Sandra Caled was born on a day believed to be special on the Mayan calendar: a day when strong leaders are born. That came as no surprise to me. Sandra, a Poqomchi’ Mayan woman from Guatemala, is one of the first women to be on the governing body of AJWS grantee UVOC, the Union of Peasant Organizations of Vera Paz.
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“I came here 23 years ago from Goma to visit my friend, and never left,” said Mama Colette. I was immediately drawn to Colette when I saw her—one of just two women—in a roomful of nearly 80 fishermen in Nyakakoma, North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Even though she had been silent for …
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Charles Mukandirwa, my colleague in the DRC, had warned me that travel inside the country was not easy. But I only fully realized how challenging it was when I did it myself. We were accompanying Jeredy Malonga, who works for AJWS grantee CREDDHO (Centre for Research and Investigation into the Environment, Democracy and Human Rights), …
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On our way to Nyakakoma, Democratic Republic of Congo, we’d spent a night in the town of Ishaha, just across the Uganda border. It reminded me of the Wild West: a small town, a main drag, ramshackle buildings on either side, one hotel, rumors of bandits or rebels nearby, and immigration officials seeking a bribe.
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To say Masinda Masiano is formidable would be an understatement. She packs a punch, both in personality and speech, even if her frame is slight. Masinda is a Pygmy from the village of Mujo Mukondo outside Goma in North Kivu province. She doesn’t know how old she is, but I’d guess at least 60. She met us at the village entrance in a bright orange polo shirt emblazoned with the AJWS logo.
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Mujo Mukondo village was “just outside Goma,” according to Joseph Itongwa Mukumo, the North Kivu coordinator of AJWS grantee Program for the Integration and Development of the Pygmy People (PIDP). But, to me, it may as well have been on the moon—and not just because of the potholes on the road. It was a different world, far from a major city.
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Eric Kajemba sat across from me at our hotel in Bukavu, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province. After many hours of driving back from our site visit with Eric’s organization and AJWS grantee L’Observatoire Gouvernance et Paix (OGP), my AJWS colleagues and I were tired. Eric was not. Somewhere in his mid-50s, he has an easy laugh and an undying enthusiasm for his work.
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Takuinja Ruzibuka of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s South Kivu province rises before dawn to cook, get her eight children ready and work on the family’s vegetable plot for a few hours. Only then does she trek down to the Zola Zola tin mine near Nzibira, where she has been a twangaise (stone breaker) for 19 years. The mine sits on land given in a government concession to multinational corporation BANRO.
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