Serendipity. Asked to post an interesting landscape photo today, I honored the request and found this capture from 2009. It depicts an undisclosed location in rebel CNDP territory in Congo. Within an hour, with no connection at all to the posting of the landscape photo, articles I wrote in 2009 about my meeting with CNDP leader Laurent Nkunda began circulating on the internet and social media. The interview was conducted at the compound featured in the photo.
Did some part of distant memory resonate with the six year anniversary of Laurent Nkunda's arrest when I chose this photo from thousands? I was the last Western journalist to meet with him. My articles hold interest on this day for some. I have no memory of making the decision to submit the landscape based on anything other than the fact that it is a compelling photo. Is time a linear configuration, or are cosmologists correct when they tell us that it bends the fabric of space? Perhaps I am destined to be pressing the shutter for infinity. Standing in the shadows of the Mountains of the Moon. I am still there. For memory is the framework of existence.
From an unfinished work:
TEA WITH NKUNDA
Chapter One
(JOMBA, Democratic Republic of Congo) January 3, 2009
Cursing myself for not staying in shape, I placed one foot carefully in front of the other as we navigated the narrow red dirt footpath up the steep volcanic slope that led to the fortified compound of rebel Congolese General Laurent Nkunda. It should have been an easy climb for someone who had religiously stayed in shape for all of her life, but I had become careless with body and mind. How did I let myself fall this far? After all, four years ago I had been able to navigate the steep muddy slopes of Mount Karisimbi on the Rwandan side of the Virunga Mountains in search of an encounter with murdered American primatologist Dian Fossey’s Susa Group of mountain gorillas. 12,000 feet was a challenge then, but the accomplishment was more invigorating than remarkable. My Rwandan guide had told me I traversed the slopes and endured altitude, rain, and piercing stinging nettles like a “strong woman.” What had become of that woman? We were now at the relatively low altitude of 6,000 feet and I could barely catch my breath. I wasn’t carrying anything but a small camera case. A baby-faced young Tutsi soldier with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder offered to carry the heavy Pelican case with the video camera and audio recorder. I felt weak and unprepared.
Tennis shoes slipped, lungs expanded, and ankles strained as my body leaned and pushed against slippery clay and stones. Trekking in the Virungas had stretched the ligaments in my angles and rendered them as useless as ancient rubber bands. Had I not been so sloppy in logistical preparation, I would have had my solid hiking boots on, but I no longer worried very much about physical safety or comfort. Years of examining this conflict zone had removed all sense of hope that life for the Congolese could ever get better—or that I had any power as a writer to affect change. Depression was a by-product for many journalists working in Africa, and I was no different. A series of personal setbacks and betrayals, including the much too rapid approach of my sixtieth birthday, had shattered much of the spiritual and mental confidence required to tackle extreme conditions. Thoughts of seeing my daughter again kept me fighting my personal demons, and a glimmer of hope offered the possibility that redemption was possible for the suffering men, women, and children of the Kivu Provinces of eastern Congo. Perhaps I could open a window of compassion for these innocents. My problems felt insignificant and my self-absorption narcissistic when faced with the anguish rampant in the Congo countryside. Could I tell their story and make it compelling?
24 hours earlier, lighting streaked and illuminated the purple peaks of the Virungas as the Airbus made its final approach into Kigali, Rwanda. Landing in Kigali is never a simple matter. It is the not the technicalities of aviation which present a challenge, but it is the journey the mind must make. We were landing on the same airstrip that received the charred remains of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane thirteen years ago—an event that unleashed the genocide, leaving one million dead, and millions forever traumatized. I knew I must never forget, and that Rwanda was forever stained, but at the same time I hoped and prayed that my loved ones living in Rwanda would be able to move on.
Sultry, sticky, and heavy, the tropical air rushed into the vacuum as the flight attendant opened the door. I took a deep breath and tried to find strength in legs that had been all but immobilized by the 24-hour flight. Fortunately for me, but not Brussels air, this was the off- season for tourists and the plane was less than fifty percent full. Weary travelers took the opportunity to organize books, ipods, laptops, and pillows with the hope that a little extra room might result in some welcome sleep. The Airbus is an aptly named machine.
The metal stairway appeared almost vertical—there was no jet way—and it was slick with rain. Carry-on items and the precious camera equipment I had nursed through security checks seemed to be imbued with a life of their own as gravity and my own fatigue cause my personal cargo to accelerate against muscles that were refusing to be cooperative. Recent border skirmishes in Congo and constant feuding with the French over the unsolved mechanisms and motives behind Habiyarimana’s plane crash had security waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, checking carefully for boarding passes issued by Brussels air. It made no apparent sense, but a lot of things in central Africa make no sense, and we were in no position to argue.
In less than 24 hours an existential question was asked in a safe house hidden deep in the central city of Kigali. The query and the answer offered a potential solution to narratives that offered no resolution and stories that made no sense.
“Why don’t journalists tell the truth?”
Silence hung in the air while I searched for the words to answer the question from the young Congolese man. I stalled and looked around at my surroundings. We were in an upscale courtyard, complete with a bamboo-wet bar. The setting and décor were Moorish in feel and design; certainly opulent by typical Rwandan standards. Whoever was behind this meeting had power and access and I did not want to get off on the wrong foot by beginning with a dodgy answer. There was no doubt that we were being vetted. Was it by Nkunda, or someone else?
I offered an honest response. “International journalists come to Congo with their minds made up. There is no motivation for truth or peace.”
The Congolese contact countered my response with a statement that would have been my answer if I had been able to think more nimbly. I looked him over. Sincerity oozed from dark eyes that appeared ready to tear-up. The last time I had looked into eyes like that was when I was a college student having dinner at the home of a professor in Chicago. He had invited a few students to meet with holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Wiesel was beyond mesmerizing, and his eyes held a depth of sadness and compassion that is indescribable except to say that, once encountered, it is unforgettable as well as haunting. Forty years later I was seeing the same anguish, and heard Wiesel’s words echoing.
“You will be given the opportunity to be a witness.”
(...to be continued) © Georgianne Nienaber
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