staff retreat in Goma, Congo

Just last week end and early this week was the staff retreat in Goma. That was quite an experience. We all rode in a bus. There are a few different levels of "buses" here. Let me try to explain. The lowest level is the taxi bus, or "Mutatu", which is like a big van that carries as many people as possible. I have yet to ride on one but I see them all the time filled with sweaty Africans literally sitting on each others laps and hanging out the windows. These are standard public transport. The next level is a slightly larger bus you can rent. It's maybe the same size as the buses they use for retirement homes in the States but not nearly as nice. It's totally basic. The next level is like the regular charter buses with nice big padded seats and such. We rode in one from the middle level. Apparently we had one of the nice big ones reserved for the two day journey but the day before we were to leave the bus we were supposed to have was involved in a hold up on the road. All the passengers were unloaded and robbed of everything (including the clothes on their backs) and the bus was totally shot up. Don't worry though, that kind of thing isn't all that common. All that to say we all crammed into a smaller bus for the long journey.It wasn't bad though. I sat in the very front.

Goma is such an interesting place. Congo is in a civil war right now. I don't know all the politics but I hear things there are quite unstable. And I think as a result of the instability there is also a lot of corruption. For example, within five minutes of crossing the border from Rwanda into Congo (Goma is the Congolese border city up there in North Kivu) we got waved over by the police. He insisted on seeing our vehicle's paperwork. There was a list of countries on Dolla's registration/permit where he was authorized to drive the car and Democratic Republic of Congo was clearly on the list. The policeman however said he couldn't accept it. Dolla was arguing with him when a guy from our WR Congo office, Kapalata, walked up. They had met us at the border and were in the car behind us. Kapalata is one of those guys who knows all the right people and the policeman who was giving us a hard time recognized him right away. After some talking, Kapalata ended up driving Dolla's car and Dolla got in the car behind with another guy from the Congo office. I'm sure glad I don't live in Congo. Anyway, the city of Goma is interesting mostly because it sits in the path of a volcano that erupted a few years ago and so there's black lava rock everywhere. And there are people whose job it is to chip away at this lava. My friend Sarah hates Goma because she thinks it's the closest thing to what hell will be like, black sharp rock everywhere with people endlessly chipping away at it and evil, killing, and corruption everywhere. And to add to all of that, we happened to be there when they were rotating soldiers so there was a new group of about three thousand soldiers moving around the city which is a very small city. More than once we had to pull over and let truck after truck pass, each one with over a hundred soldiers piled in the back. I wanted to take pictures put I don't think it would have been a good idea. You never know who does or does not want their pictures taken and often military movement is not the best thing to take a chance on. The army camp happened to be right behind the Catholic guest house where our retreat was being held , so Sarah and Tambry and I encountered their empty camp on a walk one day. Yikes!