Healing the deepest wounds
The young women come to her traumatised and brutalised.
Sister Angélique gives them the skills they need to run a small
business, ensures that they can read and write, and teaches
them about their rights as women. Slowly she sees their
confidence and their belief in the future return.
TEXT: Hillary Heuler PHOTO: Anne Ackermann/NRC
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O utside her crude mud house,
its crumbling walls packed with
straw, 18 year-old Simone squats
on the ground pinching and pulling at a lump of sticky white dough. Rolling it into balls, she drops the dough into a
sizzling pot of boiling oil to fry the golden
brown pastries – mandazi in Swahili – that
make mouths water here in north-eastern
Congo. By selling them for ten cents a
piece, the teenage girl is managing to feed
her small family, buy medicine for her child
and pursue her own dreams of education.
But several years ago, Simone was waking up each morning wondering whether
or not she would survive another day. She
was a 14-year-old schoolgirl, bright and
ambitious, when a band of rag-tag rebel
soldiers from the brutal Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA) invaded her home village.
Looking for children to swell their ranks,
the LRA headed straight for Simone’s secondary school.
“When they got there they blocked all
the doors and trapped us in the classrooms, then they tied us up with rope,”
she recalls. “After that they marched us all
into the forest. There were 80 of us in total – 60 boys and 20 girls.” The boys were
handed weapons and trained to kill. Simone and the other girls were distributed
to the LRA soldiers to be forced into “marriages,” then raped over and over again.
FORCED TO KILL
Thus began Simone’s unimaginable ordeal,
which would last for a year and a half. “We
would only eat once a day, and they made
us walk all the time. They kept ordering us
to do things, to find food, to carry things, to
kill people. Life was really hard,” she says.
“They would beat you for nothing. If they
even caught you resting your head on your
hand they would accuse you of thinking of
going home, and beat you.”
To those who did try to escape and were
caught, the LRA showed no mercy. “They
killed people with wooden clubs, hitting
them on the back of the head,” says Simone. To make sure there was blood on
everyone’s hands, it was the captive girls
themselves who were forced to execute
their own classmates. “If someone wanted
to go home, they commanded us to kill
them. They would take a group of us girls
n n If someone wanted
to go home, they
commanded us to
kill them.
into the bush, and tell the person to lie face
down on the ground. They made us line up
and each of us had to hit the person once,
then pass the club to the girl behind her,”
she remembers. “We hit the person until
he or she was dead.”
It wasn’t long before Simone fell pregnant with the child of an LRA soldier, and
at the age of 15 she bore a son in a makeshift
camp deep in the jungle. “I was scared,”
she says. “I thought, how can I have a baby
when I’m still a child myself?”
ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES
The LRA is notorious for its savage attacks
on civilians. Between 1987 and 2006 it ab-
A TRADE. Simone makes a living selling mandazi pastries.
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ducted at least 20,000 Ugandan children,
according to UNICEF estimates. Since then
thousands more children are believed to
have been abducted in CAR, South Sudan
and DRC. Large-scale kidnapping of Congolese girls and boys began in 2008 when the
LRA, fleeing the Ugandan army, invaded
eastern DRC.
Many of the stolen children never come
back, and those who do manage to escape
captivity struggle with trauma and depression in IDP camps far from their home villages. With few resources at their disposal,
even finding enough to eat can be a challenge.
Simone was one of the lucky ones. She
was able to escape in 2010 during an attack
by the Ugandan army, picking up her four
month-old son and fleeing into the forest.
Along with other escapees, she marched
for two days with the Ugandan soldiers
until they reached the nearest village. But
the terror wasn’t over; once free, she was
convinced the local population would see
her as a rebel as well, and turn against her.
“IF YOU GO HOME, THEY WILL KILL YOU.”
“The LRA had told us, ‘if you go home, the
community will kill you. They don’t like
people who come out of the bush. You’re
a leper, they will kill you.’ They made us
afraid to leave,” she says. “I was really
scared, I wasn’t normal. I also thought
that when they saw my child, they’d say
he was the child of a rebel and they would
kill both of us.”
It was several months before she found
the courage to venture into Dungu, one
of the largest towns in the district, which
was already overflowing with displaced
villagers fleeing horrors of their own. She
eventually found her mother and brothers in one of Dungu’s massive IDP camps.
But like tens of thousands of other IDPs
streaming into the town, she had no way to
support herself or continue her education.
That was when she discovered the Centre for Reinsertion and Development Support (CRAD), an association founded by
Sister Angélique Nako Namaika, which
serves as a lifeline and a path back to selfsufficiency for displaced women like Simone.
“It costs a lot of money to go to school.
I also had my child, who needed things,
and I needed money to buy food for us,”
Simone explains. “There were so many expenses. The only person who helped us
was Sister Angélique.”
FEAR OF REPRISALS. A girl hides her face to protect her identity. Attacks from the LRA have decreased in recent years.
n n When we talk about things I can see that I am among
friends, and the bad thoughts I have disappear.
