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The Forgotten Heart of Africa (Central African Republic)
Photography by
Ronald De Hommel
Image reference: 500RDH_017.jpg
Clarissa Dendoubou, living in the bush since 2003
Clarissa Dendoubou is from a small village in north western CAR, about 40 kilometres from the border with Chad. Her peaceful life with her husband and 7 children was torn apart one Saturday morning in February 2003.
"My husband left for the town very early that morning. But at dawn the Chadian troops suddenly came, there was a lot of very intense gunfire in our village. I am just a woman, I could only take two of my children with me when I ran out of the house.�
“We ran to the other side of the road and we saw the soldiers set fire to our home, the five children I’d left behind were burnt in the house. My husband, I found out later, was killed on the road to Paoua by the troops.�
“When my husband was here, he farmed large fields and he went to the market to buy the things I need. There is no-one to help me, there is no-one to build me a hut – my brother built this hut for me in the bush.�
Life in the bush
“We live in the bush now, I work in the fields a bit and I planted some manioc, but many of the plants dried up because I am unlucky. Then my son planted some more manioc which grew better. Our food is manioc leaves, I pick them and turn them into a paste, we have nothing else to add to it to make it taste better, that’s all we eat. I have nothing to drink water from, I don’t even have any clothes. We don’t have sheets, not even mats to sleep on.�
Future
“I don’t know what to do now, we are still afraid and we are very poor too. Before I was fine, when one lives well and then it turns bad, it’s very harsh. My difficulty is that if I stay here, I think about my husband and my children. I don’t know if my life will get better, it’s up to God."
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