NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF: From ‘Oprah’ to Building a Sisterhood in Congo
Posted on February 5 2010 by zerofootprint and filed in Education + Training, Urban Issues + Population
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From ‘Oprah’ to Building a Sisterhood in Congo
New York Times
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 3, 2010
BUKAVU, Congo
Five years ago, Lisa Shannon watched “Oprah” and learned about the savage, forgotten war here in eastern Congo, played out in massacres and mass rape. That show transformed Lisa’s life, costing her a good business, a beloved fiancé, and a comfortable home in Portland, Ore. — but giving her a chance to save lives in Congo.
I found myself stepping with Lisa into a shack here. It was night, there was no electricity, and a tropical rainstorm was turning the shantytown into a field of mud and streams. Lisa had come to visit a woman she calls her sister, Generose Namburho, a 40-year-old nurse.
Generose’s story is numbingly familiar: extremist Hutu militiamen invaded her home one night, killed her husband and prepared to rape her. Then, because she shouted in an attempt to warn her neighbors, they hacked off her leg above the knee with a machete.
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