SIMONE, 18
Through CRAD, Simone learned to make
pastries to sell door to door in her neighbourhood, and with the nun’s help she was
able to buy the raw ingredients to set up
her own small pastry business at home.
But Sister Angélique went one step
further. Visiting Simone at home twice a
week, she urged the young girl to think
about her future and pursue her dreams
of education. “She told me I couldn’t just
sit here and think about what happened
to me in the forest,” says Simone. “She
counsels me a lot, encouraging me to stay
strong to make a living for myself. And she
reminds me that if I get my diploma, I can
help other people as well.”
THE POWER OF COMMUNITY
Along with the one-on-one counselling,
says Simone, it’s the chance to commune
with other women from CRAD that is helping her to overcome the horrors of her past.
“I can’t really talk about certain things to
people who were never kidnapped. But
with people who know what it was like, we
understand each other,” she says. “When
we talk about things I can see that I am
among friends, and the bad thoughts I have
disappear. We talk about positive things,
and laugh together. It helps me a lot.”
Simone isn’t the only one relying on
the camaraderie fostered by CRAD. Down
a narrow dirt track on the outskirts of
Dungu, hemmed in by 15-meter palm
trees and tough vines that tangle around
their ankles, a group of two dozen women
patiently works a plot of rich black earth.
They pull muddy clusters of peanuts from
the soil, plant rice in bright green rows and
pluck plump bean pods from their stalks.
This community garden is the brainchild of Sister Angélique, who recognised
that the backbreaking work of clearing the
jungle takes both teamwork and a tremendous amount of willpower. “This was all
bush,” she says proudly, gesturing around
her at the disciplined rows of crops. “They
took machetes and cleared it themselves
in two weeks.”
Now the women come twice a week
to tend their field, dividing the produce
among themselves and sharing the seeds
with other women who would like to plant
plots of their own. But the garden provides much more than just food. It lifts the
women out of their isolated compounds
and brings them together, babies in tow,
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talking and laughing under the trees. They
share their experiences and their lives,
helping one another to move on.
Even Sister Angélique herself was surprised by the power of the community she
had fostered. “When we finished the first
gardening project, I asked them whether
they wanted to start gardening on their
own,” she recalls. “But they all told me,
‘we have to keep working together, because when we meet up like this it gives us
joy to share together and to live together,’”
she grins. “All for one, and one for all!”
45-year-old Patricia, who lost two of her
12 children to the LRA, insists that it’s the
women of CRAD, above all, who keep her
from dwelling on the past. “When we’re
together, it shows that we are united,”
she says. “When I’m with these women
it’s easy to forget the past, but when I’m
alone it all comes back to me. It’s better
to be here together, talking together and
sharing our joy in life.”
day people wouldn’t even pay me what
they had promised.”
But one day another woman told Monique about Sister Angélique, and suggested she learned to sew. When the nun
heard of the young girl’s terrible past, she
took her under her wing and gave her the
attention she needed to excel.
A BUSINESS OF HER OWN
Now Monique spends her mornings stitching school uniforms out of blue and white
fabric, and her afternoons selling them in
the market. CRAD has given her a sewing
machine of her own, a black Singer that
gleams with Gothic gold lettering, and she
sets it up in the well-swept dirt courtyard
in front of her hut. Monique can make
around $9 a week from her sewing, money
that lets her buy food and medicine for her
mother and her playful three-year-old son,
Seraphin Gambolipay, whose name means
“the will of God.”
“This gives me a steady income. And
THE TOOLS TO SUCCEED
once I earn enough, I want to go back
But other displaced women yearn to strike to school,” she says. Monique dreams of
out on their own, and the skills they learn eventually becoming a midwife, both to
at CRAD give them the financial independ- make money and to help other women like
ence they need to do so.
herself. “For those who don’t have enough
One example is 18-year-old Monique, an money to pay, I’ll help them for free,” she
LRA survivor who spent a year and a half says with a shy smile.
in captivity. Like Simone, Monique was reMonique is still traumatised by the horpeatedly raped in the forest. “When the rors of her past, but the pace of her recovman asked for sex, if you refused he would ery has nonetheless been striking. “I see a
either beat you or kill you,” she remem- big difference in her,” says Sister Angélique.
bers. “To protect yourself you had to ac- “Before she seemed sad, like someone who
cept everything he wanted when it came was always afraid. But now she’s the cometo sex.” At the time she was kidnapped she dian of the group. She makes people laugh
was only 14 years old.
and sings with the other women, and she
Like Simone,
has become a real
expert at sewing.”
Monique eventun n This gives me a
ally managed to
Monique insists
escape, but shortly
the
nun’s sympasteady income. And once
afterward she disthy and support are
I earn enough, I want to what have kept her
covered she was
go back to school.
pregnant. Soon she
afloat. “I think of her
like a mother, befound herself living
MONIQUE
cause she helps me
as an IDP in Dungu,
having to support
a lot and teaches me
her mother and infant son on her own. so many things. When I feel bad, she helps
Without enough money to hire builders, me,” she says. “She’s incapable of hurting
she and her mother built their simple mud anyone, and she never looks to get anything
hut themselves, packing the dirt with their out of it for herself.”
bare hands.
