Dear DR Congo,

Well. Contrary to what I thought would happen, I survived you, or at least I think I did. All those scenarios that went through my head during my stay didn’t materialise; I wasn’t kidnapped by a militia, I didn’t die in a road accident, nor did I succumb to disease and end up buried in your mineral and blood-rich soil. Well, for the disease part, I have to wait for 21 days to be sure that it’s true, and so for the time being, the daily ritual of popping antibiotics to rid off Malaria will have to continue.

I remember landing in your lake-side city and being suddenly confronted by reality; a reality that people can rarely describe to you in a polished office in Europe, despite their best of intentions. I remember taking my first helicopter flight to what came to be an imprisonment of a home. I remember being welcomed by a fellow aid-worker who made it his mission to describe to me in horrifying detail all the insecurity that is surrounding us from all directions and to remind me that, due to the complexion of my skin, I stick like a thumb. That night, I slept for 12 hours, partly to avoid thinking about what lurks in the dead of the night, and the first of my achievements in you was not getting a panic attack despite having every reason in the world for having one.

I remember the perplexity of trying to hit the ground running with an abysmal command of the French language and a genuine ignorance of what I was supposed to be doing. I remember thinking that I got myself into a trap that I would never come out of. Well, that turned out to be true, but it ended up being a trap of a different kind.

And yet despite all the aforementioned, I didn’t just survive you, but beyond the exhaustion and the long working hours, beyond the insecurity and the tension among team members, my existence thrived in you. You showed me what is important in life, or rather you took that list of what I held dear in life and tossed it from the summit of every beautiful hill of yours. What remained after the impact was very little albeit the bare essentials of living.

What can I tell you, my dear Congo? That you are beautiful and rugged and exploited and the whole nine yards of that? I think you’re probably too bored to hear it. Books have been written about every sentiment that I feel towards you. If I decry the exploitation and injustice, I wouldn’t be breaking news either. I was just a passer-by, someone amidst the myriads who hailed from afar and came to call you home, albeit for a moment. They all go back home, and you’re just a page in such people’s lives. Your insecurity and your problems aren’t ours anymore once our passports get the final sceau de sortie.

Fast-forward 12 months later, when it suddenly dawns on me that my time is up, and I suddenly find myself flooded with emotions that tear my heart up. I didn’t expect this when I first came, I thought it would be a time of jubilation and giving thanks to God for keeping me alive. I haven’t anticipated that I would cry like a baby in the arms of one of my Congolese mamans, not wanting to part ways with her and thankful for all that she’s done for me. I didn’t know that my heart would grow roots and strong ones for that matter towards all that I hated and loved about you.

I guess that what I can tell you is that you are an enigma, an epitome of contradictions; more than any place in the world.
You are the richest and yet the majority of your people are among the poorest.
Your land is the most fertile and yet malnutrition wreaks havoc among your Children.
You are strong and powerful yet the tiniest of nations all meddle in and exploit your wealth.
You are a place of calmness and yet the sounds of gunshots never cease to be heard in your forests.
You are full of faith and yet it is those who have no faith that traumatise the faithful majority and who have the final word.
Your people are fatigued and yet their resilience is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

Merci, mon cher Congo, pour la parole.
Thank you for humbling yourself, my dear Congo, and accepting me to come and foolishly think that I can leave an imprint in you when you knew all along that it would be the opposite.
You’ve forever changed the way I look at life and things.
You have maimed within me long harboured sentiments and desires, whose futility I would have never discovered had it not for your gentle slap of reality.
Bon. and for other changes that I haven’t yet noticed but are to be unravelled in the days and years to come.

Que Dieu te benisse, mon cher Congo.
May the arm groups realise your grandeur and give you the respect you deserve.
May the epidemics and diseases spare your people and animals.
May your riches remain invisible to the naked eye, only manifesting itself when one loves you for who you are.

À plus tard,