May is here and it is time.  I will be holding workshops with Abigail Disney and Leymah Gbowee, from Pray the Devil Back to Hell.  From seeing the film a year ago, proposing to Abby that we bring the film to eastern DRC, meeting with women leaders and holding preliminary screenings to see if the atmosphere was right, we are finally at holding workshops, strategy sessions really, with women leaders, activists, female politicians, police, army, humanitarians and journalists in Goma, Bukavu and Kinshasa.

If you don’t know this film you should.  Click here for the trailer – Pray the Devil Back to Hell

It is a powerful, important documentary piece, not only on an under-reported women’s movement, but it is one of the first pieces of its kind to shine a true light on African women.  Most media portray African women as victims, suffering, illiterate, dirty, barefoot, pregnant with a bucket of water on her head.  This film shows the other African women, the intelligent, articulate, groomed women who are up to something in the world.  These are true faces of African women with spirit, dimension, dignity and pride.  They are strong and very able.

Me with Goma ladies from the “Voices of Peace” workshop.

Despite my exhaustion after traveling some 48 hours, I head straight to the HEAL office where my meetings begin.  Freddy, the guardian at the front gate greets me in his wife-beater from behind his mirrored sunglasses.  At first glimpse of his shaved head and building muscles, one wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, but then he breaks out in a smile, or maybe a handstand on his crutches and he remains forever seared in one’s memory.  HEAL Africa  is beginning to feel more like home than either New York  or LA.  Many of the HEAL staff are now friends, greeting me with surprised smiles, kisses and “when did you return?”  or more telling,  “were you traveling?”

Mama Virginie is the matriarch of HEAL Africa and my ally in contacting my invitees, ensuring their attendance and the proper protocol for the workshop.  Not only does she hold a full time job at HEAL, but she is a widow, an active participant in her church, cares for five children, and created AMAVESA, an organization to help widows in Goma.  Such are the women of the Congo.

Mama Virgine at the “Voices of Peace”  Goma workshop.

11am and I am crossing the border from Rwanda into eastern DRC again.  Faces are familiar and I joke about the constantly changing border policy with the woman who checks my passport.  This time my $35 buys me a 7 day visa for Goma alone, stamped into my passport.

The border activity seems to pick up on each crossing, more women with merchandise moving to and fro, more foreigners without NGO affiliation speaking little French.. are tourists really coming to Goma?

The town is safe now, save for the growing number of homeless youth pickpocketing on the streets.  Growing and changing, Goma is developing and modernizing.  Civil war in the rural areas or not, the West is coming.  Supermarkets have more products, new restaurants are opening and even a brand new club complete with swimming pool, day beds for lounging, two DJ booths, a restaurant and a bar.  The goal is outdoor day club parties by this summer.

The driver from HEAL Africa picks me up, he brings my letter of invitation and procedures move smoothly.  My first visit a distant memory of being stranded at the border after dark, having to be saved by Jo Lusi (HEAL Africa’s founder) in scrubs straight from the operating room.

Rather it is sunny and bright, and I am back for the next stage of my “Voices of Peace” project, the workshops.  Workshops on women in peace-building with my carefully cultivated women leaders from each sector of society.  We will have 30 women leaders in each Goma, Bukavu and Kinshasa, ministers, national assembly members, journalists, heads of religious associations, students, police, military, civil society and activists.

The women are coming together to watch the film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, and spend a day and a half with its star, the Liberian peace activist, Leymah Gbowee, and its producer, Abigail Disney.  The goals of the workshops are to provide a platform for conversation between women leaders, facilitate their creating unified goals of the women of the Congo that take them out of their divisions, and finally a strategy to fulfill them.