An ending, but not the end

How to let go of the people and places my mind and body and heart and soul have lived among for so long.

Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made. 

---

Flying over eastern Congo.

I spilled a few thousand words recently trying to figure out why I have not written the final part of my series about how I reported on the rapes of dozens of little girls in a town called Kavumu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over many years. I didn’t really arrive at a conclusion.

This is where I give my endorsement for therapy. It took exactly no minutes for my therapist to figure out why I have writer’s block for probably only the second time in my life. (True writer’s block, the kind where your brain finds everything it can to keep you out of that chair, your eyes off that screen. Usually, you’re not even aware of its machinations until the sun goes down on your empty pages.)

Have you ever read a series of books in which you feel you know the characters and you always want to see what’s next for them? (Oh, who am I kidding? I mean a binge-worthy TV show.) They become people you want to root for or worry about; you want to see them succeed. The people involved in the Kavumu case are like that for me: inspiring and intrepid — I’m moved by their stories. And yes, some of them are my friends.

Or maybe you open a book to live somewhere else for a little while, to learn about another place? Eastern Congo is like that for me: so different from where I live. Being there is endlessly fascinating.

Or have you ever moved from one city to another and felt that you don’t really live in the place you’ve moved to or the one you just left? I’ve written about that strange sense of displacement that many journalists who do international reporting experience. I think I’m on year eight of that sensation.

In simple terms, I can’t write the final part of the series because I don’t want to let go of the people and places my mind and body and heart and soul have lived among for so long.

I have learned so much from so many, like these people, who inspired me to continue reporting when things got painful: I met people like Yves Kulondwa, the talented young artist I hired to report on the trial every day for weeks — he nailed it; Colonel David Bodeli, whose bravery and determination allowed him to investigate the rapes; Felix Mugisho, who, as Kavumu’s civil society president, openly testified against the perpetrators in a remarkable show of courage; and Inge Kool, who opened her home to me as she reported alongside me in Kavumu in her capacity at an international NGO (and who later lost her life while visiting her home in The Netherlands; she’s in the video above).

Dr. Mukwege at Panzi Hospital.

Then there are the caregivers: There’s my friend Lorena Aguirre Cadarso, who works at a nearby ape sanctuary and arranged to provide free therapy to the girls and their families. And Dr. Desire Alumeti, a forensic doctor at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, who called me in New York to make sure I was all right the night I ended up in the hospital from the stress of this story. And Dr. Denis Mukwege, Nobel laureate and head of Panzi, who gave me multiple interviews over the years to help me understand the violence that coats everything in that corner of DRC. And the people at Physicians for Human Rights, who I probably spoke to every single day for years; my friends and colleagues at the United Nations and TRIAL International, who quietly kept me informed; and certain contacts at the UN and MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping force for Congo, who let me in on some of what they were dealing with. And, of course, there’s Jack, my fixer, who saved my life both figuratively and literally. Jack is a pseudonym bestowed on him by former clients because his intrepidness matches that of Tom Clancy’s character Jack Ryan.

And at the center: the girls themselves. I only ever met them once, but they have been with me ever since, whispering their stories. Some of their attackers may be behind bars, but those girls still live in a place with too much poverty, not enough law and a high risk of danger.

---

On Lake Kivu.

And yet one thing I may not have made clear in this Chills series is the startling beauty of Congo — lush greens and almost fluorescent flowers in pinks and yellows and purples. Tangled orchids and a serene but dangerous lake — poisonous gas lies beneath the surface, but upon it, men in elegant fishing boats glide and two-foot-tall cormorants open their wings to the sun for minutes at a time.

And, in my entire life, I have only rarely met such kind, smart, fearless and passionate people willing to barrel through terrifying circumstances to make their communities, city and country safe. It might be that it takes extreme circumstances to bring that out in certain people — I met people like this in the aftermath of September 11 in New York City too — but whatever it is, it seems to be rare, and DRC has it.

So, it’s obvious now: I’m not ready to label all these people — and places and experiences — as “past” while they are very much out there living and working and existing, being extraordinary. My eyes fill with tears even now at the thought of what feels like disappearing them from my mind. Much is said about “journalistic distance” but…I care very much about all of them, and about that place. Anyone who doesn’t feel like this after such experiences — I wonder about their capacity for empathy.

---

The brash beauty of flowers in Bukavu.

People always say to live each day as if it’s your last. Every day of reporting on this story felt like that, because for so many of the people I was speaking to, it truly may have been. They were bombed, threatened, shot at — yet they persevered, and still do.

I continue to speak to some of my sources, mostly the ones who have become my friends. I get updates about Kavumu: Yes, there was an excellent outcome for the Kavumu girls in that their perpetrators were imprisoned for life on crimes against humanity. But the village, of course, still faces violence in a country that is riddled with it.

As journalists, we can never present or bring about an absolute ending to a real-life story. We can only do it artificially in our work. And maybe that’s okay. I can write the final chapter of this saga for you without pretending that this complex story is over, or that these people and this country don’t exist out there — which, frankly, is generally how the world treats the Congolese. None of it needs to, or even can, disappear from my mind.

Someday, the acute threat of Covid will pass, as will the possibility of retaliation against me because of my work, and I will return to Congo to pick up a notebook that has sat dormant. I will merely have to flip forward until I find a blank page, and begin again.

---

On Chills, there are no ads, and no outside influences because of it. This is a subscriber-supported space that gives a behind-the-scenes look at how risky investigative journalism gets made, from a journalist with 20 years of experience. Read Chills for free, or subscribe for bonus content like this. You can sign up here. Thank you for supporting independent journalism.