When civil war arrived in Kinshasa in 1997, the areas most fought in the city were those close to major routes. One is the road that comes from Bas Congo, and entered the city from Mont Ngafula. Another is the road that leads from Bandundu, along Ndjili airport, and then at the city becomes Boulevard Lumumba, the main road between the watershed districts of Kingasani and Masina.
The Congolese do not often talk about those years. The missionaries tell them, but with admirable serenity, despite everything. Father Stephen, smiling when told to Mont Ngafula came out in the street and stood in the middle between Kabila's army and that of Mobutu, acting as interpreter between the Banyamulenge (Congolese Tutsis) and the Swahili-speaking Kabila's soldiers Mobutu, most of Bandal, who spoke Lingala. Sought to achieve a truce, but did not go well, and says without missing serenity even as he ran like hell, and those moments of blind fear.
"I'm not like the military romantic movies or novels, they have no morals," said Father Santino. He tells us of the ease with which they killed civilians, rapes, the nun who died in the north of the Congo Anuarite for refusing to yield to a soldier. The child soldiers, then, they were also the most ruthless of adults, "killing is a game for them." Tell
always lightly, running fast on individual subjects, "because if you start to think about it he takes the fear. "
For people in our neighborhood were those years of anguish. During the second war, Kabila's soldiers, who by then had taken power in Parcelles were looking for "Rwanda", which then meant to identify anyone who had physical traits similar to those Rwandans. The unfortunate suspicion that had the features they found themselves with a tire soaked in gasoline slipped around his waist like a belt, burned alive and ended on the street.
Those same roads today are full of children. When it rains it is a party, leaving all to play barefoot in the puddles and splashing in the water, risking ogni volta di rimanere fulminati su qualche cavo elettrico mal sotterrato. Scene che raccontano un quartiere che è ancora molto lontano da una qualità della vita dignitosa, almeno secondo le nostre concezioni, ma che è ben lontano anche dalla paura che doveva vivere alcuni anni fa.
Cerco di immaginare come dev'essere stata l'infanzia di quelli che oggi hanno diciotto anni. Sono gli stessi che spesso in strada ti guardano con aria diffidente, lanciando occhiate di sfida che trasudano una voglia insoddisfatta di rivincita nei confronti di quelli che identificano facilmente come ricchi e potenti.
La parola mundele , quando sono loro a usarla, assume tutta la sua forza dispregiativa. Un razzismo di ritorno che, ironicamente, si releases in just one word that came from the distortion of "model", an expression of allegiance with which the colonists called the Belgian Congo.
I wonder how I would act for them, if you were born and raised in Kingasani Congolese in the nineties, among pillages mobutismo in decline and the wars that followed later. How I would have been if I had seen what they have seen them? What would I have felt towards the whites, the powerful, those who have every opportunity and exploit the resources of the Congo to bring wealth abroad, of those that when things get difficult they can get on a plane and leave? It is to be amazed, after all, to think a quella gran parte di ventenni che ci accolgono con amichevolezza e allegria appena ci conoscono.
Quando uno arriva in questi luoghi all'inizio è sopraffatto dagli odori, dai paesaggi urbani spesso disperanti, dagli atteggiamenti più superficiali dell'umanità varia e densissima che ti si presenta davanti.
Più mi sforzo di andare al di là di questo primo velo, cercando di vedere queste strade in una prospettiva di qualche anno, e più mi sembra finalmente di intravvedere anche un bicchiere mezzo pieno, dietro all'apparenza di questo paese a prima vista senza via d'uscita, avvinghiato sull'immobilismo dei suoi mali endemici che, sfortunatamente per i congolesi, si sposano troppo bene con gli interessi dei paesi ricchi.
I'm beginning to understand the joy of these people who grew up in a perennial lack of serenity and peace, has recently found at least hope and stability that are already a vital first surrogate.
"Do not be discouraged." I am reminded of these words, beautiful and totally unexpected, which two years ago I was told by a girl-cop, after his boss had just passed a bad time. Are the same words that Mark, without knowing it, he repeated it to our children who will manage the center at Kingasani. Encouragement we have also supported us, and that goes beyond solving problems with a hard drive or an installation, as the enthusiasm, the sense to belong to a community and the desire to sacrifice themselves to build something will be needed in every aspect of their commitment.
Positive signs are all there, but there is also awareness that the signs here are always precarious and temporary, and that hope may soon become disillusioned, exhausted in a country that expects a lot from this new regime. Is always easier to destroy than to build, and does not take much to scupper the plans and the sacrifices of many, and get back, into the abyss dell'ognun itself.
Sometimes, starting from these trivial considerations, I took a bit 'of no confidence on the true extent of a cooperation project like ours, in a place where you just taken a wrong decision da un potente in occidente per mandare all'aria quello che s'è costruito con fatica in mille progetti. Ne parlavo con Marco, una mattina, tornando da Gombe in uno dei nostri viaggi, e i suoi racconti m'hanno fatto riflettere.
Ritorno da Kinshasa con un po' di fiducia in più. In un paese dove la la voglia di ricostruire si regge su un filo precario, il nostro minuscolo progetto di cooperazione, realizzato dove non c'era nulla, ora mi sembra qualcosa di significativo, non solo per il progetto in sé, ma anche semplicemente per aver portato un'esperienza di cooperazione in più in un contesto in cui non ce n'erano molte, e aver dimostrato che costruire qualcosa insieme è possibile.
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