In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

9 Hunger on the Road At Lubutu we had no time to grieve for the children we had just lost. We had to keep on running. The rebels were less than ten kilometers away. After traveling about ten kilometers, we decided to stop and make some bouillie, since we hadn’t eaten since the night before. Assumpta went to look for firewood, Virginie went for water, and I found stones for the fireplace. The bouillie was almost ready when another group of refugees arrived in the village. They had run until they were out of breath. There was no more thought of eating bouillie. We poured it out on the ground and Virginie put the pot, unwashed and still hot, into her bundle. We ran frantically. Our hunger had to wait until the next day. I held Zuzu’s hand so that I wouldn’t lose her. We walked through the entire moonless night without stopping to sleep, one behind the other, Indian file, holding hands. At regular intervals I called out the name of each girl so that I would know that they were still there. Only the next day around noon were we able to stop, exhausted. Little Zuzu was at the end of her strength. We rested a little and continued on. This relentless forced march sapped our strength and our morale. Marcelline was the first to break. We had gone about fifty kilometers when she became sick. The night before we had walked until nine o’clock stopping only long enough to make some food and rest a little. We spread out our sheeting on the ground in the courtyard of a house in a deserted village, in the middle of hundreds of other refugees. At two we got up to continue walking. We had just done two or three kilometers when Marcelline refused to walk any more. She was burning up with fever and couldn’t take one more step. We couldn’t stay there until 164 she recovered, because the rebels were continually gaining ground, but there was also no question of abandoning her on the road like some did when their family members were too sick to walk. I divided up her baggage between Assumpta, Virginie, and me, which gave all of us about five kilos more to carry. We carried it on our backs, like the Zairian women. With this extra load, we walked doubled up, our eyes fixed on the road. Despite the fact that we had relieved her of her load, Marcelline was still unable to walk alone. I took her by the hand and she let herself be dragged more than she walked. How did my forty kilos succeed in pulling Marcelline’s sixty kilos along? In situations like that you often have strength and courage that you wouldn’t dream of in normal times. She wanted to drink frequently, and we had to stop every time and ask for water from people passing by. One only saw their shadows, because it was still night. When they didn’t have any water, we had to wake people who were sleeping. Since we were walking day and night, many people simply spread out their sheeting on the road, leaving only a narrow passage for those who were still walking. That day we had to stop earlier to let Marcelline rest. As soon as she was able to put one foot in front of the other, we gave her a walking stick and continued our flight into the unknown. After Marcelline, it was my turn. I started to feel a sharp pain in my right knee. For several weeks I had been limping. If someone passing by hadn’t given me a bandage to wrap around my ailing knee, I do not know how I could have continued. Very few of the sick who were able to get across the bridge survived the effort it took to put a few dozen kilometers between themselves and the rebels. The third day after leaving Tingi-Tingi we began to pass the bodies of the dead and dying. When someone was too sick to keep on walking, he sat down by the side of the road and waited for death. The first and the last time that I dared to look at one of these unfortunates, my eye fell on a teenager hardly sixteen years old. Like the others, she was lying at the side of the road, her large eyes open. She watched...

Share