by Espérance from DR Congo

Due to the current pandemic situation, the women’s meal in the Petrikirche in February 2022 had to be postponed. Espérance Mirindi was invited to speak and had already finished her text on „Love your City“. We will publish her contribution here:

Leon de Saint Moulin said : “ The history of an environment like all people is enriched as it is paid attention and studied. We can´t love a city whose realities we have not experienced, whose foundation we don´t know and whose aspirations we don´t know“. 

Espérance Mirindi is my name, I am a volunteer of the United Evangelical Mission and volunteer at the Diakonia with homeless in Dortmund. 

I would like to present you two magical environments that I have so far marked the history of my little life and whose daily activities continue to define what I plan to become tomorrow. On the one hand, in central Africa, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the city of Goma, and on the other side, on the European continent, in Germany, in the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia, the city of Dortmund.                          

Having experienced the different realities of these two environments, gave me the taste of being human and the deep need to actively contribute, so that the generations after, identify and find pleasure to build in different fields! 

For me, talking about a city is not only about its infrastructure, its hotels and its dwellings, its extent or its area but the most important is to come to love and to live its environment as a human space where many activities of man as a social being unfold. 

Capital of North Kivu, in the east of the DRC, the city of Goma lives at the foot of Mount Nyiragongo, one of the most active volcanoes in Africa. Its name has its origins in the distortion of the Ngoma concept which means drum, a reference made to the noise made by successive volcanic eruptions of which the inhabitants have been victims since its origins!                                        

The city of Goma through which I recognize the first moments of my life history, translates the beauty of a tourist air, due to the public-private partnership, and whose wonders are related to its fauna, its flora but also the hospital character translated by the activities of its inhabitants after natural disasters have produced effects. Due to its organization and appearance, the city of Goma is today reputed to be the most beautiful city in Central Africa…       

Alongside this happiness, there is a considerable uncertainty every day of living a tomorrow full of hope and achievements. It is also a region ravaged by armed conflicts that claim victims almost every day. Therefore, bearers of the thoughts of construction and development die all today, natural disasters that have successively taken with them enormous losses, pushing the large part of the population into poverty, the non-permanence of water and electricity constituting a solid basis of life, which makes children crisscross the streets for whole days in search of the minimum for their survival. 

The city of Dortmund, through which I recognize a warm welcome and a spirit of solidarity, made me discover another part of myself to have peace only in the service of the most needy! It is a world where young people are open to opportunities to envision a future of which they would be proud.  

Under a beautiful sky, with precisely categorized seasons, the city of Dortmund understands different origins and is committed to offering them better moments as a souvenir. From a permanent transport, a security, an ease of expression without discrimination of social belonging, this city of my experiences, is built every day of the contributions of everyone according to his field of intervention. We tend to see clearly in our future, to trace it in a very precise way that we see the best. We are never alone, in a short time, we manage to create families with the feeling of belonging to a community. You can walk around at any time of the day or night in the realization of your most precious missions without being afraid of being threatened, you know rights by heart and easily you can enforce them. 

Let’s say that then, each people have its part of pleasure and its part in the process of development! In the depths of our circles, there is still this category of people who don´t know how to live more or less normally, who don´t know how to easily find what to eat, what to dress, where to rest quietly at night. This category of people who do not have a home, do not have to identify with, and who in one way or another require special attention. With my work at the Diaconia, I had the privilege to livie this reality of life, where to eat a luxury, sleep the ideal.  

I took the pleasure of seeing the opportunity that emerged, and I made it the motto of all those who, coming from these situations, and having met me should internalize: “Working twice, questioning what you know, do it well and sell it dearly”. 

The privilege of experiencing the two different realities from two different backgrounds is one of the most beautiful experiences that have defined my life so far! 

My attachment to the city of Goma comes from this extraordinary resilience to always take off after a degrading and destructive situation, to still believe in renewal and hope for a much better tomorrow. Identify an opportunity each time after a bad pass and get back on your feet… the city of Dortmund teaches me every day to realize the happiness it is, to be a perfect response to the inadequacies of others. Being the intermediary between poverty and success, now makes me an indispensable and useful person whenever it is necessary to envisage a tomorrow that brings happiness and that imposes respect.