A Thousand Sisters

by Lisa Shannon

  What? I may know fewer than twenty Swahili phrases, but Mai Mai is one of them. “Yes, she did,” I say. “Was it the Mai Mai who raped her?”

  My friend was quiet.

  I pushed harder. “Can you please ask her.”

  My friend asked again, then acquiesced. “Yes, she was raped by Mai Mai.”

  Now, fried after an exhausting trip on this long, bumpy road, I’m thinking about the meeting when I spot soldiers on the side of the road. As is now the routine, I ask, “Congolese Army or Mai Mai?”

  It’s quiet for a minute. Then my friend says, “I don’t know.”

  They all stare forward, eyes on the road. “If you want to know about the Mai Mai, ask the man sitting next to you. He is the President of the Mai Mai for South Kivu.”

  There’s no time to let it land, to shoot my friend a disapproving, “What the hell are you thinking?” look or to calculate the ramifications of what this might mean.

  I feel the fear slip around inside me as I try to convince myself this is a great opportunity. The undeniable fact has settled into my stomach: In spite of all the paranoia floating around Congo, this guy really is dangerous. I need to tread lightly.

  I flash a thumbs-up smile and say, “I’d love to talk with you more about the Mai Mai!”

  As it slips out of my mouth, I think of the woman I just met, so frank about her Mai Mai attackers. El Presidente was standing right behind me when she said it. Then I pushed. Then I emphasized the Mai Mai raped her. Announced it. As if there is such a thing as “safe space” in Congo. As if after a few weeks here, I would know exactly how it works, fully grasp Congo’s version of right and wrong, what needs to be said and what is better left alone.

  I’ve only consumed rolls and Fanta so far today, so I’m wired on a sugar high and crashing fast. I raise my hand off my lap, trying to see if I’m shaking. It’s impossible to tell on these roads. I try to ignore the murky, polluted feeling that comes when being deceitful, closing my eyes. The bouncing and bumping and pothole jumping feels like the worst airplane turbulence.

  My friend graciously explains, above all else, that René is organized. He was brought on to help the Mai Mai develop into a proper organization, to raise their profile and their efficiency. To be their public relations machine. I work overtime to get him talking, forcing my tone of voice to keep it upbeat, to prove I’m on his side.

  Just be Socratic.

  René explains, “I am a Congolese patriot. I love my country. I love my forefathers’ land. I am ready to say ‘No!’ to any kind of aggression against my country. Our army showed it was weak; some noticed bribery among political authorities. Soldiers were running away instead of waiting for the opponents. People gathered to discuss the weakness of our army. It was unable to face the war. I joined the other people who were ready to have some kind of manifestation of resistance.”

  “When was that?”

  “The 1996 war.”

  “So you’ve been involved for eleven years? From the very beginning?”

  He smiles boldly, hands cupped around his knee; he rocks back and forth, delighted but feigning modesty, like a housewife who has just been complimented on her cookies. “Ah, yes.”

  “It’s no wonder to me that with your skill set, if you’ve been involved that long, you play a leadership role in the upper levels.”

  “I was appointed president of all of South Kivu province of the Mai Mai movement. I was appointed by my fellow Mai Mai to be a candidate for national elections. But they needed only five and there were three hundred of us running. It wasn’t successful. I lost the election. ”

  “That’s elections,” I say, laughing anxiously, trying to get him to relax and speak freely.

  “My work was, of course, focused on the political movement,” he continues. “As the Mai Mai is a movement of action, it needed to be structured politically, ideologically. As they knew they would kill whoever opposed them, they needed an ideology about who to kill, because they must kill whoever along the way.”

  “So you developed an ideology of when it is appropriate to kill.”

  “I read different documents on how to behave in a time of war, books regarding human rights, such books as The Battle of Solferino. In the book they figured the soldier’s attitude towards civilians and other opponents during the war.”

  “What guidelines did you develop?”

