00.02

Images of hutches

00.02.13

Image of Sister Dorinda reading

00.02.26

Image of Priest and child

00.02.38

Image of people in    church

00.02.44

Image of Priest and woman

They look like ordinary people. … but they are Catholic missionaries.

00.02.53

 Image of Priest talking to women

They have come to some of the most inhospitable parts of the globe to win souls for Jesus – and to alleviate poverty.

00.03.04

Only very special reasons would make someone choose this life. Here there is no electricity or drinking water, medical care or respect for human life. War has become the norm.

00.03.20

Image of young soldier in a truck

We look at the conditions missionaries face in central Africa, in unstable political situations – often working in rebel areas with no state infrastructure. We uncover their higher calling.

00.03.37

Title sequence: Images of faces

00.03.52

Title sequence:  Mission Impossible

00.03.57

Image of woman walking

00.04.03

Marial Lou is a village in South Sudan, where there are thousands of refugees from the civil war, which has divided the country for over 15 years.

00.04.12

This village is not on any map. It was built only two years ago as a safe haven for those who fled attacks by the Arabic Sudanese army. During the rainy season Marial Lou becomes an island surrounded by swamps.

00.04.28

For six months every year it is an inaccessible place, which can only be reached by air.

The weather and the geography of this village have kept Marial Lou safe from the war. Far removed from the bombs, but staring extreme poverty right in the face.

00.04.46

Images     of     men and children sitting by a hutch

This is where a 50-year-old missionary Dorinda Cunha lives

00.04.51

Image of white woman approaching

Dorinda has been in Marial Lou since the mission was created, two years ago. She has spent over 20 years in Sudan. Her first mission was in the north. She was expelled from there when the Sudanese government decided to forcibly covert the mostly non-Muslim population to Islam.

Now, Dorinda lives with those who resisted, in an area controlled by the SPLA rebels, the Sudanese People Liberation Army.

00.05.20

Interview with Dorinda

Int: Why did you choose this way of life?

Dorinda:  It is difficult to say why…but what I have experienced in my life …is that happiness does not seem to come when we have everything in life. Happiness is when we feel that someone needs us and that we can do something for them.  So, it is not to run away from problems but to face life with other people.

00.05.55

Images of palm trees

In 1996, the Democratic Republic of Congo was still called Zaire. That year the guerrillas who fought against the Mobutu dictatorship attacked the village of Bondo, in the northern Equateur province.

Two years later, in august 1998                                                    the village was again attacked, this time by the guerrillas who fought against Kabila´s regime, the autocratic ruler who replaced the former dictator.

00.06.22

Images of men

Today, Bondo Village is under a rebel army controlled by this man:

Man in army gear coming off plane

Jean Pierre Bemba, a businessman who has houses in Belgium and Portugal.

Bemba drew a huge crowd when he visited Bondo for the first time. His audience lapped up his promises of a better life, and the freedom to live with dignity and without oppression.

00.06.45

Images of man and soldiers

00.06.52

Jean Pierre Bemba

Int: How did a businessman become a warlord?

Bemba: It’s a question I am asked frequently, but to tell you the truth it was after looking with sadness at how the people in my country were living, at Kabila´s regime, which was supposed to replace an unjust dictatorial regime, which was tribal and stole state assets.

As far as I am concerned, I wanted for nothing, but I could see that people around me had nothing, nothing to eat every day, not a cent for health care. It really was difficult to ignore people’s misery, especially if you consider that this is mainly a failure of the system.

That’s what revolted me    and gave the impetus to create a revolution in our country.

 00.08.08

Images of political rally –Interview

JP Bemba: freedom means that our roads are no longer dotted with check-points like      during Kabila´s time. Every 100 metres you would find a check-point to search people’s bags and search people’s trousers to steal their money.

All that is over, people are free to move around, and they have regained their dignity. We don’t hassle people anymore.

We don’t arrest people just to obtain information.

People are free to circulate. There is no longer a curfew.  People were forced to go       home at 6 pm because      there was a 6 pm curfew. I believe we now have freedom, dignity and what is more we have regained security.

As far as the economy is concerned, economic activities have restarted.  People can sell their own coffee and are no longer robbed by Kabila´s Forces, which used to loot all the coffee and people’s food.

We have put an end to all that.

Commerce is happening again.

00.09.18

Image of man riding a bike

00.09.25

Early the next morning, missionary Alfredo Neres jumps on his bike and rides for two hours towards Nzebilo, the parish where he takes mass every Sunday. The first missionaries took European culture and language to Africa through their bibles. Their usefulness as “civilisers” was recognised early on by the colonial powers. At the end of the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries in Congo were accorded specific protection under law.

