A Land Of Confusion

Yesterday I was made an honorary member of Keyshero Footballclub, a veterans only (Although by African standards this is apparently around 28, making me probably the oldest and most sagacious member of the team.), club with what seems like around 200 members all sharing 11 yellow kits. I promised to look into getting some new ones from Norway, so if anyone (How desperate to advertise on a blog that no one reads.) has ever dreamed of sponsoring an African veterans team, here’s the chance of a lifetime.
Practice was over at 9 am. Having spent the previous night eating goat and drinking a mixture of sweet sparkling rosé and local beer, 7 am was an ambitious time for sports, but nonetheless non-negotiable.
What made matters worse, was the matter of the post-training-celebration. Apparently someone knew of a bar that would let us in at 9 in the morning, and the players insisted that we drink all the beer in the entire universe. A great way to start a Sunday.
Having slept off the beer, I went to Matt in Mercy Corps house to see if I couldn’t get some inside ex-pat info on Goma, and take advantage of his large satelitedish.
After several hours of rubbish American sitcoms, that made my heart leap and my soul feel at home, we concluded that if a doorman has had a kid he deserves $10, and if he has a kid every 2 months, you need to have a talk about contraceptives. Also, the Chinese will rule us all, if we don’t send cannon fodder or techsupport.

This was pretty far from being my most efficient or educational day in Congo, but in my defense it was a Sunday, and it was nice to spend the afternoon hanging out with my local friends. People say that it is difficult for foreigners to make friends in Congo because of the presumably large difference in income and lifestyle. Perhaps my Congolese friends cantell I'm not a very rich muzungu, because I don't seem to be having any trouble.
To those of you who was expecting something profound and insightful on my African experience today (as if anyone even reads these shambolic rants), I apologize, and promis to be back on form tomorrow, hopefully with something meaningful to say.

To my goat: A fond farewell.

I feel native today, as the frolicking gekkos on my bedroom wall no longer has any effect on me or my sleep. I feel hesitant to say it out loud, however, as I sure that if I get cocky, Mother Nature will have something significantly larger to throw at me. I’m not sure how I will sleep with herds of wilderbeasts traversing my bed.

I am sad to say that my goat, given to me by the wonderful women of Kichanga, met with what I can only assume was a violent end today.
The threat of a barbecue had been looming over our heads like a delicious Sword of Damocles for about a week now, and I think the goat felt it too. Perhaps he was glad to get it over with. Death Row is not a pleasant place, especially if you’re a goat.
I don’t know the details of the deed itself, as the locals no doubt had me pegged as a sensitive soul and wanted to spare me the dirty details. In the desperate hours of night, my mind staged elaborate escapeplans all involving the goat and I ending up living the sweet life down Mexico-way. It would not be, and the goat went more or less gently into that sweet good night.
One the plus side, he was delicious.
The barbecue was a great do, with local delicacies, including the dreaded “fufu”. This is a shifty dish, which I would not like to meet down a darkened alley, much less looming at the edge of the buffet, like it was today. Not to lose face, I stocked up on other local favourites. Although pretty conservative in their nature, I did very much enjoy the deep fried sardines and the seared tilapia.
As the night wore on and we saw the bottom of many a bottle of store-grade sangria, my Swahili became quite fluent and I am pretty sure I agreed to sponsor the local footballteam with jerseys. I will train with them tomorrow to see if they’re up to snuff.

When Douglas said the answer was 42, did that include the Congo?

Another day in Goma, the city that never sleeps, but rarely seemes to do anything else either. Endless amounts of people hustle and bustle in the streets, but to what end I have no idea.
I have seen enough buildingmaterials lugged around to build at least a handful Arcs, but the city is still in ruins and I have yet to see an arc.
What is wrong with Congo?
That is the question, and I seem to be coming no closer to finding an answer. At least not an answer that appeals to me.
How did Congo get here? Is it all because of colonialism and authoritarian rule? If that is the case than a lot more African countries should be severely worse of than they are.
Is it the size?
Sudan is huge, and allthough they have more than their fair share of troubles, they at least have some sort of semblance of a state?
Speaking of state, I went to to Rwandan border today to witness an historic summit between Kabila and Kagame. The exact middlepoint between the two countries had been painstakenly measured and located, and with strained theatrics, soldiers from both sides mingled in a pantomime of assumed friendship that I felt sure could end very badly at any moment.
I was sure the soldiers would rather point their weapons at each other, but diplomacy and circumstance inclined them to starce menacingly at each others and he crowd.
I was the only muzungu around, and apart from a very old man sporting a tattered Reuters vest and carrying a camera that must have been of the same type that they used to film cheap porn in the early 80's, I was the only press as well.
Having no accreditation, I had decided to play it safe and keep my camera to myself. It was jsut as well, as the show was not really worth taking pictures of. In a sea of uniforms the two met, waved and solved Africas problems, all withing the space of about 50 seconds, just in time for a drink at the nearby Ihusi Hotel.
As they disappeared from sight, I could not help but wonder why the crowd was cheering. Was it for the president very few of them liked or for the president most people seem to think is only waiting to invade them?
I apologize is I seem cynical today, but I spent most of last night battling what seems to be large parts of the African fauna in my underwear at 4 am.
There was a gekko the size of a Toyota in my bathroom, and as I gave chase, I am pretty sure I saw a flock of zebras disappear in the crack between to tiles.