Like many new arrivals, Monique STOPPING THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
worked for two years as a day labourer, What Sister Angélique demands of the
spending days on end walking from door women in return, though, is self respect.
to door asking for odd jobs. “I hated it,” Several times a week you can find her
she says. “And sometimes at the end of the standing at the front of a mud-walled
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TIRELESS DEVOTION. Sister Angélique rises three times nightly to
feed the orphaned children who
share her room.
PRACTICAL SKILLS. Sewing provides
an income, and the chance of a stable future.
ROBBED. Estimates put DRC’s mineral wealth at up to $24 trillion, yet
its people remain poor.
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BACK IN SCHOOL. A girl takes notes in Sister Angélique’s classroom.
chapel that doubles as a classroom. The
roof is made of thatch, the floor is hard
packed dirt and the students – around 20
women – perch on benches made of roughhewn logs. They are here to learn to read
and write, but Sister Angélique uses the
occasion to teach them about their own
rights as well.
“What is happening here?” she asks them,
pointing to a drawing of a man pulling his
wife across the yard by her hair. The wife in
the picture is crying, and several terrified
children look on. “Whose marriage is like
this? And what can we do to prevent it?” she
asks, gently urging the women to speak up.
Nearly all admit that their husbands beat
them, and what follows is a lively discussion
about how to stop the violence.
“There are people here who grow up
thinking that a wife is not happy unless you
beat her. Even some girls think it is a sign
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of love,” Sister Angélique explains. She
holds regular classes like this on the subject of women’s rights, touching on topics
like sexual violence and gender inequality
before launching into the ABCs.
“THE LIVES OF MY CHILDREN ARE IN MY HANDS.”
At the front of the class sits 18-year-old Julie,
her hair cropped boyishly short, her oneyear-old son propped on her knee. Julie’s
hand shoots up eagerly when asked to recite the alphabet, and she carries her child
on one arm as she confidently traces letters
on the blackboard.
But the discussion about domestic violence leaves her quiet and thoughtful. Violence is something Julie knows all too well,
having been kidnapped by the LRA at the
age of 13 and held captive in the forest for
five years. During that time she was savagely beaten for trying to escape, and was
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT. Literacy offers a future of self sufficiency.
shot twice in the arm during an attack by
the Congolese army.
Julie also bore two children while living
with the LRA, and when she was finally
released she found herself struggling to
feed them. Sister Angélique taught her to
make pastries, which she sells every day
to the other displaced families living in her
camp. Sometimes she even takes her bowl
of pastries and walks several kilometres
into town. “The lives of my children are in
my hands,” she explains. “There’s no one
else here to help me.”
Julie is a recent arrival in Dungu, but
only a week after learning the pastry
trade the money she earned allowed her
to buy some simple furniture for her hut.
Despite the hardships she’s lived through
she hasn’t lost her ambition, and intends
to take advantage of Sister Angélique’s literacy classes to get her education back on
track. In class, she hangs onto every word
the nun says; one day, she confides, she’d
like to become a teacher herself.
FOCUSING ON THE FUTURE
For Monique, Julie and Simone, and hundreds of girls like them, recovery is about
more than being able to feed their families.
It’s about being able to truly come to grips
with the traumatic experiences of their
past, and focus on the fact that they have
most of their lives ahead of them. In her
loving perseverance and unshakable belief
in them, Sister Angélique has taken on the
role of counsellor, coach and mother, all
rolled into one.
“I really think of her as my mother, because what she does helps me so much. She
really cares about my future,” says Simone,
describing how the nun encouraged her
not only to go back to school, but also to
love her child, the son of her rapists, as any
other mother would. “She told me that I
should take care of this child and send him
to school, and maybe he’ll even be president of this country someday. I love him a
lot,” she says. She named him Dieumerci,
which means “thanks be to God”.
Now Simone – eloquent, confident and
speaking fluent French – is just two years
away from finishing secondary school.
She still makes and sells her pastries every
afternoon after class, using the profits to
pay for her education. She wants to go to
university, she says, and someday she’d
like to get a job working in development.
NO LONGER AFRAID
Sister Angélique says that since she met
Simone three years ago, she has seen the
adolescent girl come out of her shell. “I
noticed that before, she thought she was
the only one carrying this weight of suffering,” she says. “But when she is working together with the others, sharing their
lives, talking about how they have suffered, that really motivated her to open
up. Now she’s very cheerful when she’s
with the others.”
“She tells me that today, she’s no longer
afraid,” she adds. “She has found her
mother, she has found her family, and she
feels protected by the community. She no
longer thinks about what happened to her
in the forest, and she can already visualise
her diploma.”
“I think it’s really important to keep on
supporting her and pushing her, so that
she finally reaches the goals she dreamed
about as a child.” n
Some names have been changed to protect
confidentiality.
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