FALLING WHISTLES A Journal Entry
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This is the story of a single day. A single, shape-shifting, life-changing, perspective-altering, never.be.the.same.kinda day.
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Originally we went to Africa to put shoes on kids’ feet. My friend had built a company grounded in giving and there I was, on the ground, giving. After the drop, I went wandering. Sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. Sometimes safe, sometimes not. I wanted into the wild. And wild it was.
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It is not down in any map; true places never are. h e r m a n m e lv i l l e
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I yelled at thieving monkeys and saw Nelson Mandela yell from a stage. Cried in refugee camps and laughed during moonlight dances. Saw a baby born and parents buried. Went south to scream from the bottom of the world, and made my way north to see the red dirt and white smiles of Uganda. Slept in mansions and mud-huts, ate porridge and gazelle, swam with otters, fended off pickpockets, and rarely stopped, showered or stood still.
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For two months, there was death and destruction, failure and fear, adventure. wonder. motion. But all around was a pervasive hope moving steadily toward what could only be described as progress. Stories of change everywhere to be found.
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The so-called Until I walked into
Democratic Republic of Congo.
the chaos of Congo.
Home to one of history’s deadliest wars.
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Strange circumstances led me to her doorstep, but there I stood ready to see what she might show my western eyes. The following is what they saw.
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I hope to one day tell the story in full. For now, peer into this single chapter. The single story of a single day.
We had originally planned to spend the day tracking down the rebel leader Nkunda. An armed escort was arranged to take us into his territory, but after speaking with a Congolese military journalist who had just returned from that area, we decided to postpone the trip. He said the upcoming Peace Conference had infuriated Nkunda’s rebels. Said it didn’t matter who guarded us, the sight of us would enrage them and they would fire.
Instead, we tracked down the 5 boys who had just escaped two of the rebel armies.
We found them in a filthy cell at a military encampment called T2. Imprisoned.
The boys had been forced to spend the entire night standing up straight. None were over 15 years old. None had ever chosen to fight.
Yesterday each of them were praising God for their rescue from the rebels. Now they’re wondering if their own government is any different. It’s a common problem here in Congo. There is more sexual violence here than anywhere in the world, but few signs that any one of the armed groups are any better or worse than another. All the soldiers rape. All the soldiers pillage. All the people suffer. There is no refuge.
They had been beaten all night long. Standing along the back wall, the soldiers told them to push out their cheeks as though they were holding their breath under water. Then one by one the soldiers walked past and punched their cheeks back in. These boys, who had already been through a deep kind of hell, were trembling with fear.
I had no idea what to do. Â
The bananas in their hands were
My friend Lindsay insisted that
the first non-rotten food they had
we buy them food, clothes,
eaten since they had last seen
shoes, soap and a toothbrush.
their families.
Bare materials that grant us all small dignity. They fell on
While we waited for the UN, who
the gifts, smiling, laughing
had committed to their rescue, we
and giving thanks.
spoke to the boys individually.
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Sadiki had been dropped in a hole, deep in the ground. Nearly 300 boys were forced into the Each had been abducted.
ditch for 20 hours of the day.
Plucked from his home,
They sat and slept in their own
school or farm. Each had
excrement. Slowly, they awaited
been tied up and beaten.
the other four hours of the day
Each had been forced to kill.
when they found themselves tortured and trained to fire a gun. Only to be dropped again into their own filth...
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Many of us have heard the stories of child-soldiers. Stories such as A Long Way Gone have granted us small glimpses into their tortured lives. I had heard. known. cared. I had even reacted and raged. But when one boy told me of the whistleblowers, the horror grew feet and walked within me. Captured by Nkunda’s rebel army, some boys too small to carry a gun had been given merely a whistle, and put on the frontlines of battle.
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Their sole duty was to make enough noise to scare away the enemy. Failing that, they were to receive – with their bodies – the first round of bullets. Lines of boys fell as nothing more than a temporary barricade.