A faux pas, and the art of dodging traffic

I spent yesterday making sense of all my notes, slightly frustrated by how everyone I've spoken to has a differing opinion as to the crux of Congos problems. My driver Claude, about whom I feel no small amounts of white guilt for failing to recognize after I had met and taken his picture only 4 days before, took me around Goma for a spot of sightseeing. We saw many new dirtroads I had never seen before, and I'm quite sure we killed a good few of the motorcyclist teeming around our 4WD. Claude told me that there was at least 6350 motorcycles in Goma, and I said I was sure that there was at least that many currently stuck in our grill. Claude looked at my with serious eyes and said that he did not think that was true.
Later that night, Claude once again picked me up at the hotel, and this time I made a big show of knowing who he was. He seemed genuinely happy, allthought that might have been because of all the beer I had promised to buy him earlier, in an effort to get out of the crushing guilt.
He looked disappointed when he realized that I did not have a bag of beer with me to give to him, and even more so when he realized that I had meant for us to have a beer together.
However, any awkwardness soon gave way to us making plans to go out this weekend, when we realized we liked the same swahili song. Thank God for "Kotchi Kotchi".

Driving at night in Goma is a breathtaking experience, because the total lack of light in no way makes people drive any slower or more cautiosly, and at the same time it in no way limits pedestrians' lack of respect for the difference between sidewalk and road.
In the pedestrians' defense, Goma has no sidewalks.
Barreling down a dirt road in pitch black darkness, desperately dodging oncoming traffic and angrily shouting at houses that have the nerve to be in our way, we somehow managed to make it to our destination, leaving in our wake a trail of destruction that I was prepared to blame on the FDLR.
I had a meeting with Oxfam to discuss their recent report on the impact of the governments offensive against the FDLR, and was quite keen to get his view on the whole debaucle which is the DDRRR.
We spent a few ours discussing the problems of governance in a country of Congos size and history, and I left there feeling that my knowledge of Congo was gaining some cohesion.
I might just be able to make some sense of this country after all.

Poly Poly. (Swahili, meaning "slowly")

It's been a quiet couple of days in Goma. Sunday here is like sunday anywhere else, and it's all about getting comfortable.
The day before I had met an English journalist and an English author working in LA. They are here doing research for a TV-series on humaitarian cricis.
On the sunday, the three of us, and my friend Jean-Michel set up a large lunch on the balcony of my room and spent a good few hours eating and drinking. All in all, a rather enjoyable sunday.
Yesterday (monday), my mission was to get MONUC (if I haven't mentioned them before, they are the military arm of UN's mission in DRC), to talk about the troubles in the region.
I spent a very dusty 4 hours in their base, waiting for the press information officer to actually do her job, only to be told that they had no time to talk.
Apparently, wasted days like these are quite common if one wants to talk to anyone in Congo, so I suppose I might as well get used to them.
Having spent a few hours trying to write something legible out of all the notes I have, (there seems to be enough already for a rather large book), I went to have dinner with my hotel friends.
We were joined by a fellow named Matt, a very friendly American who is in charge of Mery Corps' operations in Goma.
Matt was an intriguing person, as he looked like he literally just fell of the most American turniptruck one can possible imagine. His accent was endearingly Mid-Western, and mostly used for swearing and saying "exetera exetera".
However, Matt soon revealed himself to be a person of great personal knowledge about the various conflicts in Africa. Somehow, high-fiving his way through some of the worst coutries in the world, have left him with a unique perspective on the workings of a disaster area.
One of the things I've noticed so far here, is how much people surprise you, and almost always in a good way.

Guerillas In The Mist.

