christine interrupts my outreach efforts to introduce Hortense, a wild-haired single mom. Her big eyes, thin lips, and petite frame—though it is swallowed by her oversized office outfit—remind me of a woman in a Renaissance painting; she has a passionate, unmeasured manner. Christine glows as she describes Hortense. “She knows all of the women, every participant's story. She will arrange and accompany you on all of your meetings with sisters. She is very good, this one. I really must give her a promotion.”

 

THE ORCHID SAFARI CLUB has my reservation after all. In addition to being safe, the club's supposed to be the best people-watching spot in Bukavu. All of Eastern Congo's power players drift through: government officials, mining executives, aid workers, Ukrainian bush pilots, journalists, military commanders. On the way in, I notice a sign posted on the door: DEAR GUESTS, WE THANK YOU TO NOT COME INTO THE RESTAURANT WITH FIREARMS. THE MANAGER

Inside, framed botanical orchid prints hang off-kilter and mold creeps along their edges. A water buffalo head mounted above a stone fireplace overlooks the dining room, which is dressed with white tablecloths and semiformal place settings. French doors fold back, opening from the restaurant onto the terrace, where lounge chairs with views of the flowering gardens and Lake Kivu are scattered. Tribal African songs drift in from the hills, mingling with Orchid's ambient classical music.

A man in his mid-seventies lunches alone at one of the tables, looking
over some paperwork. He's the owner and, I imagine, the Last Belgian in Congo. He spends his days wandering around the terrace and restaurant, greeting guests and directing the Congolese staff. We exchange casual smiles. He says something in French that I don't understand. Because of the language barrier, I am never able speak with him.

But the rumors fly. I will collect bits and pieces about him—perhaps fact, perhaps urban legend. They say he was born to Belgian colonists on a plantation and has never married, but owned this place with his brother who died a few years ago. Rebels invaded the hotel once, and he hid with the staff above the guestroom ceilings. On another occasion, legend has it, he was shot in the foot and had to retreat to Belgium for nine months of medical care. They say the Rwanda-backed RCD militia once camped out at the hotel for a long stretch and still owe him US$60,000.

The Last Belgian seems to me a breathing museum piece, the last of his species, like Congo's answer to a Tennessee William's character or the tropical male equivalent of Scarlett O'Hara, haunting the halls of Tara. He seems to be playing the tragic leading role in the final stage production of a faded colonial dream, making his final stand in his small Orchid kingdom, ordering around Congolese staff members dressed in red oxfords, black pants, and bow ties. They radiate the stiff friendliness of obligation, though in private conversation with patrons they are rumored to admit they despise their employer. I would not guess it, even though their graciousness feels manufactured, as in, “Madame would like some tea?”

As for safety at Orchid, that apparently lies in the eye of the beholder. This evening, military commanders are in the house. Never mind the sign on the doorway; they've brought their girls and guns. I watch a commander, his uniform buttons straining with postmeal bloat, while three girls sit by him quietly, smiling and laughing on cue. This is the kind of place that allows the illusion of elegance or influence or power if the lights are low, visitors' eyes are squinted or don't scan the corners of the room, conversation is kept vague, and nobody asks too many questions.

The Orchid staffers show me to my room and give me a key, which, out of defiance or nostalgia, is still labeled ZAIRE. I dump my bag in the room, a nouveau Elizabethan safari cottage with a bold, flower-print bedspread in 1970s orange, green, and tan, along with Tudor-style wood accents, a dim light, and a slow fan. The bed's mosquito netting has tiny rips and tears. In the bathroom, the rim of the yellowed plastic tub is lined with peeling, mildewed caulking.

Christine picks me up and we stop at her home on the way to dinner. Though she is the country director of an international NGO, Christine lives in her childhood home while awaiting her wedding next month. I sit in the dim living room—though it's late January, there are Christmas decorations still in the corner—with her younger brothers and sisters and a six-year-old orphan with that unmistakably vacant, glazed Congo stare.

Christine has just convinced her family to take the boy in. He has suffered severe neglect and illness and has only been here a few days. The adults are in the next room while the other children are fixated on a Congolese TV show shot on low-end video, something about men breaking into a woman's home. I call the orphaned child over to me and he sits obediently, stone-faced, at my side. He doesn't move. He won't interact. I can't elicit a smile. He is a little island.

I don't notice that look again in Congo. Yet back in the United States, when I review my video footage, it will be there, in the eyes of nearly every person I interview.

 

CHRISTINE AND I APPROACH the guesthouse where Kelly is staying with her group tonight, located on Bukavu's main road, near the boarder. She invited us for dinner so we can hammer out the details for the remainder of our trip. After a draining day, I'm exhausted and desperate for the anchor of a travel buddy.

Kelly greets Christine and me at the guesthouse door, which has been left open and unlocked beyond an unguarded metal gate. The group's bags sit exposed in a bunkroom, with the door flung wide. I reach back and touch my camera bag, as though I could forget the twenty-five pound monster that will
stay glued on my back for the duration of my trip. Kelly fills me in on their journey so far. “Kinshasa was rough,” she says. “Very aggressive. Tons of people. But here, everyone is so mellow. It's pleasant, safe to walk around. . . .”