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Those who tried to flee were shot at from behind. The soldiers called it
Without a gun to protect themselves, the smallest boys were placed between the crossfire of two armies – forces fighting for reasons far beyond their ability to understand.
to be brave.
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Busco’s the oldest of eight children. Many times he watched that number dwindle to some soldier’s petty fire. His only wish is to go back to his farm. He’s sure his parents need his help to raise the family. For quite some time, they have believed him dead. As with us all, the boys gained freedom from sharing their stories. Tears turned to smiles and smiles to laughter. Little in our respective lives was similar, but storytelling is strange and powerful. Surrounded by angry onlooking guards, we found some small comfort in one another.
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The only Rwandan of the group, Serungendo, was sure that he had fought against Nkunda’s army – the very same group that had abducted these Congolese boys. I asked if that made them enemies. He looked at me, laughed, and kissed Sadiki. “We are only boys. How can we be enemies?”
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We started making calls only to discover that the UN Peacekeepers had passed responsibility for the children to UNICEF, who had then been turned away at the camp’s gates four times. The soldiers As the day turned to dusk,
wanted the children to stay for
we discovered that the UN
another night of entertainment
Peacekeepers wouldn’t come
and weren’t prepared to have
to pick them up. Their hands
them released.
and eyes betrayed their dread at staying yet another night,
Lindsay hit the phonebook
standing among these
for some frantic politicking
merciless guards.
with our newfound connections. Congo has made us very convincing. Finally both the UNICEF and the UN Peacekeepers trucks were admitted inside the T2 compound. I’m not sure what changed their decision.
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We quickly loaded the boys into
Halfway through the camp they
the trucks as the soldiers prepared
demanded the truck stop and
to block our exit. Just because the
empty out. Filing out of the
trucks had gained entrance didn’t
truck the boys looked at us with
mean the soldiers would let the
eyes I’ll never forget.
boys leave.
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Weeks ago they had each planned out their escape. Praying they’d be rescued from their mad dash out of Nkunda’s camp. When the National Army picked them up,
The burden of their lives weighs heavy on me tonight. I’ll never meet any of them again, but I close my eyes and see only whistles, falling from palm-sized hands. And I haven’t the damndest idea what to do about it.
As we watched them leave T2, we knew we were seeing their escape finally fulfilled.
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I have to share their story. But haven’t a clue how to pull it off. I know simply that this cannot, cannot go on. And I know we’re gonna need a lot of help. From a lot of you. There is a Peace Conference starting tomorrow, regarding decades of war and millions slaughtered. Yet I’ve seen no other westerners. No American media. No Muzungus. Nothing. We are the land of the free and the brave and seem not to notice that the brave here have never been free. But today was a start. Five are safe at least. It’s a beginning.
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The night this journal was written it was sent to roughly 80 friends and
I had no idea.
family. They forwarded
I knew nothing.
it around the world.
I had honestly
Readers wrote back asking—
just arrived.
what can we do? how can we help?
But we had to figure it out. Over the next few weeks I met with anyone who would talk to me. Mothers and children threatened by the conflict, journalists on the beat, rebels waging war and warlords making money from it.
Activists, artists, and local leaders all agreed—we need peace.
Arriving home with nothing but borrowed cash, I didn’t know what to do. where do you begin?
Congo loomed large with powerful players pulling tangled strings.
A dear friend Marcus welcomed me home with a fierce embrace and an unusual gift.
a whistle.
Hanging just over the heart, this tiny tool kept the Falling Whistles story alive.
their weapon could
Everywhere we went, people
be our voice.
asked what it was.  That’s when we saw:
“ It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough
We started with no home,
to believe in it. One must
no office, and no plan—
work at it.”
just $5 and a dream worth our everything.
eleanor roosevelt
the whistle became our symbol.
 As we pursued solutions in a region where they are in short supply.
We began selling whistles out of our pockets, asking everyone we met to be a whistleblower for peace.
a young man David hitchhiked from Austin, Texas to New York City stopping in living rooms and coffee shops with a single message: “we don’t have all the answers, and we don’t have all the solutions. But we won’t be quiet while millions lose their lives.”