This morning I had a meeting with Jean-Michel Dumont, the political advisor for the EU’s Special Representative for the Great Lakes Area. He has been working on the democratic workings of the DRC for years and had intimate knowledge of the goings in Kinshasa and elsewhere.
Having the spent the better part of four hours talking to him, I resigned myself to my room for a day of writing. My phone rang after 5 minutes and it was Mr. Dupont.
He was heading to the headquarters of the rangers of the Virunga National Park, and was wondering if I would like to come along. Virunga is incidentally the second oldest national park in the world after Yellowstone, and spans over 800.000 hectars of mountains and lush jungle. It is famous for its gorillas, and Dr. Diane Fossey spent her life with the gorillas just across the Rwandan border.
I through my camera and notebook in a bag, and soon found myself heading into the jungle in a SUV with diplomatic plates.
The rangers of the park had learned, had been attacked by FDLR, the Rwandan Liberation Army, as they had tried to stop them for cutting down the woods in the park for use as illegal charcoal.
The Director of the Rangers, a softspoken man of about 40 from Belgium, told me that the use of charcoal is a giant environmental problem for the entire Africa, as poor people rely on it as their sole source of energy. Needless to say, it is a very dirty fuel, and it also leads to the pillaging of many of Africa’s ancient forests.
It is a multi-million dollar industry, and for the various armed groups, it is a major source of income. The rangers are desperately trying to come up with solutions as they can see their park disappear in front of their eyes, and recently they have come up with an ingenious method of creating brickets of biopulp.
They give machinery to make these brickets to the local population, thus providing both livelihood and cheap fuel at the same time as protecting precious flora and fauna.
On the way back to the hotel, my EU contact told me that the Director was actually a prominent Belgium prince.
I have to say, this country is full of surprises.

Muzungu! Muzungu!

Today was an eventfull day, and I’ll do my very best to cover the highlights, but they were many and not very far between.
Anthony picked me up around 6 am this morning and together we drove through the mist that I’ve learned is typical for this part of Africa and into the jungle-covered mountains of Nord-Kivu.
We were heading towards Kichanga. A small town about 5 hours drive north from Goma, through some of the most stunning landscape and treacherous road I have ever encountered.
Kichanga is the town where the notorious warlord Laurent Nkunda and his army, the CNPD had their headquarters before Nkundas arrest in March this year, and it is one of the areas of Congo where rape and violence remains most endemic.
For the first time I felt that I was entering a warzone.
We were enroute to visit a transitcenter for female victims of rape. There they would be examined and it would be determined whether or not they would need surgical aid at Keyshero in Goma.
Kichanga is basically a giant village. The roads are dirttracks and the houses are little more than huts.
Approaching the center, a small, white wooden house just off Kichangas main road, I realized that the women there had been alerted to our arrival.
Greeting us where around 20 women, dressed In what I had previously assumed were festve garments, but having spent a few days in the Congo now realize is merely the Congolese woman’s impeccable sense of dress, and singing a song of welcome. Over and over they chanted “Karibou!”, which Anthony told me means “You are most welcome”. It was an experience not easily forgotten.
The transit center functions as a transitcenter, but it’s main function is that of a counselinghouse for victims of rape. Since they started in 2002 they have had thousands of women come through their doors, and have been able to return most of them to their communities. Not a small feat.
I had the honour of meeting all the women there, and was trusted with their fates. Some women had been there as many as three times. Sometimes having barely made it home before they were savagely raped again.
But once again what struck me about their stories, and what remains with me tonight, is not the horror of their fate, but how these women, who have been so degraded and so hurt have lost none of their dignity and femininity. They are truly to be admired.
I wandered around Kichanga for a while. The streets were filled with people and there was obviously some sort of celebration in the making. Someone told me that the chief on the Congolese army was visiting, and the town had prepared a parade. The army was out in force, and I was astounded by the sheer size of the weapons the young boys were brandishing. What also struck me as slightly odd, was the fact that the soldiers protecting the escort, the ones patrolling the street, were not armed with pistols, as one might expect, or even assaultrifles. For some tactical reason unbeknownst to me, it had obviously been decided that the efficient weapon for keeping a crowd at bay are rocketlaunchers. Hundreds of people cheering with a dozen or so RPGs pointed directly at them at virtually point blank range was truly a bizarre sight.
When I returned to the center, they had prepared a fiest for us with exquisite Congolese food. After dinner, I was presented with my departinggift. A rather large plate of fresh fish, and a very much alive goat. Needless to say I was taken aback, and thought for a moment that it was all a joke. It wasn’t, and the hapless goat was loaded into our car. It is currently patrolling the courtyard of Hope In Action.
It turns out a good goat is worth about $100, and can provide a family with a livelihood for an entire year. Needless to say, the gesture made by these women was titanic, and I know of no way I can ever repay them.

