The Congo

Clement and Aline Shabani along with their two daughters, are refugees of the Congo. To start off this speech, Clement began with a slight background on how they are working with a non-profit to aide women and girls with the proper resources and opportunities to better their voice in the Congo society. Clement then passed along the microphone to his wife, Aline, who I realized at the end was supposed to speak most of the time but unfortunately could not continue on when the conversation became too emotional. Clement stepped in, and continued to speak about the attacks against him and his family, especially his wife, who was raped by members of the Congo army. In his speech, Clement took many pauses to continue on, showing that this is still a very traumatic experience to talk about, yet he was confident in his story and in telling it in order to inform and create a discussion. Aline was quiet throughout the rest of the speech when Clement too over and in the end, he had stated it would’ve been too difficult for her to carry on. Seeing this transpire, I think it shows how important it is to continue with the interview, however respect the fact that some topics and specific events will create an emotion in someone that sometimes makes it impossible to continue on. Giving the interviewee time to regroup might be the best way, or hand off the conversation to their friend or significant other who is in the room as well. Sometimes a person needs someone else to tell their story, especially when it’s too difficult for them to tell it themselves.