Stuck Planes, Hotels without water, and city with actual sidewalks

Okay, so it has been awhile since I, Tyler, wrote a blog. It has been busy the last couple of months as we were getting ready to go on vacation, but I will make up for my absence with a long post, and I mean long. Plus I will throw in a few photos.

During the last week of April, I was fortunate to be invited to go with some other embassy officers to eastern DRC. The main purpose of the trip was to visit two AIDS clinics that the United States was funding to help the Congo military test for HIV, treat AIDS, and most importantly help the soldiers learn how to protect themselves from getting HIV. The trip also allowedus to visit different parts of the Congo, which is the size of western Europe. We don't have much opportunity to see Kinshasa as it only has 2770 km of paved roads, as opposed to 4,165,110 km of paved roads in the United States. So the only way to travel is by plane or by boat. Boat takes a month just to get 3/4 of the way across the country, and then you have to take a very bumpy, sometimes impassable road or you go by plane. Unfortunately Congo airlines have a very bad track record for air safety. We were able to do this trip on a US military plane. Much safer track record. We visited 5 places during the trip (see map above to see), Kole (not far from Ilebo), Goma, Mbuji-Mayi, Lubumbashi, and a copper mine near Kolwezi.

Some pictures from the plane on the way to Kole
I believe this is part of the Congo river.

KOLE

First stop was the small, small village of Kole. We were only suppose to be here for a short 10 minutes to pick up a US Military Doctor who was in the Kole area doing Monkey Pox research, but ended up being there for more than an hour. Their wasn't a paved airfield here, but there was a dirt airfield. As we were landing we saw probably a hundred people from surrounding villages running toward the airfield to find out why an airplane had landed and it was a good think they came because we needed their help.

Notice the long line of people coming to see why a whole bunch of white guys were getting off a plane.

oops.

yep we got stuck so with the hundred of villagers we pushed the plane backwards out of the soft sand and onto some harder dirt. It was funny because as it was being pushed back more dirt would build up behind the back wheels and the villagers were pushing the sand away with their hands and putting their sandals in front of the wheels to keep the wheels from getting stuck again. One man even had his hand run over. We eventually got it out, but the pilots then had to decide whether or not it was going to be safe to take off, or we would have to take a few days hike to the nearest airfield to get out. Luckily we were able to take off.

GOMA
Any of you who have been following the news here in the Congo know that there is some problems in eastern Congo. There are several rebel groups there who are trying to survive, and the Congo military is there trying to solve the problem. This causes alot of violence. Not only do the citizens have to worry about these rebel groups they also have to worry about a volcano. We were only in Goma for one night, but look at these pictures of the large lake, the volcano, and the beautiful hotel we stayed at.

The Volcano

The City of Goma is right by a large lake.

The hotel also had a great breakfast in the morning with fresh mango, pineapple, guava, passion fruit, and another fruit that I didn't recognize.

The hotel had very beautiful grounds.

This picture is of the plane crash site

MBUJI-MAYI

Our third stop was Mbuji-Mayi. This town is known for its large deposits of industrial diamonds. The city was rather small (3 million people) and run down. Not very many good roads, the only hotel secure enough for us to stay in didn't have air conditioning, nor running water, and was without electricity for the majority of our stay, but it did have a casino. We were all happy to get out of there. Here are some pictures of some kids in the town.

LUBUMBASHI

This is the nicest and most developed part of the Congo. With large deposits of copper and cobalt in the surrounding area, Lubumbashi has benefited from the numerous foreign businesses who come to Lubumbashi to mine. It was amazing the differences between Mbuji-Mayi and this city that had sidewalks, nice hotels, restaurants, and clean streets. The hotel was very nice with a large Victorian style staircase. We stayed two nights in Lubumbashi. The second night we ate at a restaurant called "Bush Camp". It had some pretty good food. It is buffet style with caterpillars, crocodile, chicken, beef, antelope and some other choices. I tried the caterpillars, crocodile and antelope, and surprisingly I liked all of them.

KOLWEZI.

Our final stop was to a mine site run by an American business. It was interesting to see how much money is being put into the mine site, and all the social programs the company is creating to help its employees and the surrounding villages. For example they built them new homes, are teaching them new skills, building better roads, and bringing cleaner water to the area. Here are some pictures of the site.

Part of the housing project they are building for some of the villagers.

Pieces of raw copper being mined, when the copper is exposed to oxygen it turns into malakite, which is the green you are seeing.

Overall it was a great opportunity to see Congo, and various parts of it. Now only if I can visit some of the cannibalistic tribes that live in the northeast.