About a month ago I was on the bus coming home from a friend's party when I decided to pull up facebook on my phone to pass the time. I wasn't ready for the first post that appeared on my feed. It was a eulogy from one of my Bukavu friends about our mutual friend Inge Kool.
Inge was one of a small handful of long-term expats living in Bukavu. She worked as an Assistant Director with the Panzi Hospital which provides medical, psycho-social and legal support to victims of sexual and gender based violence, which has been one of the most noted components of ongoing violence in the DRC. She was a kind and compassionate person who always had time to help other people. I always enjoyed meeting her at Wendy's for weekly drinks during my fieldwork and I was excited to see her again when I visited Bukavu in September.
Since her death I've been reflecting on a number of things that she said to me over the last two years. Most notably in a New Year's message last year after wishing me well she told me that she had been reading my blog. She said that she had been thinking about my comment that almost all of the expats that I met in Bukavu were "alcoholics, sexaholics, workaholics or some combination of the three" and that it encouraged her to re-examine her priorities and strive for more balance in her life. The funny thing was that I had always considered her to be one of the exceptions to that rule.
Upon reflection, I've decided to amend my blanket statement about expats in Bukavu. While many humanitarians do struggle to find balance in their jobs and lives, trying to respond to demands from head offices, navigate persistent insecurity and respond to the needs of populations in crisis through the three outlets I described above, the other common factor which often defines them is kindness. For one must be radically kind to give up their comfort in order to support deeply traumatized populations and bare the risks of living amidst protracted crises.
Perhaps we can all find ways to practice radical kindness in our own lives.
Peace.
A link to my original post: http://nonsequiturk.blogspot.ca/2016/07/all-of-things-i-havent-told-you-about.html