00.09.55

The warlord’s words from the previous day are still ringing in Alfredo’s ears. He knows those words have already travelled though the forest and reached the surrounding villages. But if people find salvation in the community of God, they can be inured from political strife.

Christian missionaries work on every continent, but it could be argued that in Africa, due to the widespread failure of democracy to take root, they face their biggest challenges. That’s why Alfredo’s in such a rush to spread his own version of salvation. He’s seen successive Congolese regimes let ordinary people down.

00.10.42

People going into the church

00.10.43

Interview with Alfredo Neres

AN: We have gone from one dictatorship to another. We have not yet managed to establish democracy like everyone wants. We still haven’t seen democracy.  What has been happening, going from Mobutu to Kabila, to the current situation, from one dictatorship to another is still oppression. They are oppressors, all of them. When a new group arrives they oppress us just like the   ones before them did.

00.11.14

Images of people walking      through the forest

Many days of walking from there, but still in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we found Claudino Gomes, 52 years old, the third missionary in this story.                                                 

00.11.27

Image of man in a motorbike

He lives in a small village, which is not on any map, in the eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bambilo:  a few dozens huts, a very basic medical centre, a school with nothing but a great will to teach and learn. It’s not much, but these men have only been here for 7 months. The first white men ever to inhabit this region.

00.11.53

Children have been drawn into the war in the DRC. The conflict is as complicated as it is intractable. Three rebel groups are fighting the government in Kinshasha. Agreements have collapsed and ceasefires been broken. Negotiations continue, but a peaceful solution seems far off. It's a war that has devastated a country and its people. But all of that merely fuels rather than daunts the missionary’s zeal. They concentrate on micro, rather than macro politics.

00.12.30

Image of old man opening gate

00.12.33

Image of Dorinda

So the first aim of a missionary when arriving at a new place where they will live, often forever, it is to build a hospital, even if very basic, and a school.

00.12.46

Image of people sitting on the floor

In Marial Lou, Sudan, the hospital was meant to be just a medical centre, but the amount of patients, especially those suffering with tuberculosis, ended up transforming the small health centre into a substantial hospital.

00.13.02

Close up of small child

00.13.22

Images of school children singing

The school has also grown excessively.  Today, there are over 650 schoolchildren, mainly boys.

The Sudanese People ignore women’s education; a way of thinking Sister Dorinda was bent on changing.

00.13.37

Image of woman listening attentively

00.13.40

 Sister       Dorinda talking to people (in English)

SD: … to come and finish standard one or standard two, maxim standard three and after you marry them. Put it in your hearts, if you educate your girls, not only the boys but also your daughters, you are really educating a nation and it will be the best for everything, for your families even.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

00.14.04

Education and changing attitudes is the missionary’s first priority. Of course that makes it easier to win people’s hearts and minds and make them embrace Christiannity, but it also genuinely improves their harsh lives.

00.14.17

Image of Sister Dorinda entering a hutch

00.14.24

Images of women. Interview with sister Dorinda

Int: what happened to this child?

SD: When she arrived here it wasn’t so serious. She was first taken to a Medecins Sans Frontiers hospital, later she developed new complications, but she also had tuberculosis. When they realize people suffer from tuberculosis they are sent to this hospital in order not to contaminate their own hospital.

Sometimes they arrive in such a serious condition they cannot be saved.   We look after them for a few days

Inter: they arrive here in a terminal state already?

SD: yes, they arrive in a terminal state. Before they come to hospital they go to see a non-traditional doctor, try other sorts of medicines and when they arrive here nothing can be done.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

00.15.49

Image of dead person in                yellow bag.

Int:   do you know where these people come from? Are they from far away?

SD (in local dialect to the girls)                  

One day’s walk.

Int:  You could say so close and yet so far away …

SD:  yes, it is not even that far away. We have others who have walked for a month. Really far away.

Int: How old was this boy?

SD:   He would have been 9 or 10 years old.

00.16.08

Images of people sitting on the wall

Where there are no religious missions, the state is supposed to give people access to education and health care.   When there is no state, as is the case in the Democratic Republic of Congo, institutions survive through self-finance. This means in real terms only those who have money receive any kind of treatment, those who don’t, might as well get their dying done with quickly.

00.16.36

Images of little girl lying on the floor.  Interview with a nurse

Int: let’s see this child.

