Congo

As if I didn’t have enough excitement during the first week in Africa, here was Congo on the schedule. We started driving to Goma around 9 a.m., with two vehicles and some 10 people. After passing through beautiful tea plantations, we finally spotted Lake Kivu, on the Rwandan side. The border crossing was something out of a movie – apparently President Kabila was visiting around, so there were guys armed-to-the-teeth roaming everywhere. They also took their time to stamp our passports – I got a seven-day-visa at the La Corniche (wondering how many other Romanians had traveled through that border check-point?!) The way it works is that you pick up only your hand-luggage and cross on foot, while cars take another “lane” and wait you on the other side.

First glimpses of Goma were true to all the stories I had heard of this place: MAD!!! Dirt, bumpy roads, chaotic traffic, would-be-construction everywhere, where the lava river destroyed the city some five years ago. Rhett, Greg and I absolutely wanted to change some $$ into Congolese Francs – apparently we were the only suckers to do so. We went to a bank, but they wouldn’t take the brand new bills (I actually had some Euros, which they wouldn’t accept out-of-principle). Of course some guy showed up out-of-nowhere with stashes of 500-Franc bills, which we thought would last quite long. Wrong again. The first supermarket we entered was quit THE surprise: all prices were listed in FF, which I thought was the local currency, only to find out at the cashier’s desk that they were actually meant in $$. We ended up spending some $85 on some pasta supplies, some crackers, cheese and a bottle of olive oil… (in the next store I refrained from buying tampons at $13 a pack….) Needless to say that everyone was downright paying with American bills (and receiving change the same way), so my nice stash of Congolese Francs disappeared even before I had a chance to take a proper look at the bills…Just in the store area I also had the misfortune of first-in-my-life seeing a person with her nose cut off… I had heard these stories over-and-over again, but I had never quite pictured it: a huge, deep hole in the head, almost inviting to look up into the person’s brains… AWFUL!!!

Luckily DFGFI has this amazing property – “The Lake House” as it is know by, with a wonderful garden down to the water. We spent a few hours there, until Juan Carlos (my boss) arrived from Kigali. We had a couple of interviews scheduled and then went off to dinner downtown – Chez Doga (I think?!), where we had to wait for almost two hours to get some pizzas and some crepes (dishes on the menu were about $15 a piece). As it is getting pitch dark by 6.15, dinner at 8 felt like dinner past midnight.

The next morning we would wake up at 5, in order to catch an 8-o’clock flight to Butembo on the TMK airline. We were five in total (including Frans from Holland), so we spread the luggage weight evenly and only had to pay some $120 extra weight (the camera crew tok that, as they had massive equipment with them). Our tickets an passports and Ordre de Mission had to be carefully examined and stamped by several people (some were very excited to see a Romanian passport and mentioned Ceausescu – I was thinking how it must have been back in the day, with his friendship with Mobuto…) In the middle of the waiting room there was a strip which they were actually digging up with shovels (as if they were going to plant something!), but I refrained from taking pictures, as those armed Congolese everywhere looked anything but friendly.

We boarded this Tupolev plane (the smallest I had ever been in) and off we went, over spewing volcano and jungle land. Quite AMAZING to think that I w actually flying over Congo (!) like that. An hour later we had arrived in Butembo, where two safari cars were waiting for us. Boarding and leaving took forever (with the same line “just five more minutes”), as they were trying to fill them to capacity for the long, expensive journey we would have ahead: anywhere between 4-6 hours through the forest, up to Kasugho. We finally left around noon, and then jumped around in those seats the whole afternoon. The views were fantastic though, so I just sat there, speechless, taking it all in (alongside all the dust). We made it up after 4, to the beautiful GRACE center (which is managed by DFGFI, on extensive lands donated by Congolese mwamis – tribal leaders). It is all meant to accommodate confiscated gorillas for the next God-knows-how-many-years, until they can be released into the wild again. We quickly visited the construction site (which is currently led by two Australians and two New Yorkers) and then sat stunned by the incredible sunset. Food came along (very nice fries, veggies, pineapple empanadas, and some hard-and-impossible-to-cut meat). I was rooming with Sandy, so after some quick showers (hot water is delivered in buckets at the door), I took to the mission to prepare the mosquito nets (making holes in the cardboard ceilings, etc.) We collapsed at 9 p.m., after a LOOONG, but again amazing day.