Meeting Congo.

Today, I met Anthony Musafiri, the Head Of Hope In Action. He works closely with L’Hopital Keyshero, a local hospital, on a program for female victims of sexualized violence, and had promised me a tour of the facilities. I felt apprehensive and nervous driving along the bumpy and dusty roads of Goma. I would soon be face to face with the Africa of countless newscasts and documentaries. I was worried how I might react, and I was worried about how the women would react to me.
The hospital was a series of squat buildings in a dirty field on the outskirts of the city. Like the rest of the Goma, the hospital looked like it didn’t belong there, and didn’t want to be there.
After finishing a brief interview with the chief of medicine, I was invited to the wards for victims of rape. The wards were located a stones throw away from the main compound, and comprised of two derelict buildings surrounded by dirt.
It is hard to describe when something so completely matches your preconceived ideas but yet so utterly smashes them. The rooms were dirty, dark and stuffy. Cast-iron beds were scattered around the room, and the small windows allowed hardly any light to enter.
Sitting on the beds were women and girls of every age. Some seemed to be around 70, and other can’t have been older than 15.
As I came in they all looked at me with slightly unsettling, piercing eyes. I realized that there was no way I could relate to these women. There was an unbridgeable chasm between us, and there was no common ground.
Suddenly the women started clapping. I still do not know why, but as they did their stern faces opened in smiles, and all at once I felt indescribably sad and elated at the same time.
For an hour I sat with them and took pictures of them. Many of them had their children with them, and some were even there with their husbands. At times I forgot why they were all there. They seemed genuinely happy to me, and I wondered how such happiness could be possible in someone who has encountered such boundless evil.
Now, as I look through the pictures from earlier, I notice that not a single one of them is smiling. It is as if the pictures were taken by someone else at a different and sadder time.
From my balcony in my hotelroom I ca see a boat going back and forth with it's speakers blaring James Brown's "I Feel Good".

Hello, Africa. Tell me how you're doing.

My lost driver and new friend Gilbert suddenly materialized on my doorsted this morning, along with his brother Jojo.
I had spent a restless night battling nightmares and hallucinations, side effects of the malariadrugs about which I had been warned in advance. This went on until about 4 am, when I realized I had opted for the medicine without the aforementioned sideeffects. Having made this realization, I went to sleep soundly.
I was glad to see Gilbert alive and well, and I will assume that he was glad to see me too.
Together, the three of us embarked on a tour of the city of Kigali.
Kigali is indeed an amazing place. During the last few years, Rwanda has emerged as a leading economy and example of civic society in Africa.
Mr. Kagame. the president, is fiercly loved by every Rwandan I spoke to, and his policies are carried forward by a people determined, as a woman I spoke to put it, to become the best in the world at everything they set out to achieve.
This has not only resulted in an incredible process of healing and nationbuilding after the genocide that tore the nation apart 15 years ago, but also an impeccably clean and safe country.
As I mentioned earlier, plastic bags are banned in Rwanda, under penalty of uptil 6 months in prison, and every couple of months the entire population joins in a massive communal effort of cleaning the streets.
The result of this, is an eerily spotless capital. Nowhere is there trash to be found. Every inch of road, path and alley in Kigali is indeed spotless. It is a truly aweinspiring thing to see, and the results are such that even neighbouring countries such as Uganda are thinking about following suit.
I wanted to ask a woman I had dinner with about the less than democratic facets of Mr. Kagame’s rule, but I quickly gathered that this was a non-issue with most Rwandans. Most, if not all of Rwandans progress has been attributed to his policies, and to most Rwandans this counts for more than democratic technicalities. I must admit that having seenn Kigali, I find myself wanting to agree with them.
Having dropped off Jojo where he worked, I am not fully clear on what exactly he does, but he claimed he was a businessman and would make sure I enjoyed my stay immensely next time I passed through Rwanda, Gilbert and I headed west through the rolling foothills of Rwanda. The countryside is a spectacular sight, reminiscent of the hills of Northern California around Santa Cruz, with lush sloping hills and sweeping vistas.
I was amazed at how much of Rwandan land is used for crops. Almost every conceivable inch of space had been tilled and planted.
Gilbert and I spent and enjoyable 3 hours trying to close a language gap that was at times frustratingly narrow and at other times impossibly wide.
At the best of times we had seeds of conversation, each forgiving the other his linguistic shortcomings. At one point I’m fairly sure I asked Gilbert if he enjoyed swimming in bananajuice, to which he politely answered ”Yes.”.
Crossing the border into the DRC is a surreal experience. The last stretch of Rwanda is the shore of Lake Kivu, a gigantic body of water of which one cannot see the far shore. This is Rwandas riviera, and the shoreline is dotted by swanky hotels.
The DRC also shares this shoreline, but the hotels quickly end only to be replaced by the giant, sprawling wasteland that is Goma. Noone I asked could tell me exaclty how many people live in Goma, but the consensus seems to be somewhere in the vicinity of 3 million. This is hard to believe, as it is a stark contrast to the much smaller, but endlessly more metropolitan Kigali.
As if 10 years of brutal warfare has not been enough, Goma, in 2003, endured an eruption from the volcano at wich feet the city resides. Most of Goma was covered in lava and ashes, and with the DRCs decimated economy and lack of infrastructure, rebuilding has been slow going.
Dirt roads sided by shacks, tents and coverd wagons stretch endlessly into the distance, and one never gets the sense of actually being in a city. The streets are open wounds in the landscape, and what little infrastructure there is looks mercilessly forced into the soil. It is as if the city itself is in pain.
Interestingly, the city of Goma is host to no less than 4 large universities.
Tomorrow will be a day of exploration.
Now I shall end this rather extended blogspot with an apology to all those that are worried because of yesterdays shambolic performance on my part. It will never happen again.

