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Congo's Poor Lose Last Possessions
SOURCE: | By Gene Thorp - The Washington Post - November 15, 2008 TOOLBOX
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He was among a few dozen people who returned Wednesday to this village of thatched-roof mud houses in a cool grove of banana and mango trees. Like Kapitula, most of them have lived their entire lives here, getting by throughout the notoriously kleptocratic rule of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, when some earned a decent living, the rebel invasion that ousted Mobutu and the decade of civil war that followed.
Over the years, some people managed to fix up their homes with wooden doors and glass windows with neatly painted trim. Some have planted the pink and purple flowers that grow wild in this spectacularly lush part of the world.
People here said they had never been forced to flee during previous conflicts. But when rebels loyal to Nkunda advanced through the area two weeks ago, the fighting was so heavy the entire village joined the mass exodus toward Goma.
Kapitula left in a hurry, padlocking the wooden door of his house and hoping for the best. When he returned, he found a village of smashed doors and broken windows.
The two stolen saws had been "a remembrance of my father," he said, touching his heart.
His father had worked 30 years on a Belgian-owned coffee plantation, making $1.50 a day in the end. Before he died in 2006, he had bought the two $90 saws with what amounted to his life's savings and given them to his son.
Kapitula was able to employ four people, using the saws to fell tall trees and cut up the wood, which he sold in a local market. That brought him about $30 a month, and after a year or so, he managed to buy a third saw and add two men to his crew.
He was eventually making about $50 a month, and life was looking up. He bought the pig. He was taking care of his 70-year-old mother.
"Now I'll be able to make maybe $15 with the one ax," Kapitula said. "Now the men I employed are jobless. They are coming to ask me, as a boss, how can we start again?"
As a few dozen people arrived here Wednesday, they began asking themselves the same question -- and counting their losses.
In some houses, it seemed that the thieves did not so much go looting as go shopping, taking the best items and leaving the rest.
Mahano, who has lived in Nyongera for six years, was at first afraid to go inside her house. When she did, she found her newest blankets stolen along with her favorite dress.
