The immobilizing fear I used to feel while traveling in the eastern DRC has subsided. While the situation in some parts of the country is still not secure 100 percent of the time, I know that the incongruent image I had of this place because of news articles too often focusing on the negative was wrong. As I take my third trip to Mboko village to check on the progress of the Ahadi quilt project, my heart pounds for an entirely different reason.
This is the trip in which I will see the fruits of our labor. All the weeks of planning, all those meetings, and all that brainstorming—what have they produced?
I arrive at SOS FED’s offices in Mboko and I am happy to find many women working on their tiles. The women seem to be enjoying spending time together, chatting with one another, and helping each other take care of their children. Perhaps they exchange stories about the images they depicted on their panels, gaining strength from their experiences.
I take a seat and I begin interviewing women about their submissions. Many of the images are shocking, depicting horrors that are all too common here. One woman tells me that she chose to embroider a woman fetching water at a well and soldier sneaking up behind her to rape her because this happened to her. Another woman tells me that the image of a woman crying out is a depiction of suffering, the suffering she felt after her rape and the subsequent abuse she received from the other women in her village.
I am mostly impressed by the images and the subject matter women chose to convey. Amisi told the women to choose “images that speak,” and I think that the women did just that.
There is one setback, however. Participants were asked to use an embroidery frame so as to avoid wrinkled tiles. Many women decided to neglect that request in an effort to work faster. Nearly all the tiles came back with wrinkles, some more than others, setting the project back at least two weeks.
Nevertheless, the project continues, despite being a little bit delayed. Overall, though, the results are impressive and the participants should be commended for achieving such great results.
