mother earth's molten guts Africa spring 2002 #3

Goma, Congo 17 March, 2002Hello all you super dear people,So where were we? Yes, the volcanic eruption at Goma, Congo. Well, what was special about this one was that it was not really an eruption but a big drool. And as devastating as it was to Goma, it wasn't that big. In fact, looking at all the majestic volcanic mountains that I have to dodge while flying, (often while also working my way through the huge clouds that build up around them), it is difficult to imagine the eruptions that created them.
Take out your maps and look at the "Lake Region" of central Africa on the eastern border of Congo. A line of lakes lies in a long north-south valley bounded on either side by splended mountains. Goma, where we are based, is on Lake Kivu, right at the Rwandan border. Southwest, across the Lake, is Bukavu, where I land on nearly all flights. A common flight continues southward beyond that over Lake Tanganyika to places like Kalemie and Moba on the shore. We like to stay over the lake as that keeps us away from the mountains and ornery Mai Mai militias that occasionally shoot at airplanes. All these lakes and this valley have been formed by the earth cracking apart over the millenia.I began reading a book entitled Che in Africa, by William Galvez - which is a compilation of notes from Che Guevera's Congo diary and those of his friends, as well as commentary by the author. To my surprise Che wrote about the same area and described Lake Tanganyika and the mountain ranges on either side of it. Apparently he infiltrated himself and about 120 Afro Cuban soldiers, mostly teenagers, from Kigoma on the Tanzanian side of the lake across to the Congolese side in the mid sixties. Che's mission was to help organize fighters loyal to the memory of the late Lumumba who were fighting against the Western backed Tshombe regime. He carried out his frustrated efforts in the same area over which I fly, making a messy situation a little messier. In fact it is still so, after several permutations of the conflict. Thirty seven years later I fly the staff of Medicins san Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), International Rescue Committee, Save the Children and other relief agencies, and supplies, to various locationsin the same area. We are still trying to pick up the pieces from the time when the Western World and the Soviet camp played their games with African lives.
Che seemed to think he could fight America and solve Africa's problems by training Congolese to blow up their own bridges and organising one army to fight another, but failed miserably. In addition the difficult situations that most foreigners deal with when trying to make Africans do things our way, he tried to do things like teach military tactics to soldiers who could only understand strategy in terms of sorcery. He tried to advise officers who went into battle drunk. As his situation deteriorated the African governments came to an agreement that no state would allow itself to be used as a base for insurrections in a neighboring state. The Tanzanian government informed Cuba that it could no longer support the operation. Che pulled out with his men, leaving five buried in Congolese soil and one missing. The field was conceded to the post-Tshombe Mobutu regime which was supported by so many Western powers for so many years, to our eternal disgrace.
Most sad about Che's diary was that there wasn't one word to suggest that he ever sat back and breathed in awe about the amazing beauty of the mountains and the water. Perhaps he was so focused on creating his new world through the destructive process - the extinguishing of life - that he did not notice the wonder of creation all around him which was there long before and endures long after him.
Anyway, back to the volcano. What happened was a cracking open of theground in which Rwanda moved an inch to the east and Goma sunk about two feet, among other adjustments. The cracks themselves are about twenty feet deep and two to eight feet wide - but don't ask me why Rwanda only moved an inch. We know Goma sunk because the water level on the south side of the lake is the same but higher on the north side. Steam, gases and hot air escape from the fissures. One could bake something in one of them. So, imagine that near the foot of the volcanic mountain - not the top - about six miles out of Goma, a three mile long fissure suddenly pops open which goes downhill pointing towards the town. This is what I saw. The fissure went under some poor shnook's house, which collapsed into it. As it continued a few feet beyond his house hot lava began pouring out of it up into his back yard - truly an ooze from hell. The fissure continued on through a banana grove, with the earth pouring out her molten guts in a stream that moved at the speed of a brisk walk. Most people had time to get out of the way This, along with one other stream, made its way down to Goma, crossing the airport, and flooding about a fifth of the area of the town, but about three quarters of the business district which was made up of two storey buildings. It went right down the main street and two streets on either side, filling up the ground floors tothe ceilings and baking the second floors above. On it went through the luxury beachfront mansion district and into the lake. Cars and trucks floated to the top as they burned and so they were not completely buried. The unburied portions of buildings are baked and burned and cracked and collapsing. Roads ten feet or so above the original ones have been smoothed out with bulldozers, and we drive across the lava bed when going to the airport.
The smell in the air is that of a match which has just been lit. Two months after the eruption we still feel the warmth as we drive over. Smoke and various noxious gases curl up through the volcanic gravel and rubble. After rains steam rises from this black stone river, adding a special effect to the view of skeletal buildings. It seems to have cooled down some these last few days, though there are rumors the political situation is heating up.
This leads me to explore a theory I am working on. Work with me please.Consider that we are in a better mood when the weather is pleasant and that many people are quite depressed when cloudiness continues. The environment affects our mood and our behaviour. Is it not possible that on some level people are affected by the instability of the earth in certain places? Where there are incipient volcanoes and earthquakes could there not be an affect on the stability of the psyche? There are many reasons for war and conflict, but I wonder if whatever is going on under the crust in an unstable area is a factor in human behaviour above. Every time I fly along the mountain range on the western side of Lake Tanganyika where Che stirred up a little more trouble than there already was, and left it still stirring for me to fly relief workers into so many years later, I think of how this same formation works its way northeastward across Africa and into Israel/Palestine where it shoulders Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. As I hopped across the fissures outside of Goma I could not help but think how they were part of the earth unbuttoning itself through the Great Rift all the way up to the region where I spent my childhood - the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, Wadi Araba, the Dead Sea, the Jordan River Valley, the Sea of Galilee, and the Bakaa Valley.
There was a soldier who befriended me as I examined the lava source. He wore new boots and a new uniform, and proudly carried a Kalashnikov automatic rifle. He was eleven years old. Trained to kill so many years before learning to make love - would he live to experience the privilege of procreation and creation or would he be sacrificed to the fires of Molech before then?Meanwhile the roots of burned banana trees are sprouting shoots through the lava. Some of the lava has hardened into solid rocks which will be used for construction as was the case with the volcanic rocks from previous eruptions. Some is gravel which adds to the gravel that was already here. Some is brittle and breaks up into sand, blowing into the fields already fertile from previous volcanic matter. The Africans hoe and cultivate fields right up to where the Twin Otter is parked. Every time I go out to inspect it before a flight I am astonished by how much the plants have grown in a day.
May your gardens be fertile.