Letter From Muadi

Dear Leja Bulela Family,

I went to Mbuji-Mayi! At long last, after many years of hearing about it, learning about it, reading about it, even dreaming about it – I got to experience it! The trip was an honor, as well as a revelation. An honor in that many Kasaiens of my generation have never been there and I get to share my insights with them. An honor as well to know my family’s origins, and to return there in both a professional and personal capacity. A revelation in that I can now say with conviction what my elders have been saying since the founding of Leja Bulela – this is our home, and we have to show that we care. Because of my job I’ve been all over Africa, but this trip was the most important.

I return to the U.S. with a sense of intense urgency that those of us in the Diaspora have a duty to do even more than we are doing now to improve the living standards of our people. It is a sense of urgency because there is a huge chasm between the potential of Kasai Orientale, and the reality. The reality is a struggle for a daily meal, women still carrying humongous piles of wood for miles on their heads, a rate of inflation where the price of commodities doubles in the span of two or three months, children poorly clothed and mostly out of school, a large population eking out an existence from petty trading and the desperate hope of a diamond from Kasai’s soil. The reality is an infrastructure of extreme modesty, an asphalted, small, town center, clean and bustling with activity, while most of the city sprawls across miles of bumpy, dirt roads and deep red soil. Most of the tiny homes are made of mud and a few of red brick, nestled among grasslands or along the rolling hills. And what makes you speechless are the many scattered, deep caverns of soil – abandoned mines that were excavated by MIBA, a range of private companies, and many Kasaiens digging by hand – now lying empty and inviting erosion to take its toll. The depth of the caverns match the depth of the poverty I saw during my stay. Everything was taken out – nothing was put back in.

As Kasaiens in the Diaspora, what will we put back in? I have so many emotions about my trip that I can’t put it down in one sitting. I will continue my commentary and share with you in several parts. But let me start by saying that without my opening my mouth about Leja Bulela, many people I met mentioned us with respect and gratitude. It was a blessing to be able to witness that Leja Bulela has a good reputation in Mbuji-Mayi. LB would come up in conversations without my prompting – I did not advertise since I was working -- and all that was said was good. Yes, I did go see the LB health center in Tshibombo, and it’s almost finished! I have video, I have photos, and I hope to be able to share them with you soon.

LB Community, yes, we have a financial crisis in the U.S., but there is an even bigger crisis in Congo. It’s been going on for decades, and if we think we have something to complain about here, think of the youth who have not gone to school in Kasai, think of a rate of sexual violence that is the third highest after the Kivus, think of Kasai’s mineral wealth that continues to be whisked off to industrialized nations instead of installing running water, a sanitation system, proper roads, schools, libraries, manufacturing plants that can hire the millions that are out of work, mechanized agriculture to end the backbreaking work of toiling the land.

I promise to share Part II soon.

Muadi Mukenge