Lisa Karrer (b. 1957)

Station 6 Ceramic Forms: Hundreds of thousands of Congolese and Somali refugees flee with their families to vastly over-crowded camps in Nigeria and Kenya, living in make-shift fabric tents stretched over wood frames. 

Station 6 Video Scenarios: https://vimeo.com/507707801

Democratic Republic of Congo / Language: Swahili

In Congo Ababdelwa was a teacher and educator, a community actvist for women’s rights; he worked with NGOs for 6 years, also HIV/AIDS health clinics, and was a news writer for for the local sports teams.

This is the history of Congo Kinshasa. Congo Kinshasa is in the middle of Africa. It has nine neighboring countries. To the west: the Republic of Central Africa, Sudan, Congo Brazzaville. To the south: Angola and Zambia. To the east, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi. 2,344,858 square kilometers, with a population of 84 million divided into 450 tribes and 4 ethnic groups: Bantu, Batwa, Semi Bantu, and Sudanese. Divided into 26 provinces and 144 districts. It is the second largest country in Africa and twelfth in the world. The Congo is home to the very large Equatorial forest, it’s the second largest rainforest after the Amazon. The Congo has four mountains and four big rivers. We have the third largest mountain in all of Africa, called Ruhenzori, and a lot of natural resources.

The whole world attacks Congo for our natural resources. One of the resources is gold. Congo is number two for gold. Congo is number two for diamonds, silver, uranium, coltan is number one in the world, cobalt, cassiterite, ga, methane and mercury. Our country has seven animal parks: Virunga, Pemba, Kundelumgu, Garamba, Miyako, Kahuzibiaga, Salonga.

The Congo gained its independence from Belgium on June 30th 1960. It’s been 59 years. And still the country doesn’t have peace due to everything that I’ve said.

We want the country to have peace. Since I’ve been born there have been fourteen wars and only 32 years of peace. But the rest of the time it was full of suffering.

Mwangaza (Wife of Watimbwa)
Democratic Republic of Congo / Language: Swahili and English

Speaking in English, Mwangaza tells her story of leaving Congo and spending 8 years in a Kenyan refugee camp, before making her way to Buffalo.

**Please note: Mwangaza’s Swahili narrative continues at Station #2

Watimbwa (Husband of Mwangaza)
Democratic Republic of Congo / Language: Swahili

I am from the DRC from a town called Bukavu. I was born in Bukavu and I want to tell the story about why I fled Bukavu. I left in 2005 because of the instability. The government was searching for me. I was in a group called Center Lokole of Bukavu. We used to organize poems, movies.

In 2005 the war was organized by Mutebusi and one of Mutebusi’s groups came to Bukavu from Rwanda. They came to a village called Ninja and they killed people. Other people they buried alive.

The leader of our group (Center Lokole of Bukavu) had an idea. They told us to make a movie about how the people were buried alive. The movie had to be the story of what happened in Ninja. When we played that movie the government was not happy because we showed what really happened in Ninja. The government came and arrested the leaders of the Center Lokole of Bukavu. We were eleven members and when we saw the leaders get arrested we all ran our own way. Everyone went a different way. Some were caught but I was very lucky. I ran to Burundi.

After Burundi I found a way to leave, so I went to South Africa. That is where my journey starts. From South Africa I was able to get to a settlement and they helped me get to America. The story is a lonely story. I was supposed to be an actor but I had to leave all my dreams.

The Congolese government couldn’t support us and they wanted to arrest us and put us in prison. Up until now a lot of my friends who were in that group have disappeared. I’ve never heard from them again and the leaders of that group are dead. It is a very bad story and it will never go away. I still think about that story.

**Please note: Watimbwa’s narratives continue at Station #2 and Station #8

Edith
Democratic Republic of Congo / Language: Swahili and English

(Edith sings her favorite popular love song from Congo)

I chose you to be mine. Ahhhhh
My man, father of my children. Ahhhhh
To be in love with you is grace. Ahhhhh
To marry you is a blessing Ahhhhh
My love living Ahhhhh
Oh baby I love you Ahhhhh
For you, I change my ways
Baby for you
I left my [singlehood]
So we can build something together
And have children with you
And raise them with you together
And then I must be old with you.
My heart chose you.
Thank you so much

**Please note: Edith’s narrative continues at Station #8

Dido
Democratic Republic of Congo / Language: Swahili

I was living in Congo Uvira Sud [south] Kivu, when the armies from DRC Goma, Burundi and Uganda came to Congo in Sud Kivu and started fighting.

It was this time that they were taking young men to help them carry the guns and their things to the forest. One day, my friend and I were walking in the street. They took us to help them carry things to the forest. It was bad luck this day because a group of May May and armies from Rwanda were together fighting and one of my friends who was in front of me was shot and killed. I took the chance and ran into the forest and hid. In the evening I went home and told my parents how I had been caught and my parents cried. They thought I had died but I told them I was lucky, I didn’t die. But my friend who they took with me, he died.

From that day I no longer saw peace. That is why I decided to leave my country. There was no safety. That is how I decided to flee to a foreign country. That is how I came to be in America. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen my family until now. And that’s the problem in my life, when I am remembering, like I am now, I start to cry.

Rosette
Democratic Republic of Congo / Language: Swahili

In the Congo we were living in a place called Bukavu with all of our family, cousins, aunts and neighbors, friends. If we had a party we would invite all of the neighbors. We were very, very close to all of our neighbors. We were like family. If one of the neighbors didn’t have food we would call each other and meet and share food all together.

Back home we had good neighbors and everyone was friendly. At Christmas when one person would finish cooking they would call everyone and we would go to them. Then the next person would finish cooking and we would go to them and share a meal.

I was very little at that time and I went to school and would come back home. Sometimes there wasn’t enough money. We would just go to school like normal and when we came back home there was no food. One day we went to school and people came to the school and started killing people. We were told to run! Everybody had to save their own life. I found my mother outside the school. When I was running my mother came to get me. They knew what had happened and she came outside to wait for us. When we got home there was chaos and people were already dead. We closed the doors and windows and stayed hidden inside the house.

(When we were living in Congo. Life was very easy because my mother was selling shoes and my dad was working. It’s not that we had a lot of money. It was little money but it helped us to keep going. My sisters and brothers would go looking for money themselves. Whatever they found they would bring home and put it on the table. And we had food to eat together. And we thanked God for all of that. It was a struggle but for all of that we were thankful to God.)

In 2009 we left Congo and went to Kenya, and in Kenya we thanked God because life was a little bit better.

Before we left Congo we lived in a big house, 6 rooms and two kitchens. Even though the house was big, when the war came we ran to another house, but we left that house too because we knew any day we could could be killed, because there was so much killing there. In that type of place there was no peace. Just people being killed.

We ran because if you stayed you didn’t know if you would wake up tomorrow. You never knew what would happen tomorrow. You didn’t know if you would wake up tomorrow. You could go out and you could die. That is why we left and went to Kenya. When we went to Kenya we had God’s help. We stayed for a few years. With God’s help our paperwork was processed quickly. From there we came here. And we thank God that we were spared from all of those things.

**Please note: Rosette’s Swahili narrative continues at Station #7