“J’ai constaté que les plus riches dans la monde, ils sont commerçants. Donc, je vais devenir commerçant. Et toi aussi, Emily, tu vas devenir commerçant. Je vous encourage.” — And my Congolese mentee becomes my mentor
To two readers of this blog who donated $30 each for the kid’s rent. As the kid says, que Dieu vous benisse.
As I explained several posts ago, the Congolese kid hero of this blog for the last two years lost his house/shack in a rainstorm in December. He moved with his siblings to a rental house that is $30 a month. Because he’s a kid, the landlord is asking for three months rent at a time. He scrapped together $30 but he needs another $60. Please help. You can also fund rent for a longer period. The kid will write you an email to thank you and post weird messages on your Facebook wall.
It is hard enough when you are 17 19 and have no parents and have to take care of your siblings and try to finish school. Helping the kid to pay the modest amount of rent for their lodging is a simple way to help. In the United States we spend up to $10,000 a month to lodge orphans. $30 is not so much to ask.
Donate via Chipin with PayPal:
http://africanheroes.chipin.com/lodging-for-congolese-orphans
What is JFK University?
I’ve never heard of it. But it educated a social worker who has institutionalized a young man in a reform school since he was a boy. This young man is now 16. He has never been on a sports team, gone to a party, and can’t walk without being followed by an adult. He was abused when he was a child, taken away from his family and placed with a foster parent. He acted out and was placed in an institution. He’s lived in one ever since. In the institution, children are not allowed to go to the bathroom, enter the kitchen, watch TV, go outside, get a drink or an apple without asking permission. If they walk out the door, they’re AWOLing. This warrants a physical restraint — to “protect” the child. This is California, not a warzone. The kids get sick of their institutionalized lives and the people who supervise them. They rebel. Depending on its manifestation, they might be restrained on the ground by three people as they scream and beg to be released. This can go on for hours. Screaming, crying, vomiting. Other children are supposed to carry on about their business watching “The Princess Diaries” or sleeping as this violence goes on in the hallway, the living room, or outside on the lawn. They are expected to heal from the trauma of their lives in such an environment. What often ends up happening is they become more violent. I’ve seen it. I work in this place.
The social worker from JFK University won’t let the 16 year old go live with his older sister, even though she’s an adult and has prepared to adopt him. The social worker thinks he will do violent things. After all, he does violent things in the institution. Instead, he will be shifted to another institution until he turns 19. Then he will be dropped into the world like a newborn baby.
My friend’s mother worked in a psych ward, but she quit last month because she was discouraged by such revolving cases. Someone is victimized, they can’t cope, they wind up in the ward, and then the mental health establishment takes over, making sure they stay forever. It’s like taking an unemployed person with a welfare check to a junk bond broker. My friend’s mom called the people she worked with “powertripping sadists,” from the lowest mental health aide to the chief psychiatrist.
The social worker works for the state, “protecting children.” My kid in Congo has lamented that his failed state doesn’t do more for orphans, but lets compare his life at age 17 to that of the California kid.
California
age 16
Congo
age 17
California
Capable student, enrolled in “special education” school filled with disruptive students
Congo
Capable student, enrolled in “magnet school” filled with bright students
California
Parents: none. Parental rights terminated upon abuse and exploitation.
Congo
Parents: none. Died after exploiting and neglecting their six children throughout their lives.
California
Responsibilities: eat food prepared by institution, attend special ed, attend therapy, attend “day treatment” games of capture the flag, do a chore, bathe, sleep.
Congo
Responsibilities: run small business, purchase food, pay siblings tuition, raise siblings, excel in school to attend university
California
Leisure: attend “day treatment.” Play with other kids in institution yard during allotted free time. Watch TV. Play video games. Read. Play Monopoly.
Congo
Leisure: go to parties, date girls, have friends over, play soccer, go to church
California
Belongings: clothes
Congo
Belongings: clothes, cellphone
California
Health: fine. Medi-Cal holder.