  “In the books there are different attitudes to take, according to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. You can be, for example, with a civilian who has betrayed. These civilians . . . You see, it is during the war, there is not even any legal judgment, but you have proof he has shown where your positions are . . . These civilians can be killed, in order to demand that other civilians do not betray. So you understand? There are cases like that. What we have for an ideology is: We only kill the enemy. You do not need to arrest him because you don’t have prisons or jails. So you must kill the enemy and protect the local population as much as possible. That’s it.”

  “What about behavior typical to all militias—raping, looting—”

  “The Mai Mai don’t have to steal because they are local defenders. The local population gives soldiers what they need as support. Rape is a foreign practice. A foreign behavior the Congolese did not know before.”

  My carsick friend leans back from the front seat, clearly annoyed and determined to call him out. “What about child soldiers?”

  I lean forward, subtly squeeze Carsick’s arm and whisper, “Don’t go there. It’s a safety issue.”

  René leans towards the front passenger seat. “There is no need to abduct children. They volunteer. They want to be part of our fight.”

  We are all quiet for a moment. I think of the BVES boys I interviewed, who spoke openly about being abducted, and stealing, and raping any female they came across.

  “I cannot say the Mai Mai are perfect, that they are like saints,” René says. “Sometimes they switch to environments which are not their own. They feel hungry and go to farms to loot crops. But Mai Mai is a traditional movement; it has hints to follow. They are not to get drunk, smoke, rape, or do something bad because according to the elders, if they misbehave they will be killed on the front.”

  “Oh right!” I say. “There are some elements of superstition . . .” The second the word escapes my mouth, I want to grab it midair and stuff it back in. I quickly correct myself—“Beliefs, rather”—hoping to catch it before translation. It’s too late. It’s translated as superstition.

  He smiles, strained, and rubs his eyes, “Madame. They are not ‘beliefs’ or ‘superstitions.’ They are truth.”

  I catch something about ‘aspirin’ and ‘malaria’ in his French. His wide-open, direct stare tells me I’ve stepped on his Mai Mai toes. I’m not even waiting for a translation as he speaks. I’m nodding and mumbling, Yes . . . Right . . . Sure . . . as he describes herbal mixtures used to treat malaria and fever or to make soldiers bulletproof. “A Mai Mai believes that when he washes himself with that herbal water prepared by midwives, and does no evil like rape or steal, no bullet can catch him.”

  Anxious to put him at ease, to get back on the same side, I enthusiastically offer, “It’s like traditional medicine. There’s so much interest in traditional medicine back in the States.”

  He rubs his chin. His voice grows strident. “It is exactly like traditional medicine. They had no medicine. They were dirty. They could easily catch diseases. They needed to use herbs, that which you call ‘superstition’ or ‘beliefs.’ They had to do it to protect themselves.”

  I scramble, trying to figure my way out of this apparently massive insult.

  He adds, “What you call ‘belief ’ is like faith. What you accept can manifest itself.”

  “Faith. That’s the best word for it,” I agree.

  “Faith,” he chuckles.

  “Great. Now we’re speaking the same language.”

  “A true Mai Mai respects the ideology of the movement, the reg
ulations, the hints, 100 percent. He cannot die. A false Mai Mai is one who sinned against the hints. Such a person can be injured. The one who is caught by a bullet cannot be a true Mai Mai. He must have done something—raping, looting, even made sex with his wife before battle; they cannot make sex. It is as if he has dirtied himself. He is excluded from the ranks of the true Mai Mai. It is just like true Christians and false Christians.”

  “What is it the Mai Mai want?”

  He spends ten minutes giving variations of the same answers, all beginning, “Mai Mai is a movement of resistance by local people . . .”

  “Resistance to what? To whom?”

  “Invaders.”

  “Why are invaders so interested in Congo?”

  “Listen, we have a saying. If you have a pretty lady in your compound, the men will circle around for the treasure. The natural resources of Congo attract outsiders.”

  “When you talk about ‘outside groups’ or ‘invaders,’ are you talking about outside armed groups or people of other ethnic groups, like Banyamulenge Congolese Tutsis?” I ask.