Welcome to Rwanda. Give me all your plastic bags.

As we descended through the clouds over Kigali, I looked west towards the Congo, were I am heading tomorrow. Enormous clouds towered in the horizon, occasionally torn by violent bursts of forked lightning, as if concealing a terrifying industry below. An ominous sign, by any standard.
I was joined on the plane by my new friend Peter Van Straaten. Professor emeritus as a Candian university, and devoted fan of the use of phosphates in agriculture. It is leaps and bounds more interesting than it seems, allthough I must admit that is not saying much.
The reason I mention my new friend, is that he will soon play an important part in my introduction to this brand new world.
Getting off the plane I was immediately greeted by a rather large acasia (is this how you spell it?). It feel slightly contrived, in the same way as in movies one always has to be shown Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower in order to understand where one is. I wanted to tell the tree to stop trying so hard, but there was no time.
Kigli Airport is a brutish, looming building, built like a brutalistic Sovjet monument, but in the scale of the Spinal Tap Stonehenge. Impressive in the same way as a tall dwarf sometimes takes your breath away.
I had to get in line and pay for my Visa, and I of course, had brought no money. My trepidation was short lived, however, as Dr. Van Straaten provided me with a large bundle of dollars to get me through it.
After spending a good hour and Western Union, I was able to repay him in full.
My ride, an elusive gentleman by the name of Gilbert, was nowhere to be seen. He may have been there, but perhaps a sudden burst of shyness led him to bin his sign reading "Mr.Vegas" and hide behind a plant. I am hoping for the latter, and that he has since regained his nerve.
Once again, the good doctor had to sort me out, as he and his colleague, a smiling chap with more cyllables in his name than I have metaphores, took me to the glitzy, ritzy Chez Lando hotel.
A sprawling, modern structure filled to the rafters of new friends.
At this point, things became slightly frantic. Realizing that both my passport and creditcard were AWOL, I was quickly reduced to something a lot less than a man. Savagely I emptied my bag, wept a little, shook a stranger desperately and bargained incoherently witht the universe. My desperation was reaching new peaks. I would die here. How would I get home? Where was my mother? And why was this stranger letting me shake him for so long? Incidentally, Rwandans are really polite and will let you shake them for quite a long time.
A kindly young lady from the Kigali office of the UNDP took pity on me, and together we retraced my steps to the airport. Sobbingly, I knocked on the door of the Western Union where my paraphanelia had last been seen. Of course, all my documents were there, and for the second time in less than 30 minutes, I grossly invaded a Rwandans personal space. A sidenote: Rwandans will not let you hug them for as long as they will let you shake them, but for the limited amount of time they give you, they provide wonderful hugs.

If any of my parents read this: Please disregard the bit where I lose all my documents. I made it all up. Your son is fine. Go back to sleep.


PS! Plastic bags are illegal in Rwanda. I have enough in my suitcase to get life in the chair.