File:Bembe elder in Fizi Territory of South Kivu Province, DR Congo.jpg

English: I recently had the privilege of meeting an elder from the Bembe community in Fizi Territory, located in the South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

‘Tate’ or grandfather Swedi is the oldest man in the village. He is 82, an extraordinary age in a country where the average life expectancy at birth is 44 years. He buried his 46-year-old son last year (2006).

Tate has fled his village 3 times; in 1968, in 1996, and again in 1998. Each time a broader conflict has morphed into a fight between the Babembe and the Babuyue. Tate is a Babembe their origins are in the high plateau of Fizi Territory. He has their beauty mark carved down the front of his face. They were transplanted by the Belge colonialist down to the plains when the Belge could not get the indigenous Babuyu to work the cotton fields. This started a struggle for land. Swedi was possibly part of that first forced migration. The last time he fled his feet were so gnarled that his son had to carry him away. They ran into the forest where, they and other families eked away a living far from roads and armed groups. His son died there. In February 2007, after 8 years in the bush, as they could no longer hear gunfire they returned to the village to start rebuilding.

590 families out of originally 856 have returned. The villagers are not sure about the missing families; they may be somewhere in the high plateau too scared to return. The returnees have rebuilt their destroyed houses, cleared their overgrown fields, grouped together to rebuild their primary school and built a new health post. Their houses are made of raw earth brick. Each family makes the bricks and lacking the money to pay the village mason in exchange for him erecting the walls they work his fields.

I was humbled by how much these people were doing for themselves. We had come to monitor the aid AVSI & UNICEF are providing to assist the returns. Each family receives a basic kit to help them through these early months; a tarp to keep the water out of the rush roofs, pans, crockery, a ladle a jerry can. Soon with the NGO ACF, we will install a water pump.