Bushwhacked in the Congo—Mo Wabenzi

Greetings, mis amigos y amigas. The caesura that swept through this blog was not just a concatenation of close ports, but the news that my former student and friend, documentary film-maker Skye Fitzgerald, had been ambushed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where he is shooting his current film about that war-torn place. Outside Rutshuru (it will come up in Google maps), he and his team were robbed of their camera/sound equipment, cash and cellphones.

A word I mentioned earlier, but never explained—"wabenzi"—rises up here, again. Technically, this word is taken from the African practice of naming tribes, meaning “People of..." But the common meaning is closer to the one you'll find in The Urban Dictionary: "a wabenzi is a member of the new African ruling class, usually a corrupt government official (or a family member of one) and so called because they usually drive an imported vehicle (like a mercedes benz). 'Wa' is people in some bantu langauges." So this very minute, Skye's resources are no doubt helping to buy someone a new Mercedes, or, at the very least, help some official's or brigand's struggle toward survival.

While we think of the links, worldwide, between the crime syndicates and (often corrupt) governments (including our own, often enough), we forget the network of people who co-ordinate peace and medical relief and justice across the planet. I sent emails to Senators, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and many others, remembering that most of the world merely wants enough peace to help their families and themselves to prosper enough to avoid sickness and acheive some shelter, food, education and health care. So people like Glenn Paige and Desmond Tutu were among those who reached out to friends for Skye. Very humbling.

So cross your fingers for him as he finishes more filming (which we will no longer—with a nod to Glenn Paige—call "shooting") and tries to fly toward Bangkok, then Tokyo, in order to re-join the ship and help me cat-wrangle some student film-footage into documentary podcasts. May he be safe!

The wabenzi have cars, we have hope, which we drive down both sides of the street, around the globe and back. So sayeth the Greenman. His Blogginess will try to re-gain momentum tomorrow, after leading a sunrise Tai Chi trip in Shanghai, in China.