He inspired three college students who rode their bikes from San Augustine, Florida to San Diego, California, stopping in every city along the way. Â One by one, person by person, the message began to spread.
Pulling desks out of dumpsters, we put them in a garage, and launched a campaign toward a dream most called impossible— peace in congo.
congo is a land of abundant resources. Minerals for cell phones, metals for computers, diamonds for fancy. Yet the value of these precious rocks is hardly shared with those who pry them from the earth.
instead, wealth is controlled by those with stronger weapons and fatter wallets, as a complex web of foreign interests—from the UN, US, UK, France, Canada, China, Uganda and particularly Rwanda - struggle for influence.
Exploitation has been the standard since 1885, when King Leopold of Belgium arrived and took the land by force. in 23 years, Leopold’s army killed 10 million Congolese people and enslaved many more in a scramble for ivory, timber, and rubber for the new invention sweeping the west the automobile.
The scar of extortion has festered into a system. when Congo won independence in 1960, there were fewer than 30 university graduates in a country the size of western Europe.
today, Congo is a place where young men with limited opportunities have more incentive to take up arms than to finish school.
despite these challenges, there are those within the warzone who fight, day after day, for a Congo free and at peace. We have worked to invest in them.
Sekombi is the man. He and his crew of young journalists are pioneering free-speech in a warzone. They have built the fastest growing radio station in eastern Congo and created an outlet for vibrant Congolese artists and thinkers.
Arnold is building an underground network of whistleblowers throughout eastern Congo. He fights for justice inside the warzone, working to make sure women and refugees are protected, abducted children are returned, and the world has access to information that has historically been shrouded in secrecy.
Amani’s full name means “peace warrior” in Swahili. And he lives up to it. He believes the solutions to Congo’s problems are all around, and within the Congolese. He works to help them see these solutions, and capitalize on them by building the capacity of young entrepreneurs and visionaries.
Christine is a hero. In her early 20’s she left her job and rallied her family to work with hundreds of the most vulnerable children in Congo. Art, music, dance, and sports are all aspects of their community based rehabilitation for young people traumatized by war.
When war came to Congo, and those who could, fled, Dr. Jo went in the opposite direction. He came home. He has built a world class hospital training dozens of Congolese doctors and serving hundreds of thousands of people.
Justine has organized over 30 women’s groups to form a fierce movement. Public marches, judicial protests, support networks, and coordinated campaigns to arrest war-criminals. The solutions in Congo will come from the Congolese, and these women are proving it.
Blaise is an entrepreneur. With a small business loan, he built a sustainable business that uses local agriculture and processing to get low-cost malaria treatment to the community. So far, he and his team have treated over 330,000 people.Â
Franck has a timeless quality to him. Every morning he wakes up, puts on an impeccably tailored suit, and goes to his office at 3Tamis. There he leads a team of young Congolese designers working together to create whistleblowing media. Stories written to expose the truths of a warzone.
since this tiny journal was written in 2008, much has changed.
There is a Special Envoy in the United States Government
There is a Special Envoy in the
appointed specifically for
United Nations appointed
peace in Congo.
specifically for peace in Congo.
nkunda was put under
His successor bosco
house-arrest.
has surrendered.
global problems will require global solutions.
Today, over 100,000 whistleblowers around the world are united in demanding an end to the deadliest war of our time. Â
but there is still much to be done.
The Standing Man. Turkey.
The world is changed by those who speak out.
whistleblowers.
OTPOR. Russia.
Rarely understood in their time, history looks back and calls them courageous.
Be a whistleblower for peace.
The White Rose Movement. Germany.
Responding to such a story is never easy. But take a tip from the T2 boys—share.  tell their story.
With war waging on, share the whistle as a symbol of protest.
use it as a tool to elevate the conversation, and speak up for peace. Â
Together we will run toward that final day - the day we see peace in Congo.