Joe in Democratic Republic of Congo

by Rewrite the Future Communications Manager, Joe Hall

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Go... East

I was keen to get out of Kinshasa and to the East of Congo, where we do a lot of our work with children - and where most of the conflict has been. (1998-2003 was the war, but fighting and violence are still going on.)

Not so hard, you might think, flying from one side of a country to the other. If only. There was a recent air crash in Goma which led to the last of the commercial airlines going onto the international aviation blacklist (oh yeah, Congo as a country has the worst record in the world for air crashes).

Flying from Kinshasa (the capital, in the West) 900 miles to Goma (in the East, at the heart of the conflict in Congo) 

But I did manage to get one of a few places on a Médecins Sans Frontières plane carrying aid and aid workers and suddenly found myself in Goma (complete with crumpled, crashed plane next to you on the tarmac when you touch down). And suddenly you're right by the border with Rwanda, five or ten degrees cooler than Kinshasa and it's like a different country. Suddenly it felt a lot more real too. More soldiers (government and UN peacekeeping troops) everywhere you turn for one thing.

As important as anything else, I have to tell you it is indescribably beautiful arriving in Goma.

It cut against any preconceptions I had of a bleak, wartorn landscape. An international photojournalist I met just after I arrived said this is the most beautiful part of the world he's ever seen. I can believe that. On one side you have Lake Kivu, on the other an enormous volcano (which, just to add to the troubles here, erupted in 2003 destroying lots of Goma - you still see hard black volcanic rock everywhere).

Looking out across beautiful Lake Kivu from Goma.

I suddenly wish I was a much better photographer. You might want to check out some other people's pictures to do it justice