The place is spare and lit with fluorescent lights. I'm introduced to the church delegation as we take our places at the table for a traditional Congolese meal of whole, deep-fried fish, which my vegetarian credentials excuse me from eating. Something feels off. Conversation is strained and tense with the pale, sweaty missionaries. An American doctor quizzes me about Run for Congo Women and my contacts in D.C., while fussing with precise spellings as she takes notes. Patrick, the group leader, jumps in and asks occasional questions. But each time I start to answer, he turns away to talk to someone else.

Kelly casually drops into conversation that she's hired her own car and driver and plans to do the homestay for the duration of her time in Bukavu, which is several weeks shorter than my planned stay. I stare at the fish skeletons on their plates, at the way the other guests pick at the bones.

Patrick looks at me and asks, “What are your plans?”

My
plans. Not
our
plans.

Now I get it. I'm not in Congo with Kelly. Though she's happy to occasionally piggyback on my outings that appeal to her, Kelly has no intention of making this a joint trip.

I watch them pick at the deep-fried fish heads, the breaded eyeballs, as reality settles in
: I'm in Congo alone.

Though everyone who knows me would call me an “independent woman,” I wouldn't choose a situation like this. I let go of trying to earn my bad-ass credentials years ago. At twenty-five, I drove ten hours across Oregon to go on a lone camping trip in a remote canyon on the Idaho border. When I got there, I pitched my tent, made myself a beautiful meal over an open fire, and watched the sun set over the canyon walls before I thought how much better it would all be if I were not alone. The thought gnawed at me through the evening until I decided,
This sucks.
Then, while I'm in my spot more than
an hour from the nearest paved road, a van drove by. As I lay awake in my sleeping bag, I couldn't stop thinking about the isolation of this place. If something went wrong, no one would question my absence for days. That night, I thought to myself,
Point proven.
At midnight, I packed up and drove home. Within a year, I was with Ted.

It's not that I can't be independent; it just isn't my preference to be alone. If I had the choice of going to dinner by myself or with a friend, I would choose the company. If we needed to prop shop at Target, I was always happier to go with Ted. The preference became a habit, full days of work-lunch-work-dinner-bed-work that rolled into years of zero space. Soon enough, friends were more likely to remark on our model partnership than my independence. Occasionally, with a quick slip of the tongue or one too many glasses of wine, we were introduced as Tisa and Led.

I walk back across the Orchid grounds armed with only a flashlight. The paranoia is contagious. As I fumble for my key in the dark, a guy strolls by with a four-foot axe. I freeze, sizing him up. I'm upside down with no perspective.
Should I be scared?
Exhaustion wins. With resignation, I let it go. I hope he works for the hotel.

I put all my equipment on the charger and go to bed.

 

IN THE MIDDLE of the night, I am up again. I never adjusted the time on my computer or my cell phone and I'm unable to figure out the conversion, plus or minus daylight savings. I don't feel like making journal notes, so I lie awake until close to dawn before drifting back to sleep.

Shouting crowds, humming from a nearby street, wake me.
Are those riots or a celebration?
It's impossible to distinguish, though I try to tune in. Newly elected President Kabila is in town.
Must be a rally.
I listen for a long time, as if listening closely enough could filter my first day through a sieve and give me the definitive answer I'm craving to the question, Is it safe here?

People said that once I got to the hotel, I would make fast friends. Over a breakfast of fruit and toast with strawberry jam (exactly like my mom used to
make), I sit between an officious French woman and the Congolese Army commander with his women. A few other guests are scattered around in groups. No one here talks to each other. Everyone must have a story, but they don't seem interested in getting into it with others. I don't feel like getting into it either. Instead, I watch the helicopter take off from a landing pad by the water. It belongs to a mining company headquartered here on Orchid's grounds.

I've made many calls for a guide and translator but they've all been dead ends. After breakfast, I meet Jean Paul, a UN staff member. He's booked on UN business, but he brings his brother Maurice, a mild-mannered man in glasses who wears a spotless, pressed T-shirt tucked into ironed, belted jeans and polished shoes. Maurice teaches English in Rwanda and has a gentle aura; he is more soft-spoken and understated than his brother. His school is on break, so he's available. They've also brought a driver. Serge is more of an un-tucked guy's guy—stocky and bald, with an understated cool. He doesn't speak English, or at least won't admit to it. I hire them on the spot. Maurice and Serge will be with me every day of my journey in Congo, and along with Hortense, will be at my side to translate every story, every moment, every interaction I have in here with non-English speakers—and in this French and Swahili-speaking land, that's almost everyone. They'll work for US$10 per day. A steal.

But first, I have to do an errand. I ride alone with Women for Women's staff driver to Bukavu's main drag; we pull over across the street from a cell phone shop. We both sit in the Range Rover, unmoving. I need phone minutes. One of us has to get out of the car.

I haven't seen a westerner on the street. One of us has to leave the bubble. If the driver goes, I'll be left as the lone guardian of the Range Rover. If I go, I'm walking alone, exposed, across the street, without an escort, without security, out of compound bounds. I feel like I've been asked to strip and go grocery shopping naked. I motion to the driver, hoping my broad gestures will help overcome the language barrier. “You go or I go?”