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Published: October 20th 2008
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Lake Kivu
Veiw from the Stella DRC Calling
The Democratic Republic of Congo. What a crazy place.
We crossed over the boarder early Monday morning and the difference between Rwanda and Congo was incredible. Gisenyi is a peaceful town on the water with a lot of nature and beaches. Goma on the other hand is full of people and chaotic.
Goma is like a modern day Pompeii, the is a huge volcano about a 20 min drive (the roads are horrible though so you have to drive at about 30km/hour) which erupted in 2002 covering a large portion of the city with lava. Now there are a whole bunch of house that have been built on top of the dried lava with stone made of lava rock.
For the first two nights we stayed in a hotel called Stella which was really beautiful. It was right on the lake and the restaurant where we had breakfast overlooked a garden and a lake. It was so serene, especially compared to chaos that was right outside the gate.
Despite the civil war, the city was pretty safe during the day at the moment, but things are very volatile there and the real danger is
Goma
Building on top of the lava how quickly things can change. UN cars are driving around everywhere but MONUC has stopped doing foot patrols of the city. We were the only non-locals who were walking around the the streets.
The expat community in Goma is pretty small with a few places that everyone seems to hang out. Everyone we met seemed to be somehow connected which was great because we got to know a bunch of people pretty well after seeing them every night. Everyone we met was very friendly, invited us to dinner with them and to stay with them which was a nice surprise. We even got to play MarioCart on N64.
I am quite sure I was the only tourist in Goma, everyone was pretty shocked to hear that I was there just to visit. Apparently going into a war zone for vacation isn't most people's cup of tea.
The city is teeming with UN personnel because of the chapter 7 mission which is going on at the moment (MONUC). There is a lot of resentment among the local population again the UN, especially when you go outside the city limits (more about that below). All the other NGOs are
also very wary of being associated with the UN, most of them make a point of painting their cars another colour (MONUC cars are always white) and displaying stickers that say there are no weapons aboard their cars.
I spent most of the time just kind of wandering around the city. We walked through the market which was great until we got stuck in the middle of a thunderstorm. I was wearing flip flop and I my feet were probably one of the dirtiest they have ever gotten, I just tried not to think about all the garbage water that I was stepping in. Like Rwanda we took motorcycles everywhere, but unlike Rwanda the roads are not paved (and when they are there are so many potholes they might as well not be paved) and you dont get a helmet. Good times. Goma is definitely not a place for contact wearers. The volcano is constantly sending out smoke and dust which makes the air quality pretty bad but is amazing to look at at night when you can see the red glow of the open pit (one of the only active open pit volcanoes in the world). I really
University du Lac
One of the Unviersities in Goma wanted to climb it but we were getting mixed messages about the safety. Rebel groups have been using the forests on the volcano to produce charcoal to bring in money.
On Thursday I got onto a UN convoy going up to Rutshuru under the guise of being a photojournalist (kind of a long story, but successful nonetheless). We met at UN headquarters at 6am and got in a car with caging on the front window, for safety against rocks and such, but that was kind of defeated by the fact we drove with the windows open for the majority of the 3 hour drive to the base. There were three other cars/trucks in the convo carrying soldiers. It was really interesting to watch people's reactions as we drove by. Pretty much the youngest kids would run after the cars yelling "MONUC, MONUC" or "Give me money for food" in a variety of languages, most youth were quite hostile shaking their fists at the cars, throwing rocks at time and running their fingers across their throats and the adults pretty much ignored us or gave us dirty looks. When we go to the base they gave us a briefing on
the current situation in North Kivu (the area this particular team operated in) and let us take pictures of some training exercises. There was one other photojournalist and my cousin who is a journalist. We spent quite a while talking to them about the war, the people's perception of MONUC's role in Congo and what they felt they were doing. A lot the the officers were quite reluctant to tell us anything out of fear we would portray them poorly but after we sat around talking about other things they loosened up a bit. We also played volleyball with one of the Sikh regiments which was pretty funny. All in all it was a really interesting experience.
That is about it in a rather large nut shell. I would definitely go back to Congo, it is a fascinating place, and I really want to climb the volcano.
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