Gasping for air in the hot, dry humidity, only in the Democratic Republic of Congo do I feel hot and sticky. Every second, a drip of sweat runs down my back. A shade darker my skin becomes. Simply a reminder of the first time I moved to Arizona. Of course, I was too young to remember but my mother never let me forget I cried every time we stepped outside into a triple digit burning sensation. I was an emotional kid who did not like feeling as if I was in a sauna. In 2004, My trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo was an indescribable experience because of my warm, welcoming family, the exquisite food, and the
culture.
Growing up Haitian, it’s the cultural norm for the parents to depend on the oldest to care for the youngest and household needs. At the young age of eight years old, my parents taught me responsibility and how to humble myself. They depended on me while they both worked long hours, my mother as a Certified Nursing Assistant and my father as a truck driver. When my parents were growing up in Haiti, they were the lucky ones to have the opportunity of going to school to gain an education. Haiti is a poor country and poverty is at an all-time high still to this day. So my parents strived to live the American dream and moved from Haiti to Miami and planted within my brother and me the seed to dream big and make a difference. Thanks to my family
One can easily note the physical and sexual violence brought upon the people (black and white) of Congo after independence, but we must locate the other forms of violence in order to bring the entire story of Patrice Lumumba to light. The director’s attempt at bringing the story of Patrice Lumumba to the “silver screen” had political intentions.
Alas, in 1961 Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by a US- sponsored plot 7 months after independence, and replaced him with a “puppet dictator named Mobutu” (Kingsolver). In her book, Barbara Kingsolver surfaces a forgotten part of our nation’s history in the exploitation of the Congo through her main characters, the Price family, who are missionaries sent to the Kilanga village. Through characters’ narratives that “double as allegories for the uneasy colonial marriage between the West and Africa” (Hamilton, Jones), Kingsolver creates a relatable way for her readers to understand the theme she is trying to convey, which is “‘what did we do to Africa, and how do we feel about it?’” (Snyder). Kingsolver began with this theme and developed the rest of the novel around it, just as she does with her other works, and sticking with her trademark technique, she utilizes her book as a vessel for “political activism, an extension of the anti-Vietnam protests” she participated in college (Snyder).
Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International attention on the colony except for short times, the widespread economic exploitation of the rubber resources of the region, and the brutal mistreatment and near-genocide of the Congolese by those in charge of rubber collecting.
As I sat in the boiling hot sun, the heat that had overwhelmed me throughout the day surpassed. I was engulfed by Lu Paul, a native Hawaiian advocate who was telling me the story of how Native Hawaiians loss their rights. “How did my people become a minority in their own land?” he asked me inquisitively. I found myself making many connections with this man’s story and my own. As he answered my questions about inequality in his community, he began to speak of many things that I had witnessed in my life, that I thought only my own culture experienced. “My people need to fight for equal education, language rights, and employment”, he stated firmly. It was in this moment I began to broaden my perspective of inequality and minority rights. This along with the many other field experiences I had during my semester abroad, help shape my desire to attend law school and work both nationally and abroad in civil and human rights.
May 14th 1963: The jungles of Zaire are much more intimidating and humbling in person than in the brochure at the Peace Corps office. I have been dispatched here to assist in the quarantine and treatment of the locals and some wild life. While I am overcome with the beauty of the flora I can't help but ponder the sheer amount of insects and mosquitoes that this sort of environment can support...
I am an undocumented student at UC Davis. When I am asked a simple question such as, "describe your personal experiences", I ask myself: Where do I begin?
Perhaps my most gratifying research experience was also my biggest research obstacle. During my early undergraduate research in Professor Paul Sternberg’s Lab, I had grown to learn how to communicate science, determine the important experiments to conduct and obtain the necessary laboratory skills. These experiences came from my project in engineering C. elegans to express a photosensitive archaea proton pump in the mitochondrial membrane to explore how we can engineer a more efficient strain of C. elegans. In this process, I learned to construct plasmids using molecular biology and learned to introduce these genetic changes by injections and genetic crosses. Each successive step, I learned to troubleshoot and optimize. The hardest task to
Personal Narrative: The World The world is a messed up place and we are all stuck here until our lives are through, or until we choose to leave. It's strange that I go along with everything everyone tells me, such as that I should wear certain clothes or listen to certain songs. I often wonder why I do the things I do, but then I just realize that's who I am. People are confused about why they are here, and they don't understand what life is supposed to be about.
This past summer, I was privileged enough to travel to the Dominican Republic through the Global Glimpse program, which has eminently impacted the person I am today. I have to confess that this trip was by far the most challenging, yet extraordinary I have ever experienced. Before going on this trip I always had an idea of what poverty is like, but I didn’t intentionally know how I would feel about it. Through this trip, I was fortunate enough to speak to different communities who were facing poverty and was given the chance to personally talk to the community of the Bejuco Aplastado, where I worked on a Community Action Project. Regardless of the struggles the orphans and locals have to unfortunately face, they never fail to put a smile on their face.
Some people like to stay in control of their life and avoid any amount of extraordinary risk to protect their self-disclosure. Other people don’t shy away from challenges as they are confident that certain obstacles are nothing more than just another thing standing in their way from living life to the fullest extent. Through personal experience, I’ve realized that personal comfort is nothing more than a variety of fears that limit me from challenging myself.
Growing up in a country full of poverty and lack of proper medication was a tough environment to be born into. I still remember my mom crying about how she lost my bigger brother due to money struggle and lack of medication. She explained that before my sister and I were born, we had a bigger brother; however upon his birth he was infected and died within seventh day. Lack of medication in a country full of poverty was just what my parent and my bother didn’t need yet couldn’t escape.
In my narrative, I wrote about the Khmer Rouge in the perspective of my grandma. I chose this topic because it has made a huge impact on my family. None of us would be the person we were today if this event had not taken place. My family was lucky to have survived, but it has also made our bond stronger as a whole.
As Marlow passes through the waters of the Congo, it is easily visible the trouble of the natives. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth half coming out, half effaced with the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” (20) Show that the holding of these colonies has started. The soldiers have come in and taken the inhabitants and are destroying them and taking from them the one thing they deserve over everything, life. The imperialists seem to not care about the Africans and are just there for their land.
I am by myself wearing my blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. It is cool outside but I decided to leave my gloves at home, feeling comfortable with my warm shirt and my sturdy boots.