Of black mud and soap

I’m currently writing from Goma, which is in North Kivu, just across the border from Rwanda and Uganda. It’s weird being somewhere that you’ve heard a lot about – and seen on the news – and then realise that you’re actually there, actually here, and that the things that happened massively impact the person who took our money at the shop, or the guard at our gate. Due to the massive volcano right by Goma (which erupted in 2002 and does so every 20 years or so) it’s a very black place. The mud is all grey-black, which is in direct contrast to Bukavu which was red. The traffic is a lot worse in Goma as well (though slightly better roads), with motorbikes and landcruisers all trying to weave round each other, turn, and avoid the potholes. I was glad that I wasn’t driving!

We travelled up from Bukavu this morning – I started the day with a cold bucket bath in the dark at 5.15am. Tis a great combination ;o) Then a drive to the port, where we had to go to the luggage station, the ticket station, the immigration station and the health station before getting on the boat! We were on the quick boat, which makes the journey up Lake Kivu in about 2 ½ hours (the slow boat takes 6 hours). The lake is huge – at some points you can only just see mountains in the distance in all directions. Stunning scenery, with skulking mountains diving steeply into the lake. Imagine cruising along Lake Windermere in a speed boat for a couple of hours and you’ll pretty much get it.

I’ve now met Benoit, who’s the Area Co-ordinator for Kindu. I’ve been eager to meet him as he’s going to be the person that I’ve both living with and working with – an important person to get on with! I think we’ll be ok – he’s an optimistic person who is serious about what he’s doing and why, and who has been open about the positives and the negatives! Am really glad that he’s someone who’s willing to communicate and discuss things – it will make it a lot easier for me. We had a bit of a laugh when we were talking about personalities and planning – he was saying that he was an ENFP (Myers-Briggs) and I said that I’m not sure how well I’d complement him then as I’m also an ENFP. However, we might have more similar working styles! We spent quite a lot of time chatting about the programme, and where it’s likely to go in the next year or so – more discussion still to take place but I’m getting more of a grasp on what’s happening.

Had a short shopping trip as well. Kindu is really remote – the only real way to get things in or out is to fly them. By road takes a good 6 days, with a risk of banditry. That means that all project items have to be sent by airfreight (which is quite expensive…) along with various food items. We can get rice, cassava, bananas, meat, chicken and fish locally. Some vegetables (particularly since we’ve been working to increase vegetable growth in the area!) but everything else has to be bought in Goma and flown. Apparently the diet is quite monotonous even so…. The supermarket we went to had quite a good choice of things (probably about the size of our lounge/dining room at home) but lacking in certain types of stuff. The only thing that there was a LOT of variety for was the soap. I counted at least 50 different makes…!!!!

Tomorrow I fly to Kindu, which is about an hour’s flight in a small plane. Once in Kindu I’m not going to have as much internet access as I have had so far. In the office we have an RBGAN, which is satellite internet. It therefore has a good connection but costs about 10 USD per MB downloaded. So strictly limited use! However, there is an internet café which has a local provider which is slow, but obviously a lot cheaper. I’ll use that sometimes, but don’t know when/how often. Just because I can’t check my emails as obsessively as normal doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to contact me. It just means that I expect to have lots of mail when I finally do ;o) So here’s my general ‘hello! How are you? Hope you’re doing well – what have you been up to recently?’ to cover contact for the next few days!!!