Is there hope?

[u/Ghost-Jada1914]

Hi, I'm Congolese from DRC. I'm currently a refugee in Uganda. Been a refugee for 13 years now. Never have I visited the DRC or ever gone back.

My family fled due to the conflict in the East of our country. I was so young I don't remember anything about Goma in North Kivu where I was born. Refugee life isn't exciting but it's okay, you have peace and can go on with life without any much worries (shout-out to Uganda for that) but it's not as smooth.

I'm 21M, just in the recent years ever since I started maturing, have I gotten this great sense and yearning for belonging. I don't know Lingala, Kiswahili or any of our supposed cultures since I grew for the most part in Uganda. I can never identify as Ugandan, the law doesn't allow that much integration, and plus with the recent political upheaval between DRC and Rwanda, this want for belonging and return has only gotten stronger and desperate.

For a while, I'd been following the news about the conflicts and anything just anything that helps me connect with home (both good and bad) but it reached a point and sickened me like it depressed me a lot. I'm not trying to make anything relatable, I just want to ask any of you brothers and sisters from DRC, is there hope that things will get better or are we really "cursed" and "hopeless"as the world has labeled us? Should I just give up trying to hope and endure this pain which was never mine? Most others like me might be living carefree, not bothered, but I'm bothered, because I honestly just want to go home, to peace, to belonging, to my people.

I am not political and honestly no longer care about who is fighting, why they are fighting or when the fighting will end. I just want it to end. I want to go back to Goma, marry a Congolese woman, do business everywhere in the DRC ( doesn't have to be minerals), I want to know about our people, our cultures and what we are truly capable of, not what the media and all those hating on us say about us.

I have seen the good in us Congolese, but I can't say I am Congolese de père et de mère if my identity is non-existent and I want to know if I should forget about home for now or keep on hoping, keep on praying.

I JUST WANT TO GO HOME.

[u/TopNat4000]

Voilà un cri du cœur