Nurse: if we don’t intervene on time it will become infected because we don’t have any antibiotics left.              Eventually it may go gangrenous and the solution…

Int: there is no money?

Nurse: There is no money. That’s the problem.

Int: how much does it cost to treat a case like this?

Nurse: for everything including the antibiotics, it could be 10 million or more.

Int: 10 million Congolese francs?

Nurse: no, It would be 100 million Congolese francs.

00.17.18

One hundred million Congolese    francs is equivalent to £15 or £18, a lot of money in this part of the world.

00.17.25

Image of nurse

This is Gbadolite hospital, in the most important town in the former Zaire. This girl, who will not receive treatment, will suffer tremendously until a charitable soul amputates her legs, that’s if she doesn’t die of an infection in the meantime. It’s a cruel fate, but one which has become so everyday it has ceased to move people. Only the missionaries seem to care.

00.17.49

Interview with Father Claudino

FC: this boy fell into a fire when people had to flee to the forest to hide from soldiers. Consequently, the leg became rotten and was really in a very bad state. When people returned, a priest who was nearby noticed the very intense smell, saw that the boy was rotting away and took him to    the hospital, to see a doctor, and sadly the boy’s leg had to be amputated.

What shocks me about this boy’s case, is that in order to move around he has to drag himself. I asked if he had any crutches,  - and this is something else I find ugly – I was told: we gave him some crutches but he was going all over town and would come back late… so they took his crutches away.

PC: Talks to the boy in local dialect.

He’s   saying he’s got a fever.

Int: Could it be malaria?

PC: Possibly. Malaria is a constant threat around here.

00.19.07

Image of boy standing up.  Priest keeps on talking

PC Come on boy, stand up. Let’s get him up.

00.19.15

Image of Priest carrying boy inside the hutch

PC: this is a small health centre, which was created by the parish in order to care for the poorest of the poor. The centre was named Saint Eliquea , which means Hope in lingala.

Some suffer from terminal diseases and their families reject them.

Int:  what about war victims?

PC: we have a boy who is almost paralysed after being tortured by solders.

00.19.49

Image of priest with war victim

PC: Kabila’s troops arrested him because they found a pair of army trousers in his house when they were looking for guns and so on. So, they found the trousers in his house, the house of a civilian. Here, a civilian can be treated just like the enemy. So he was arrested and they beat him up, He was hit on the head, as you can see, he was beaten on his back, his spine is badly damaged.

He’s crying now.

00.20.29

Image of man crying

PC: I am telling him that you want to help him.

00.20.39

Bambilo´s health centre has only one nurse and an assistant nurse. They have no other surgical tools apart from surgeon’s knives and scalpels. The centre funds itself with the sale of medicines and treatments. Injections, tooth extractions and circumcisions are the main sources of income for these two nurses. But they also operate on hernias, perform amputations and caesarean sections. Medicines could be a good source of income if it wasn’t so difficult to buy and bring them to the village.

00.21.15

PC in the chemist

PC: This is all there is left of the medicines left by Medecins Sans Frontiers.

It is very deceptive. It all looks full but everything is empty.

Anti-inflammatories, painkillers etc.  Most of it is empty. The problem is that in order to buy medicines you have to do a round trip of almost 600 km by bike, to a place about 250 km away. This medicines are very affordable that is why they are finished too quickly. The other medicines have to be bought in a different market -they are expensive.   Funnily enough there are a lot of condoms but they are not used very much. People still don’t like them very much.

00.22.03

Image of car and dense forest

To travel in this region of the Democratic Republic of Congo demands great physical effort. Due to the war and lack of maintenance the infrastructures have almost collapsed. Roads have gone for several years without any kind of upkeep, and small roads have been virtually washed away by the rains or swallowed up by bush. Built during Belgian colonisation, they are of little use to the Congolese today.

War and looting have put an end                                   to car use. In this region, over a vast area, only 8 to 10 cars circulate.

00.22.43

Priest rebuilding the bridge

Hundreds of bridges have been destroyed by time or military sabotage.

00.22.58

Images of men cutting down trees

It’s up to the traveller to rebuild and strengthen the rotten wood.

00.23.05

Saws, axes and cutlasses are essential items in a car’s toolbox.

00.23.21

Images of men cutting down trees

On this occasion a 10 metre high tree is chopped down, stripped of branches and dragged to the bridge. It’s all in a missionary’s day’s work.

00.23.41

Isolated villages, unreachable by road, are key targets for direct evangelism. It takes them back to the early days when the first missionaries had to hack their way through virgin bush.

