Voices

Carine, 14 years old from Masisi (a town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Obama is in Ghana today.

From here: "I live in the centre of Masisi town, near the hospital where Médecins Sans Frontières works. I go to primary school and am in year five. I really enjoy school. My favourite lesson is geography but actually, I like all my classes and particularly my teacher. Lessons are really interesting and this is very important to me. I’d like to become a nurse. So, I have to study hard. My dad works in the Masisi health centre and I can see that he helps a lot of people. I’d like to do the same.

I have a lot of friends at school and I get on very well with everybody. But I don’t have a boyfriend. My dad would never accept it! School is much more important and he thinks that I should not have that kind of distraction!. I’m scared that one day the war will start again here. When there was fighting nearby a lot of people were wounded and killed. I am afraid that something could happen to my father or my mother. All this fighting could start again and this worries me a lot. If the war returns, I won’t be able to go to school anymore and then I’ll never be a nurse and maybe I won’t get married. At school, there are children from the nearby Kilimani camp for displaced people. These people live with barely anything, and I really pity them. If the war starts here again, nothing good will happen.” All this fighting could start again and this worries me a lot. If the war returns, I won’t be able to go to school anymore and then I’ll never be a nurse and maybe I won’t get married. Summer holidays started just a few days ago. This means that I won’t go to school for two months. But I won’t be bored! I have to help my mother with the housework. There is a lot to do as I have an older brother and four little sisters. The youngest one is one year old and I look after my little sisters when mum is not at home, or for example, when she goes to the market. I don’t mind. Later, I want to have children and to get married too. Besides housework, I’ll be able to play with my sisters and my neighbours! We play ball and jumping skipping rope, we walk around Masisi and we talk a lot…"

From Wikipedia: Masisi is a town and administrative district (territory) in the Nord-Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a centre of the conflicts between the Congolese army and militias such as that of Laurent Nkunda which has plagued the eastern Congo since the ending of the Second Congo War and which threatens to start a third Congo war. Hutu and Tutsi militias originating from the Rwandan genocide and civil war are involved, and the conflicts relate to Rwandan border security and the control of eastern Congo's minerals.