Congo
Health: fine. No health insurance.
California
Lodging: house
Congo
Lodging: house
California
Coping mechanism: going to therapy, watching movies, calling sister, talking to peers
Congo
Coping mechanism: talking to peers, dreaming of college, praying to God, calling mentor in California, Facebook
STOP
These two boys are not that different. At age 14, they were interchangeable: intelligent, poor, depressed, exploited and neglected. At age 14, I drove the Congolese kid to an institution for orphans and tried to enroll him. Being someone from California, I imagined that his prospects would surely be better if he could be protected through his teenage years by caring adults. He took one look around and asked to go home. “These kids are savages,” he said. “I’m not living here.”
I didn’t agree with him, but it wasn’t my choice to make. Then his parents died, and all of his siblings were put in his responsibility. At age 15, he became the legal guardian for three smaller children. The state doesn’t take care of children. I worried immensely about him and his siblings, I still do. But he continued to pursue his studies, and his mood leveled out. He became a popular boy at school with the smart crowd. He is focused and responsible, and obsessed with going to college. I never would have thought it could be better to be an orphan in a failed state, but when I heard that this boy from California was being sentenced to more time in an institution, to more time in the pandemonium and low expectations of a special ed school, and denied his request to live with his sister, I really had to wonder — is it better to be an orphan in a failed state?
It’s been too long since I updated on the kid’s life. He is not a kid anymore, for one thing. He’s 19. I can hardly believe the little urchin I once knew is a responsible young man — the head of a household and guardian of three younger children! There’s been a lot of news in the last few months. Congo had its elections. By reliable accounts, they were rigged. The kid and his compatriots worried about a civil war. Kabila “won” again, although his opponent, Tshisekedi, has also declared himself the President and inaugurated himself. But there is not yet a civil war. We’ll keep an eye on that. It does look pretty certain that man-child Kabila will have another term to play video games and mistake funds for Congo’s schools, army, police, and healthcare for his allowance.
Our hero, the kid, had his house washed away in a rainstorm. He and his siblings scattered to friends houses. During this period I had nightmares that he got sick from exposure and I worried that his little sister would be sexually molested by opportunistic men in the place they were crashing. I warned the kid that his little brothers could become street urchins and bandits now that they were homeless. And I quickly managed to persuade him that the solution was not to rebuild his house but to rent another one. Within twelve hours of that conversation, he had found a house to rent in the same neighborhood for $30 a month, begged $50 from a friend to pay part of the deposit, and installed himself and his two brothers and sister. Good work!
But alas, the homeless weeks took their toll on the kid’s smallest brother, a 13-year-old who used to be his favorite sibling. He started hanging out on the street with runaways, smoking and drinking. Once the kid rented the house, the little guy ran away to be with his friends on the street. He stopped going to school and became, in the kid’s words, a bandit. In quick and decisive action, the kid shipped him off to Granny’s house on the island of Idjwi. He has been living there for two weeks now, and returned to school. Apparently there are no runaway street children in Idjwi, and little brother thanks big brother for “saving him.”
Big brother is working hard in school so that he may pass exams to enter University in two years. As a result, he has delegated the gasoline sales business to his 16-year-old brother, a former bandit who is now a churchgoing student and apparently, the family breadwinner.
Little sister, whom I have so worried about — I can call her Cinderella after her evil aunt adopted her and made her toil away day and night without sending her to school — is thriving in school now that she lives with her older brothers and has her tuition paid by generous foreigners. She is in the top of her class, she sings, she recites poems, and she smiles all the time. Her older brother is very proud.
And to wrap this up, the kid is on Facebook. He just sent me a friend request. As an aspiring college man, he elected to fill in his education information with “pas encore” — not yet.
And that’s a wrap.
