Life in a 1 X 3 Meter Hut

Despite the peace we feel in Goma every day, many people are still fleeing their homes to escape violence and the threat of violence in favor of taking up residence in one of the many displaced persons camps in North Kivu. While some people are coming, others are returning home:

1. Because they hope that stability is here to stay.

2. Because they want to farm and supplement their meager food intake from the camps (only to return a few days later), or

3. Because they have grown weary of life in a camp and nothing, not even the threat of war at their doorstep, could possibly be worse.

Those who are providing people’s immediate relief needs often grow tired of their work as well, and hope that a situation has improved enough so that people can leave the temporary camps, thus leading them to pull out prematurely.  People can argue that food relief should stop to encourage people to go home, or that they don’t want to create dependency, or even that no relief services should be provided so that people have to fend for themselves and find work.  I cannot, however, believe that anyone, no matter who they are, would willingly choose to live in an IDP camp unless they felt seriously threatened.  No amount of free food and non-food items that people may receive from NGOs can make up for the loss of human dignity that accompanies the inability to find employment, or the desire to have your own home and farm your own fields.

I cannot believe that anyone would choose to live in a tiny, shared room made of leaves and sticks, in unhygienic conditions, not knowing when or where their next meal is going to come from, just as much as I cannot believe that anyone would choose to panhandle on the streets of downtown Portland over work, if the opportunity was given.  People, perhaps Americans in particular, do not like asking for help from others – it is only the most severe desperation that can drive people to comprise their dignity and independence enough to do it.