Congo: What you can do

Three things you can do in the next fifteen minutes to help the women and children of Congo.

Ashley Judd, Day One

Today’s travel has gone off as planned, and as I write, I am watching the African sun begin to set, casting shades of oranges so associated with this continent.

Africa! How is this possible? How did I get here? Where does this life come from? My 40th in the Scottish Highlands with dear friends, roaring with laughter and running a sack race on the front lawn of a castle, to my first appointment in Rwanda this evening with a woman Senator and Zainib Salbi, the founder of Women for Women International, whose amazing book “Between Two Worlds” I finished last night?

Ashley Judd, Day Two -- Genocide Memorial

Three women with a faded color photograph gripped in their hands staggered through the graves. One fell to her knees and her sisters stood alongside her as pillars. When she recovered slightly it was the other two women’s turn to keen. I wanted to run to their group and throw myself on them, like we were a pyre, sobbing, howling, “I am so sorry, I am so sorry.” Perhaps they would have appreciated such a validating outburst of communal sorrow, perhaps culturally that would have been wildly out of order. I barely restrained myself as I passed by them, brushing one lightly on the back. She said, “thank you.”

Ashley Judd, Day Three -- the countryside

As we drive through the now clean and orderly capital, as we drink in the lovely countryside, my mind from time to time does an automatic slide show, and imposes the detritus of genocide on what I see. It really is unimaginable, that such protracted filthy evil transpired ever, anywhere, but especially here, some place so pretty.

Ashley Judd, Day Three -- PSI.org offices

I find it wonderful that this government is smart enough to regard poverty as a key political issue. Sure, they want to reduce poverty for all the more socially recognized reasons, but having come out of genocide, and being intensely motivated to avoid bloodshed in the future, they get that poverty breeds instability. This is always something I try to bring to my talks in the U.S. when people say, “Why should we care about poor people abroad?”

Ashley Judd, Day Three -- malaria nets

1 in 12 children born here will die before age 1, and then an additional child per 7 will die before 5. Malaria, preventable and treatable, is cause number 1. There are 2 million cases of simple malaria a year in public health facilities and 4 million cases that are not treated at all….children average 2 – 3 cases a year. Death by mosquito bite. I think that the next time I play badminton and get all annoyed I’ll remember, at least it’s not killing me and my babies.

Ashley Judd, Day Four -- water purification

Sur Eau comes in a small plastic bottle and one capful makes 20 liters (over 5 gallons) of water safe. A bottle provides safe water for a family of 6 for one month for a total cost of 55 cents!

Ashley Judd, Day Four -- you go, global girl

I knew I didn’t have time to cry, to begin to process all I had seen; I didn’t have time to make a few reach out phone calls or to get started writing, so simply took a shower and lied down. And frankly, I don’t know if I had energy for those things.

I slept with my pretty new sapphire earrings still in my ears, head perfectly straight on the pillow, ankles crossed. I did not flinch, apparently.

Ashley Judd, Day Five -- World Malaria Day

In a back of the miniscule house, a woman who rented the bedroom had her net hanging proudly over her bed. She was wearing a matched lavender outfit and we sat under her net giggling, unable to understand one another with words, but giddily connected somehow. She was really precious and very proud of herself, so proud everyone came to see how she uses her net. I saw her again later at the clinic and we gave each other a sparkly look.

Ashley Judd, Day Six -- Democratic Republic of Congo

King Leopold of Belgium, an insane man who never should have been free in a society much less allowed to “rule” one, kept this unimaginably fertile area (equal in size to everything east of the Mississippi) for his personal exploitation and whim. During his lust for its minerals, gems, trees, its everything, he had 10,000,000 native people murdered. What an achievement, in one short life time!

Ashley Judd, Day Six -- Women for Women International

The people here are not just reserved in a cultural way, they are cautious in the way of the stunned, of those who have lived with trauma, brutality, and suffering. Of the hundred or so people I visited today, a few became soft and warm after a greeting, but most could merely give me superficial smiles that said, “Oh, hi, yeah, okay. Whatever, hi, bye.” The rest of their countenance and demeanor was occupied with living horror. They wanted to be nice and friendly – what they offered was all they had to give, and it wasn’t much.

Ashley Judd, Day Six - Heal Africa

There is a new looking compound set incongruously in Goma’s ruins. In Cambodia, such villas are built by pimps. I wondered what kind of people could afford such a palace in one of the poorest countries on Earth. I was grateful to learn it was, in fact, my next destination and was dressed with a Unicef badge.

Ashley Judd, Day Seven -- Dushishoze

Meaning “Think about it” in Kinyarwandan, Dushishoze comprises 4 youth centres nationwide where kids may access free medically accurate reproductive health information, services and products such as voluntary HIV/Aids testing (with rapid results) and counseling (and appropriate referrals if they are +…I saw a positive test while I was there) and birth control, as well as activities that improve them socially and economically, with an emphasis on employability. The centers are full service, and I believe this holistic, integrated model is the best and most cost effective way to reach vulnerable youth for total poverty reduction; it is the way forward.

Ashley Judd, Day Seven -- Sonrise

Classes resume tomorrow, and the large dirt courtyard (someone who reads this, please pay to seed grass for them!!!) was pleasant mayhem. The kids were running, laughing, carousing, exploring, and looking for all the world as if they didn’t have a care in the world, except when it was time to pull wide eyes at the arrival of muzunga, white person! I could really get used to this greeting. It is truly something to be a constant source of amazement and joyous outbursts.

Ashley Judd, Day Seven

So today, just for today, I get a reprieve from the dis-ease that lives in my head, that wants to convince me I am better than (or worse than) someone else. And just for today, I am not a genocidaire. I am not in a militia. I am not a rapist or a human trafficker.