Courtesy of Seal Press
If you want to learn a little about what life for women in eastern Congo is like, read Lisa Shannon's A Thousand Sisters. If you want to know what it's like to travel there as an outsider who is interested not in harvesting the region's mineral wealth, but in learning about the ongoing conflict and helping the women among its victims, read this book.
If you want to know what it's like to feel passionate about a cause and the mental and emotional hurdles that surprise you along the way in pursuing it—you guessed it, read this book.
It's the story of a woman whose comfortable and stable late-20s life—a fiancé, a successful business, the whole deal—was upended when she learned about the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the horrific violence that it has inflicted on women for over a decade.
She decides to take action, and starts by running—and now, what started with her solo runs training for a 30-mile route has sprouted into a movement of 5K - 30-mile races nationwide to raise money for Congolese women. To date, Run for Congo Women has raised more than $200,000, which goes to sponsor individual women enrolled in Congo's Women for Women International program.
But before she was able to garner the support that the initiative now has, Shannon had some learning to do first. She traveled to Congo in 2007 for the first time. She met women she had signed on to sponsor and had exchanged photos and letters with, but meeting them in person brought a whole new reality to her understanding of what they have been through. She met Generose, a woman whose leg was cut off by militia in front of her children, who were then forced to eat parts of it—the one son who refused, was killed. She met countless other women, hearing and recording everyone's stories so that she could bring them back as testimony to build additional support in the U.S.
The book is admirably honest. Shannon talks openly about how, when lost in her desperation to gather as many stories as she could, her interviews with some women became formulaic rather than human and sister-like. She writes about how she persisted for more details from one woman who was clearly grieving her lost children, for example, and how she would later realize her pressing questions were inappropriate, but at the time she was caught up in recording and documenting, in bearing witness. She writes about a dress she brought as a gift for a girl at a child soldier rehabilitation center, and the reasons she realizes upon giving it to the girl that it may have been inappropriate.
It's an easy thing to think of certain behaviors you would avoid given a difficult situation, and it's another to actually get yourself into those situations. It builds trust in the author to read her honest account of the things she realized she could have done better, and to watch two very difficult processes happening simultaneously—getting to know Congo, and learning from one's mistakes.
Having traveled to eastern Congo and lived in countries nearby, I could have done without a few parts of the narrative. But I've chalked that up to being semi-familiar with the territory and more interested in her findings about women's individual stories and the conflict than I am in observations of Shannon's new surroundings, and I think they are probably useful descriptions for people who have not been there.
The book is Shannon's personal story of getting to know and understand the situation in Congo, not a policy wonk's take on violence against women there. It chronicles her journey from her first exposure to the crisis (on Oprah) to the personal obstacles she faced on her first, essentially-solo trip to Congo, to realizing after her return home when she hears news of another massacre that she has unfinished business there—and to her second trip to Congo, growing her own knowledge, strengthening her own connection to the country, and building evermore support for what continues to be a growing movement and call to action.
So whether it's to learn about a too-horrific-for-words situation that we can actually do something about, to be inspired by one person's rise to action, or to find a reason to sponsor a woman who could use a little support from someone in a less violent, more politically stable country than her own, this is a book to read right now.