  “The Banyamulenge have been accepted by the structure, by the constitution,” he answers. “They have been given nationality. But they cooperate with invaders: Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda. They are bridges for invaders’ aggression on Congo. They are assimilated to their brothers. They are a path for invaders. We find them dangerous.”

  “So what is your take on the brassage process?”

  “The Mai Mai are not convinced, so we’ve sent a group to listen to the ideology they are being given. They are the ears. But there is another group waiting at the backside, who will guard people, who will join resistance against a given attack.”

  My grandmother, a minister’s wife, had a saying: Nothing is so tiresome as being insincere. And so it is. I’m exhausted, shaky, too freaked out to challenge a word. I feel like a coward. Especially with the faces of women raped by Mai Mai circling in my head.

  Worse, I feel dirty.

  I manage to say something to keep him friendly. “Of course. You want peace in your country.”

  “Yes, but peace at what cost?” He asks rhetorically, morphing into an amped-up, emphatic Citizen Congo, slamming his fist, gesturing wildly. “A true Mai Mai is someone who believes in a Congo for Congolese only! A true Mai Mai will never give up the fight!”

  I smile.

  He nods in approval. “You see, Lisa, you are a true Mai Mai!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Criteria

  THIS CROWD IS out of control! As soon as we pull up outside the church compound, a mass of singing and dancing participants runs up the road to greet me. I am surrounded in the biggest group hug of my life and my feet lift off the ground without warning. I’m bodysurfing above the crowd, struggling to hold my shirt down to keep it from coming completely off. Hortense grabs my foot and orders them to put me down. Whew! That was the best public display of affection ever!

  I’m in Walungu again, an hour’s drive from Bukavu. I have put out the word that I want to talk to women who have stories about recent attacks. I’ve come to the right place. The notorious village of Kaniola, about ten kilometers up the road, sits at the edge of Interahamwe territory. A handful of women volunteered.

  I’ve asked for it.

  Rachel: “One Thursday, the Interahamwe came and killed people. My brother didn’t believe it. He wanted to rest in his bed when other people went to hide. He heard the sound of a gun. He didn’t know it was his own son being killed. My brother went outside, they stabbed him, killed him, threw him in the bushes. They also killed my uncle. We found him. The same night, they broke into a church and killed a pastor.

  “We went far away to feel safer, but I went back home after a few days. We are farmers. Kaniola is far from here. We were staying here, but we were starving. So we went back.”

  “Do you feel like that’s the choice? Risk attack or starve?”

  “We are not safe. When we scream at night, government soldiers are afraid of the Interahamwe. They do not come. For our security, instead of waiting for the soldiers to come, we run to them.”

  Sonya: “I am also from Kaniola. Once, at night, we heard screaming. I had just come from maternity; I had a little baby. We went outside and found they had killed my neighbors, a man and his wife, and threw the dead bodies in the fire. We ran away. We came to Walungu, where we stayed at a school. When we went back to our village, we heard screaming again. We thought peace was regained. When we went to see what was going on, we found that they had locked people in their house and burnt the whole house.”

  I ask, “The people were alive?”

  “Yes. They burnt them alive.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “February. This month. Just a few weeks ago.”

  The woman sitting next to her nods in agreement.

  Antonia: “A few months ago, the Interahamwe took my younger sister away for slavery. She has never come back. They took me away and raped my mother. They took my husband away. I’ve never heard from him since.”

  “How long was your mother there?”

  “They kept her as a sex slave in the camp for one week.”

  “How old is your mother?” I prod.

  “Around sixty.” She answers.

  “When I came to get enrolled I was not accepted, even to this day I am not a Women for Women participant.”

  Hortense jumps in to say, “Today is enrollment day. She has not yet been enrolled.”

  My mind is fogging up with the weight of the stories. I need to shake off this malaise with an infusion of hope. As if busting out the defibrillator, I say, “I’ll be your sister. I’ll sponsor you.”

