Blaming No One by Whitman Dan;

Author:Whitman, Dan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs
ISBN: 9780986021671
Publisher: New Academia Publishing, LLC
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Another Chance for DRC

September 21, 2011

This is Salima Etoka, “from Idaho,” but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Born in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, she escaped genocide and rape as an infant, in one of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet.

Her parents knew someone who knew someone, so they traveled to Burundi for respite from the destruction of communities in eastern Congo, in the most violent and sustained human bloodletting since World War II. They fled to Cameroon, but were held in detention there for two months when it seemed they lacked the proper documents to enter the country.

They retreated to Kenya around 2000, then stayed in a holding pattern for two months more before reentering Cameroon, this time successfully.

With the help of a family sponsor in California they received a DV (diversity visa) and were set to emigrate to the United States. The attacks of 9/11 delayed the DV process, but they did fly to California late in 2001.

“The people of California were not hospitable,” Salima says with a forgiving smile. “So on a tip we moved to Idaho, where there was room for us.”

Salima is now registered at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. She speaks native-level English, plus French and Swahili. She is interested in the history of race relations in America, but also foreign affairs, economics, and peace and conflict resolution. Her approach to her past and future is bright and benign. She talks to her grandparents back in Bukavu every week, from her cell phone to the one they rent or borrow for the weekly call. This week they were still alive.

Salima understands that as one of the few to escape the killing fields of her native DRC, her good fortune comes with ethical and moral obligations to reenter her world armed with savvy and a methodology to staunch its wounds.

The methodology will come, the exact application to be revealed. Salima has considerable weight of memory and responsibility on her young shoulders. She finds humor in her unlikely circumstances.

Meet her here, she is the future and a possible breach in the Maginot Line between the fortunate West and the betrayed others left behind. Few will find the breach in that Line, but with another lucky break or two, Salima will do so.

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