We made our way to the border and easily passed through Customs feeling a sense of enormous relief when suddenly a member of the Congolese military (I happen to have a slightly different moniker for them, which I’ll keep to myself) stopped us and instructed us to take all of our bags from the car and empty out all of our belongings. We tiredly acquiesced, smiled, and attempted a futile effort to charm. After a few agonizing minutes, which felt like years, we were then allowed into Rwanda. Thus began our 7-hour journey back to Kigali.

We were about four blocks from our hotel, when we heard a deafening explosion that sounded as if it was merely steps away. We learned the next day on CNN that there were three separate grenade attacks less than a mile from our hotel. Most Rwandans we spoke to felt it was the work of the FDLR. Welcome to Kigali, thanks to the FDLR.

Our workshop in Bukavu was immensely successful mostly due to my hero Christine Karumba and the amazing team at Women for Women International. We painted butterflies, wrote letters, taught jewelry making, and happily delivered hundreds of t-shirts made by homeless children in the United States. We danced furiously and sang until we were hoarse. But most importantly, we laughed with total abandon. To see a child’s tears replaced with a smile, and witness joy instead of sadness is a sight for which there are no words. We had the honor of working with over 1,400 women and children.
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As we were driving through the metal gates of Panzi Hospital, I looked over to my right and saw five women of various ages sitting on the ground desperately trying to get into the gates. Their eyes were blood red, tears streaming down their cheeks. They had all just been brutally raped. The look on their faces, especially their eyes, will forever be etched in my memory. They had been beaten, tortured and brutalized, and stripped of everything human, sitting on the ground in unimaginable agony, a harsh glimpse into the life of a Congolese woman.

We were met by our guide who proceeded to show us around the hospital. There were hundreds of women everywhere. Their pained gazes looked as if they were living in some horrible nightmare; the kind of nightmare where one never wakes up. They were.

We walked over to a blue and white building where I saw 25 to 30 beautiful children. Once they saw me, they began to sing loudly and proudly. They were laughing and smiling and, after the scene I had recently witnessed at the entrance, seeing the kids was helping me return to some form of reality. Then, our guide turned to us and said as casually as if giving us directions to the nearest gas station, “These are the children of rape. Their mother’s are either dead or have abandoned them because they cannot bear the sight of them.” I wondered to myself what it must feel like to give birth to your rapist’s child. I looked into their little eyes and prayed. I prayed that they would never learn the hideous truth. I hoped they would never hear that their fathers were monsters.

We went into a part of the clinic to meet with the women and children. I held a child that I did not think would live another hour. He was two-years-old yet resided in the body of a six-month-old infant. He was severely malnourished and gasping for air. I just kept looking into his eyes and taking deep breaths so I wouldn’t weep. I was not about to cry in front of them, and I didn’t. My tears meant nothing.
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Amazing day! We just finished the workshop. Over 500 children and 200 hundred moms. I have so much to share but feel as if a letter I received today from one of our children pretty much says it all.

“To Excellent President Barack Obama, Hello! I am Faraja Muhigirwa and I would like to tell you somethings. Many greetings to you, your children and your wife. I am Congolese. I would like to tell you that every day our country is troubled by war, but I do not like war in my life. That is why I want to study for my country so as one day I solve my country, the country of my parents.
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We began our day at 6am with a ride to the SOS orphanage in Bukavu. On our way to our site, I was reminded of the juxtaposition of the intoxicating beauty of Lake Kivu and the utterly extreme poverty of Bukavu.

We arrived promptly at 7am and began our workshop with the children whose dark eyes betrayed a sadness and hardship; children who had witnessed entirely too much evil for their young and supposedly innocent ages. We had 70 to 80 children come in at 45-minute intervals all day in order to accommodate everyone. We danced, we painted, and we wrote letters to President Obama. Our letters begged for the end of genocide, rape and war.

Sadly, human hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes occur everyday in Congo. Silent murderous storms, floods of sexual violence, and earthshaking murders are the norm. Women are not seen as human beings in this country, rather as animals degraded and demoralized – stripped of all in brutal and unimaginable manners.
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Landing in Rwanda, I was struck by the pristine beauty and rolling green expanse of Kigali. As we drove past what was once the Hotel Rwanda, I had a difficult time believing that such horror had occurred just a few short years ago. What was particularly interesting to me was that the people of Rwanda wanted to talk about the genocide freely and openly as opposed to quietly pretending it never happened and that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people was some dirty family secret that should never be discussed, ever. I felt as though Rwandans want the genocide to be discussed loudly and openly as some kind of veiled insurance policy to make sure it never happens again.

Our bumpy seven-hour ride from Rwanda to Congo was majestic, yet I couldn’t help thinking to myself I was on the road to hell.  When we crossed the border we were told to get out of our jeep as the customs officials wanted us to physically walk across the border. I can’t really express what I was feeling at that moment, but instantly recalled a situation that had arisen when we arrived in Rwanda with sixteen incredibly large heavy duffel bags the day before.
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