child soldiers and seven horned talking serpents

I agreed to go on contract with Airserv to standby for hurricance disaster relief in the Carribean but wound up in Goma, Congo, to help out flying a Cessna Caravan for a month in this war torn land. I was here three years ago soon after the volcano had erupted, sending a stream of lava across the runway and down the main streets of town. The flying was some of the most beautiful I have done and so I was happy to return to see what had become of the place.
Eastern Congo is a part of the world where the earthly forces of creation and destruction are in a powerful dance. It is horrible and it is beautiful. A nightmare and a dream. The earth shakes, the mountains drool lava and the lakes randomly spew up poison gas. We must not swim through the bubbles. The spectacular landscape is fertile. Things grow well in the volcanic ash.
The forces of man are also creating and destroying. One flight for Medicins san Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) took us to several landings south of Goma and on to Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga province. We spent the night there, not far from the mines of Shinkolobwe. From these mines people took the uranium used to roast Hiroshima and Nagasaki sixty summers ago. More recently there was good news out of Lubumbashi of a local Pastor Mulunda who runs an organization called Peace and Reconciliation. This group persuades Mai Mai militiamen to abandon the field of combat and gives them bicycles and clothing for their weapons which they then publicly destroy. Thousands of rifles, machine guns, grenades, and poision arrows have been removed from the killing fields in this fashion. Meanwhile reports circulate of Eastern European businessmen who continue to sell more weapons and ammunition to Congo. One wonders what these merchants of death do after collecting payment - have a fine meal perhaps and toast each other for a job well done? May they live long enough to experience something of the horror they have fueled.
Another thing over which people kill each other is the mineral coltan. This happens near the airfields of of Punia, Walikali, and Lulinga where we land. Coltan goes into the manufacture of our cell phones. Think about it the next time you hear one ring.
Battles happen, but people grow flowers around the bombed out terminals where we pick up and drop off passengers. The struggle for decency and dignity amid the violence is real and gives hope. The human forces of destruction are foreign and local. The creative forces are also foreign and local.
Congolese music is really alive and special. If the driver has it playing on his radio on the way to the airport I get charged up for a great day in Africa. My mood becomes generous. A gang of teenagers holds a rope across the road to stop cars. "Sir there have been many accidents here because of these big holes in the road which we are fixing. If you care to support us please feel free to do so." Yes, yes, a special twist on privatisation of the road maintenance industry. A dollar for the impromtu road crew.
The talk of the town the other day was the death of a sorcerer's seven horned talking snake. A soldier came across this snake slithering down the road and began to strike it. The snake said, "Don't beat me, I am a person like you." The soldier panicked and shot the snake. The snake's relatives nearby began crying and howling like humans. They were a family of snakes owned by a sorcerer who was not home at the time. When he received word of the death of his familiar snake he ordered a coffin and preparations for a complete funeral. The authorities decided this was a little odd, even for Goma, and that they should search this man's house. Upon doing so they discovered strange furnishings and decorations and accoutrements including a few human skulls. So they burned the house down. Most of this story is true, but I think parts of it might be embellishments.
One of the best days of my life happened last week. I was assigned to fly a mission to several towns on behalf of Save the Children. My passengers were de-mobilized child soldiers. This worthy organization had persuaded the army and various militias to release them and had given them some counseling, re-education, and some decent civilian clothes. But these child veterans still thought they should come to attention when this foreigner in a pilot's uniform called out their names from the passenger manifest. I took about two dozen to their home towns. Two were girls, one of whom had her own infant on her back. It was a good day, worth all the sweat and heartache that go into training to become a pilot. I think I did good, a small feather placed at the right place on the balance between good and evil, a flower planted in the ash.
Guns and soldiers and militias are everywhere. Local ones and foreign ones - United Nations soldiers bristling with guns prepared to shoot people with guns to persuade people with guns that they should not shoot other people. Someday we'll learn a better way perhaps. I have run into UN soldiers from places as far flung as India and Bolivia. And I even chatted with a squad of Chinese UN soldiers who posed for pictures with me and the airplane at Bukavu airport. They are known for trying to buy ivory from the Africans. It's too late, the elephants in this area have been killed off already.
Preflighting my airplane one morning I heard a severe whack closely followed by a howl and then another whack and howl and on and on. I checked to see what was going on and it was a young soldier getting flogged by his sergeant in the adjacent hangar. He was about the same age I was when I believed the mythologies of my civilization and joined the ranks of death. After the flogging was completed he gave his officer a trembling salute and received a scolding and got sent out to run around the airport. I went back to my preflight inspection.
There is much work to do. We cannot complete it but neither can we avoid the task. There are many soldiers in this world who need to be brought home, young ones and old ones.
Love from the land of volcanos, gas-bubbling lakes, seven horned talking serpents, and fruit trees growing from the lava.
Bill Kelsey
June 30, 2005