July 23, 2008 Goma
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I
spent an night in Gisenyi on the Congo border and crossed on Sunday AM,
meeting Samuel Kamanzi on the Congolese side. Got an eight day visa
which is not long enough so I will have to exit back to Rwanda this
coming Friday and re enter for another eight days which will get me to
the end of my planned visit in the Congo. The alternative is to travel
back to Kigali and then down through Burundi and back into the Congo
way south of here. However I have ticket to go south on Lake Kivu to
Bukavu at the south end of the lake. The boat leaves on Saturday at
7:30am and takes two hours for $50. From there I catch a bus down to
Uvira still in the Congo. The course here in Goma is almost over. We
had three days of teaching. Tomorrow, I'll supervise a couple of
mediations, one at a refugee camp where there are many Quakers who
have fled fighting in other parts of the country. Late in the afternoon
I will film the church choir where I attended services last Sunday.
That was an experience in itself. The service began at 9am and lasted
to a little after 1PM. Lots of great singing and some serious bible
thumping from a visiting pastor from Kenya who started the sermon with
"I won't let you go home early." I'm sure a lot of my friends are
calling this payback time for George. Lots of interesting people where
I stay. The trip to the Peace Center by moto taxi or mini bus (matatu)
are filled with despair seeing how people live and struggle on the
recent lava flows that devastated this town in 2004. Everything is
covered by ash and soot. With an inversion in the atmosphere compounded
by hundreds of thousands of charcoal cooking fires it must be something
like Pittsburgh when the steel industry was running uncontrolled. Some
of the worst atmosphere I've ever seen. Last night there were big
thunder and lightning shots and a little rain on our side of town. Over
by the Peace Center, a lot of rain but it really didn't clean things
off at all. I had some intestinal illness for a day, but an American
nurse/luthern missionary had a bag full of goodies that did me a lot of
good. Antibiotics do help in times of need. The pipes are no longer
calling, Danny Boy. A little girl was sitting on the floor at the
bishop's residence where I'm staying. I couldn't understand her name.
But we conversed in Swahili and French. I asked how old she was and I
guessed, 4. She said she was 11. I said you are too small to be 11. She
said mimi mgonjwa, meaning I'm ill. When she got up and walked, it was
the gait of an old woman. She could move but it was an old walk. There
was some distention in her abdomen. I don't know what is wrong with
her. A number of sick people have been brought here from outlying areas
for medical treatment. She is one. Two nights ago there were three
adults with bone injuries who had travelled two days in a minibus from
somewhere up north. They were in a lot of pain. They also must have
come through some bad areas meaning dangerous. My time is up so I must
stop for now.
George
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