You'll want to look at this

I found this collection of portraits from NE Congo on one of the blogs I follow (hat tip to Texas in Africa for the link). The thing that amazes me is the differences between the way the people in the pictures are just barely holding onto their lives, being chased from their homes by armed groups and general insecurity, and the way many Congolese and expats live here in Bukavu. There has been hardly any change in security here in Bukavu (though we never could walk around at night or anything like that). The poverty too, while quite evident, is less acute and less obvious in some ways. We don't live up in the hills in the slums with the majority of the population, so sometimes it's hard to remember all that people go through just to make it through a day.
Just some initial thoughts...comments and questions welcome.

Update: yesterday was apparently the National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer in 1863...wonder what it would be like if such a thing could still be valid in the US and other countries.