“La rentree scholaire” or the return to school is happening, which means the kid in Congo and his little sister need $51 and $13 respectively to pay for their public school. If you are a fan of the amazing kid or want to help an 8 year old girl who has never been sent to school because she is a girl, please click here and donate to my Paypal page. I will send the money to Congo. Click here to learn about why public school costs money in Congo and other African countries.
As I said earlier, I sent the kid in Congo, now a man by his own account, David Eggers’ memoir, “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” since the two have a common experience. David’s parents died and he raised his little brother, and so goes the Congolese experience, only there are two brothers and now a sister who has been abused and needs help. The kid loves to read and loves when I give him homework assignments, and he’s always interested in learning how people do things elsewhere. He wrote his essay about the book in June, but there’s no postal service in Congo, so we were stumped for a while about how he could get it to me so I can get it to David Eggers, the man himself. Finally the kid was so resourceful as to ask a humanitarian program manager to use her computer so he could type and email his handwritten essay to me. Here it is.
ENGLISH
Thoughts on the life of David EggersUnable to count on members of his family, he didn’t want to count on God to save him nor on anyone else. He wanted to find the means to save himself and his little brother. I think David Eggers is a decisive man. He decided to earn his living; unfortunately he was in the position of having to raise himself and his little brother.
The event that I find very interesting is that David Eggers would do anything to earn a living, and he ended up surviving. He didn’t want to count on God. He wanted only to get by on his own force and his own means. He didn’t want to scatter, leaving his brother, but he wanted to stay with his brother, live with him, and share his suffering with him.
Between myself and David Eggers there are some similarities. Me also, I live with my little brothers very far from town in a little house and it’s me who hustles to find something to eat and a means to pay for my brothers’ school fees. It’s not easy to get by, I force myself to do anything to raise my brothers.
Truly, to take care of myself is very difficult. I do all of this because I love my brothers and I don’t want to loose them to the streets. I say this because in our country the government doesn’t take care of orphans; the result is that orphans lack the opportunity to go to school, they are hungry and homeless. It’s for this reason that orphans live on the street without a means to eat and are thieves. There have been times when they steal things from people, get caught and killed. Others are taken to prison where they suffer. Truly, it is grave here, there are no orphanages, and the orphans suffer.
I remember when my parents died, I was sure I could count on my extended family. In the past, they had given us anything we needed, they even let us live on their land, they gave us food and clothes and other things. Only two months after my parents died, they left us like they didn’t know us. They told me they weren’t capable of taking care of [me and my siblings]. Since then, I decided not to count on my family. I left their house and returned to my parents’ empty house where I started to sell gas. With this gas I earned a living. It has been two years since I started to sell gas, and little by little I get by. In the past two years, my extended family has not come to visit us and myself, I decided also not to visit them.
Since then I no longer want to fight with the rest of my family.
FRENCH
Le pensées de la vie de David eggers et ceci sans qu’on sache il ne voulait compte sure le membre de sa famille et il ne voulait pas compte
Tout a DIEU pour le sauver ou bien d’autre personne pour le sauver sa pensées il voudrait trouver le moyen de se sauver et de sauver se petit frère ,je trouver que David eggers était un homme de décision ; IL avait décide de gagne sa vie ,malheureusement il a parvenir a se sauver et se sauver ses petit frère.
L’événement que je trouver très intéressant, et : David eggers a fait n’importe quoi pour
Pour gagne sa vie, et il a finir par ses sauver et il ne voulait pas compte tout a DIEU pou le sauver sa pensées il voulait seulement se débrouille par sa propre force et sa propre moyen. Et il ne voulait pas s éparpille avec ses frère il voulait seulement reste ensemble avec ses petit frère il encor il voudrait partager sa souffrance avec ses frère.