  Next.

  Aksanti: “The war burst. We escaped, but they shot my grandchild who was on my daughter’s back. Shot intentionally. The baby died.

  “We ran away, left our village and came into Walungu, where we took shelter in a church for a month. We went back to Kaniola. We thought peace was recovered. It wasn’t the case. Last Saturday they came to my village and killed two people, a man and a woman.”

  “Last Saturday?”

  “Just Saturday. They wanted beer. He was a beer seller. When he said he had no beer to give them, it was finished. They killed him. They killed his wife. They poured petrol on the house and burnt it down. The dead bodies of that couple were inside. Mushisa is the name of the man.”

  I ask, “Interahamwe?”

  No translation needed. She nods.

  “Have you been hiding in the bushes this week?” I ask.

  “We run away to the center of Kaniola to escape atrocities. There is a military camp where we can be protected by government soldiers. We are afraid. People are not stable. We cannot work as before. We are starving because we are afraid.”

  “There’s a military camp in the village and Interahamwe are still attacking the periphery of the village?” I ask.

  “We are in serious trouble,” she says, nodding.

  My colleagues in D.C. often frame Congo’s problems as half solved now that elections have taken place. So I ask, “Elections have happened. Some people think the war is over in Congo. What would you say to that?”

  She laughs, exasperated. “We have nothing to say. We are just like patients in a hospital, waiting to be healed. Even if they say war is over, our place is not safe. It is not over. We live in permanent fear.”

  Furaha: “They came at night, took my husband and me in the bushes. I spent three months there. They killed my husband. He was killed in my sight. I remember the way they cut my husband in parts. I saw all the parts.”

  She makes sharp, stabbing gestures with her hands towards her stomach.

  They gutted my husband like a fish.

  They cut him in parts.

  I saw the parts.

  I can’t tell that story. It’s not productive. If I tell that story, I’m a trash peddler. A gore-monger.

  I smile supportively and look at them as they sit opposite me, on th
e edge of the narrow wooden bench, with their arms crossed. I feel cold and mechanical behind the camera. Something is off. This meeting has become an audition. An audition to become one of my talking points. I could have given them numbers and made a scorecard to help filter the information—charted their stories; rated them, on a scale of one to five, for usability. Which horror-nugget wins?

  I’ll just ignore this sinking feeling.

  SINCE WHEN AM I the enemy? Stepping out of the car and into the rain outside Women for Women’s Walungu vocational skills center, I am confronted by a crowd of women. They stand in the drizzle, huddle around trees, or crowd under the few umbrellas. At the sight of me, they run for the bushes, faces turned away, covering their heads with wraps and scarves and shooting me dirty looks. I ask Hortense, “Why are they hiding?”

  Hortense, who has gone ahead, calls backwards to me. “They say you haven’t written them yet. Why should they be filmed?”

  They’ve been waiting hours in the rain to be enrolled.

  When we get inside, the enrollment process is in full swing, with women hoping to join the program cramped between previously enrolled participants working on sewing machines and learning embroidery. Jules explains, “We cannot enroll all the women in the community. This time we can enroll 308 women based on the criteria.”

  “What’s the criteria?”

  “It depends on the project: internally displaced persons, killings, rape, refugees. The problem in this community is that all the women were raped, all are refugees. So here, we have to evaluate their stories. That’s why those women outside are angry.”

  There is another, even larger crowd in back. I watch them through the rusty windowpanes, hoping they don’t notice me. Women crowd around the doors, peering through. Forty or so maintain orderly lines under a plastic tarp. About fifteen more huddle under the eaves to avoid the rain, waiting their turn. Hortense explains, “These are the women who have been selected. They are waiting to be given forms.”

  In a few minutes, they’ll be invited inside, where they’ll take a seat at a long wooden table and squeeze the details of their lives into little boxes on a questionnaire that will soon be entered into a database, printed out, and stapled with a photo, taken today; in a few weeks, this packet will land in an American mail-slot.