00.24.02

If they’d been unlucky, they would have had to repeat the entire process, as it is, their jeep makes it across.

00.24.22

Image of tree on the middle of the road

A few hundred metres down the road, there’s a huge tree blocking the path…  Saws and axes see action once again. Under these conditions, it can take a whole day to travel 100 km. An eternity.

00.24.41

But despite appearances, this is a rich country. Prospectors easily find gold and diamonds in the riverbanks.

00.24.49

Images of town market

In the small village markets are the first middlemen to get their hands on this wealth.

00.24.55

Images of gold being measured

Interview with middle man

Man: 100 gm

Int: How much for that?

Man:  sixty dollars

Inter: And who buys this?

Man. They come to sell it here.

Int: How much does that weigh?

Man: over 120 gm

Int: how much is that in dollars?

Man:  $1,500

Int: Is there are a lot of gold around here?

Man: yes, yes,

Int: and diamonds as well?

Men: oh yes.

00.25.47

Image of diamond on                                                  man’s hand

Congo’s mineral wealth fans the flames of war.

00.25.51

Image of men in military clothing

Whilst many are involved in the fighting, there are the many internally displaced, decimated and frightened.  

Famine and diseases are killing too, more than the war itself. All means of subsistence disappeared when soldiers stole seeds and killed cattle.

00.26.10

Image of woman

Not a single cow or a single pig survived the two recent wars. People have no choice but to hunt, even if it endangers the survival of some wild species.

But surely preserving wild life takes second place to preserving human life?

00.26.37

Priest holding a gun

There is a missionary in Bondo who takes charge of all fishing and hunting. A daily task, indispensable for the survival of the mission. 

00.27.14

Images of men in the river

Besides the odd bigger bird, these people survive on monkey meat. On special holidays, they feast on gazelle, elephant or leopard.

00.27.32

Images of man unloading boxes from the plane

In Sudan, it’s a different story. No gold, no diamonds, no game. Only stones, dust and plenty of hunger, but no one accepts that as hard currency. Old clothes, soap, salt and petrol are rationed, like well-guarded treasures.

00.27.50

Sister Dorinda cutting soap

00. 28.03

Sister Dorinda talking to man.

SD:  Only to use during the night if you need to go out.

This is only if you need to study…

00.28.18

Image of lady’s hands

In the south of Sudan, the famine has claimed tens of thousands of victims, and frustrated the efforts of the United Nations, ngo’s and religious missions. The Dinka people have something to eat, but for these pastoral people, cattle is not to be eaten. Their herds are to be kept and displayed as symbols of family power. It’s a terrible contradiction, a difficult reality for those from outside to   understand. But an indisputable fact.

00.28.51

Image of pot with food

Interview with sister Dorinda

Int: What are they   going to eat?

SD: Pumpkin. This one on   the boil.

00.28.58

Images of woman laughing.

00.29.14

Sister Holding a baby.

Int: Is this lady the mother of all      these children?

SD: Of some of them. This one here, and this one…where are the others…  over here is a different family.

00.29.25

Image of boy milking a cow

SD: They have a lot of cattle. They have cows, goats, They love meat, but it’s not like they eat meat every day or every week, because for them animals are very valuable. They’re more for…

Int:     for trading purposes?

SD: yes, for trading and purchasing. For negotiating women, more for marriage purposes.

Int: A man who owns a lot of cows can have a lot of wives?

SD: yes, exactly.   A man who owns many cows can have many wives. It’s a way of showing their wealth.

00.30.06

Image of a woman

Int: who is this lady?

SD: one of ladies who works in the women’s group.

She was given in marriage to an old man who can hardly walk. According to their tradition a man must always have wives, and even if he is very old, he keeps on buying wives and gives them to his eldest son in order to conceive a child, who will receive the old man’s name.

Int:   How old is she?

SD: I don’t know… maybe 22.

Int: Does she not know her age?

SD: No, over here they don’t know how old they are.

Anyway, she was very hungry,

Int: what is she having for dinner tonight?

SD: today she has…(in English)

SD: …sorghum and fish. Dry fish. There is no other kind of fish over here.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

00.31.28

Sister Dorinda and group of people laughing

Int: How many wives has he got?

SD: three wives.   She is the latest one.

Int: Do the wives live all     together?

00.31.45

Sister talking to man in English

SD: They are asking, if you have three wives, whether you put all three of them in the same house?

Man: no.

SD:      a bit far isn’t it? Otherwise they will fight.

Man: my children from my other wife are in another place and I have given them a goat and a cow.