Entre mois et David eggers il ya une partit de similarités mois aussi je reste ensemble avec mes petits frère très loin de la ville dans une petite maison et se moi qui se débrouille pour trouver quoi a manger et comment mes petit frère peut étudier, se ne pas facile de mes débrouille je mes force pour fait sa pour trouver comment mes petit frère peut parvenir a grandir. Vraiment pour
Êtres responsable pour moi se très difficile je fait tout ceci parce que je l’amour de mes petit frère je ne voulait pas le perde dans la rue. Je dis tout sa parce que DANS nôtres pays le gouvernement ne s’occupe pas avec l’orpheline ; raison pour la quelle les orphelin manque de opportunité éducative et alimentaire et de logement. SE POUR Cela que les orphelin loger dans la rue pour manque quoi a faire pour trouver quoi a manger il vole le chose d’autrui ,il ya de moment quant il vole le chose d’autrui on l’attrape et on le tue il ya les autre on les amène dans le prison et il souffrez la bas vraiment ici se grave ,il n’ya na pas des orphelinat pour les orphelin . les orphelin souffre
je mes rappelle quand mes parents son décède je faise confiance et je compte sur le membre de notre famille ,car il nous donne n’importe quoi :et nous avons commence a loger sur leur habitation ,il nous donne de la nourriture des habit et d’autres ,après seulement é 2 mois plus tard ils nous ont laisse comme si il ne nous conne pas il m’avait dit il ne son pas capable d’ être responsable de nous. DEPUIS les jours là je dédise de ne plus compte sur le membre de ma famille je quitte la bas avec mes petit frère et retourne chez nous quand j’été chez nous je commence a vende de pétrole ; avec cette pétrole que gagne de la vie Sa fait 2 ans que je vend le pétrole, petit a petit je gagne la vie , depuis les jours las le membre Dema famille na déjà venue nous voir la ou nos habitons et mois aussi décide que je ne peux pas allé le voire
Depuis les jours las je ne voulais plus de dispute parmi le reste de ma famille
“
Philip G you are a hypocrite, No body forced you to write about the heroic moments of RPF, you had your personal drive and self plans.
Who paid you to tell lies about Rwanda, do you think the world will trust your created and biased articles.
Any way people of your kind end their careers desperate, confused and manipulated.
You better live Rwandese alone , as we solved some problems which the west had ignored, Trust me we shall again and again solve ours.
Because You have no moral authority to teach our President what he should and not do to run our country. Try and be a president of your country and you shall lead according to WHAT YOU THINK IS RIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY.
Posted by Success on Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 10:23 AM
” — An African hero comments on Philip Gourevitch’s writing about Rwanda. Note that his name is Success.
Bonjour,
Comment va la lecture?
Moi, je suis tres triste. Mon chat est partie, je ne sais pas ou. Elle est tres cool, ma sole famille a New York. Voici un photo. J’espere qu’elle rentrait.
As tu des nouvelles de Goma?
Je vais envoyer de l’argent pour ton ecole ce semaine.
Ton amie,
Emily
***
salue EMILY
VRAIMENT votré chat est trés coule. je mes rappellé mon chien ici chez nous il ya déja qui manger de chien il sont manger mon chien donc il sont volé sa et manger. la lecture [of Dave Eggers’ “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”] vas tres bien je compris comment le jeune de vaigtaine anneé comment ils sont ecoute l’emision capitale de M T V et comment ils sont parvenur de crire leur propre histoire et leur vie dans une semaine je peut parvenir a termine a lir. se trés coule Goma vas trés bien le chinois commence a construire le route.merci se ton ami XXX
English:
Hello,
How is the reading going?
Me, I am very sad. My cat left, I don’t don’t where. She is very cool, my only family in New York. I attach a photo. I hope she comes back.
Do you have any news from Goma?
I’m going to send money for your school this week.
Your friend,
Emily
***
Hello EMILY
Truly your cat is really cool. I remember my dog which I had here there are people who eat dogs they ate my dog they stole him and ate him. My reading [of Dave Eggers’ “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”] goes very well I understand how the young people in their 20s listened to MTV and how they tried to write their own histories of their lives in one week I will be able to finish reading it. It’s cool in Goma the Chinese are starting to build roads. Thank you it’s your friend XX.