A post from the Daddy-O
This was my last post from my first tour in DRC. Written on my Blackberry, it was forgotten upon my return home. So I post it now, having been back in Kinshasa for one week – as I work to re-orient myself to this place again. And knowing as I proof it that it is not yet time to think about going home.
November 24th, 2011
What I will do first, upon arriving home, is to breathe. Air without a constant and often overpowering odor…stench…stink. Dust, dirt, mildew, mold, and human odors of every sort.
Just breathe.
And then set to at what I hope is a less complicated task…than I know it will be – to pick up where I left off.
‘It’s like riding a bike’, ‘jump in with both feet’, ‘hit the ground running’, ‘an elephant never forgets’.
So I can only go, and hope that it is ‘easy as pie’.
The truth is that some things cannot be “un-seen”, erased, or easily forgotten. I had thought that it was the choice to come here that was the hardest. Now face to face with my escape route and only mere hours from clean air, it is clear to me that the harder choice will be to return.
‘To be or not to be
That is the question
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind
To suffer the slings and arrows
Of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms
Against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them
To die to sleep
No more
And by a sleep to say
We end the heartache
And the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is air to
‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished
To die to sleep
To sleep perchance to dream
Ay there’s the rub
For in that sleep of death
What dreams may come
When we have shuffled off
This mortal coil
Must give us pause’
Hamlet, of course, had never journeyed to DRC, but somehow it seems suitable.
Now, on the eve of the election in DRC, and grateful as I am to be homeward bound before the expected “process” unfolds, I hope for the safety of my co-workers. I hope that calm, restraint and wisdom can overpower the anticipated anger and violence. It has been on everyone’s lips these last few weeks – like a foregone conclusion, inescapable.
40 Years ago, on the heels of election, John Kennedy included the following passage in his inaugural address:
‘To those in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required – not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich’
Sadly, I think, this pledge died with the president in Dallas. And if what I have witnessed in DRC is forty years of our “best effort”, then this beautiful country and its 70 million souls are surely doomed. Without strategic location, without oil, and without purpose.
And having spent the last two months doing all that I could to “occupy” the time until my return, those at home have occupied for change. I have followed, as best I could, the events on Wall St. and across the country, and around the globe, and also the continuing revolts in the Middle East and North Africa. I have cheered them in their unbridled uprising and winced as momentum faltered and the mainstream media betrayed itself as pocket puppets to thieving tyrant masters.
Kennedy went on to say:
‘We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage – and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Now the trumpet summons us again – not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation” – a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself…In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its maximum hour of danger. I do not shank from this responsibility – I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it – a glow from that fire can truly light the world.’
And then, the famous two lines – ‘Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.’ What can anyone do for a country that is near ruin, that is nearly bankrupt, whose government will not govern, whose leaders will not lead?
God may choose to save America…but as for me…I am moving to Africa.