00.312.08

Sister Dorinda n Portuguese

SD: He has to give each one cows and goats for the           children to eat.

Int: It is difficult to…even though the church it is difficult to break these traditions?

SD: yes of course. They go to church, go to communion when they are children, then they get married, start having wives and that’s it!

00.32.53

Images of people

The missionaries are divided between evangelising and civilising. For them, you can’t have one without the other. Missionaries say that one in three of the world’s population has never heard the word of God. There’s a lot of work to do.

00.33.08

Image of classroom

00.33.19

Images of Dorinda reading. (in English)

At that time he gave peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased…

00.33.14

In her religion and morality classes Dorinda reads from the bible, but in many countries it is illegal even to distribute the bible. At least 35 countries are off-limits to missionaries, and in another 50 their activities are significantly restricted. But undoubtedly missionaries command more respect for their healthcare provision than for spreading the gospel. 

00.33.38

Image of man’s feet

Female Nurse: We clean them; we treat them with antibiotics when they arrive.

Male Nurse: We cut from here.

00.34.02

Image of leg

MAN: We’ll make a wide incision .

00.34.07

In the religious missions, hospitals are not merely hospitals. They always end up being dispensaries, community canteens, treatment centres not only of disgusting and terrible diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis or malaria, but also of hunger, the most evil of evils.

00.34.27

Images of food distribution.

Sister Dorinda and other nun (In English)

Nun: The food we give once a week is sorghum.  Per day it’s two kgs. And then lentils, we give 0.3 kgs per day and in a week we give 2.3 kg and then we give soap.

00.34.55

Image of man walking away.

But little by little, more adventurous progress is being tried.

00.35.01

Images of bricks

Dorinda would like to persuade the Dinka tribe to build brick houses. She dreams of more comfortable houses, with walls that don’t fall down with the first rains. If these bricks which were fired in a wooden oven are a success, Marial Lou will be the scene of a real architectural revolution.

00.35.20

Images of women

But Dorinda’s brick factory is flouting tradition in many ways: it is run by a group of women -which in a patriarchal society like the Dinka’s can be considered an offence. Worse than that, these women were chosen from the poorest and most unhappy women of this community.

00.35.44

Interview with sister Dorinda

SD: for example, this woman by my side is not from here; she is a Nué woman, a tribe that is an enemy of this tribe. She was a soldier fighting against the Dinka, and during a battle against the Dinka, which the Dinka won, they were taken prisoners. The men were caught and killed and the women    shared between the soldiers.

He is a soldier, he travels far away, he has a drinking habit, used to beat her up and now she is practically on her own with the children.  Last year, especially last year; she and the children were dying.

They had no strength left.  They would lie down and they would stay there until she got back home.

The little she was earning here allowed her to survive. She is still at home, alone with her children.  She has managed to buy a sewing machine.

00.37.02

Image of

. Father Claudino

Across the globe these small revolutions are taking place. Father Claudino´s example of love and affection is moving. It’s been a slow start, but he doesn’t lose hope.

00.37.14

Image of Father Claudino and an old lady

FC: The lady is blind but she still good! – Laughter-

00.37.55

Close up of Child’s face

Whilst the number of Christians in the world has grown over the past 25 years, the percentage of Christians in the global population has remained the same, at a third. But meanwhile, the percentage of the world’s Muslim population has grown from around 15 to around 20%.  That means Islam is growing faster than Christianity.

00.38.18

Images of people listening to mass.

So, the missionaries know there’re plenty of reasons to take          people to mass, almost of all them legitimate although not very catholic. They do God’s calling, and will see it through to the end.

00.38.22

Father Claudino

FC: I didn’t come here not to be killed. I came here to give my life. In what way, well, that’s not up to me.

A year and a half ago, a colleague and I had to act as human shields for 20 hours, in order to save two Sudanese lives, two refugees who were continually on the run. It’s all very complicated, it was after the SPLA invasion, and the whole of the population was trying to kill them.  Some kids came to tell me: Father there are two refugees who are being beaten up and are going to be killed. I said I had to go.  Later, I used my body as a shield, for hours and hours, all night. People were hitting me, I had a machine gun pointed at me, many threats were made against me.  I was also bleeding because someone in front of me punched me.  Trying to avoid them shooting me, I was in the line of fire using my body to protect the men.

It was when my blood was pouring over them that I realized, it was the highest point of my vocation, of my missionary life, and I had a blood alliance with this land.

00.40.06

Faces of children. No sound.

00.40.46

End