volcanos and bones - Africa spring 2002 #2

Hello again, you wonderful people. What follows are some random observations and musings on my recent weeks in Uganda, Rwanda, and eastern Congo. As of my last writing I was dangling between the Afghan war and the Goma volcano. Airserv finally decided to wait no longer for the FAA to lift its ban against American pilots flying relief into Afghanistan. I was replaced by a Canadian pilot and told to prepare to fly relief missions in eastern Congo, with the complicating factor being that Goma, our base town there, was in the process of being wiped out by a lava flow. (Eventually, the FAA lifted its ban, but too late for me to get sent to Pakistan).Soon before I left Entebbe, Uganda, I took a stroll and observed a signpointing to a European cemetery. Curious about what might be seen there Icrossed the road while momentarily forgetting that in Uganda the cars driveon the opposite side of the street. I checked for traffic looking in thewrong direction. A speeding car almost tossed me into an early, albeitconvenient grave. Having survived that close encounter I checked out thisfinal resting place for wazungu (plural of mzungu - white person) who hadthrown their lots and lives into African soil. Most of the graves wereweatherbeaten and dishevelled with quite a few of the headstones fallen.The exceptions were those of four English servicemen from World War I, whichwere the oldest. About eighty five years ago the Presidents, PrimeMinisters, Kings and other wretched specimens of our civilization decided itwould be a great idea to send the young men of their countries out to shooteach other and snuff each other out. This sacrifice to Molech went onfor several years before they just about ran out of sons to waste. Notcontent to carry on like this in Europe alone, the powers of the day took abreak from stealing Africa from its inhabitants and had their soldiers shootat each other here too. And so four English teenagers lie in the earth ofEntebbe. Their graves are well maintained. Apparently there is a BritishWar Graves Commission with a budget for this. Sporting chaps. The othermore recent graves which were not maintained appeared to be those of variouscolonial settlers and administrators. One had a luscious plumeria treegrowing from it which was in full and fragrant bloom. I picked a few of theflowers and put them in my hat and went on my way enjoying the splendidscent of life. Little did I realize that this contemplation of mortality wasbut a small hint of what I would soon encounter.I departed Entebbe, flying across the Equator a mile or so to the south ofthe airport, for Kigali, Rwanda, where the Goma team had regrouped whileawaiting the outcome of the volcano. Contrary to what I reported in thelast dispatch, the Airserv office and residential compound was not wiped outby the lava nor was anything looted. For a three week period we conductedour flights in Congo out of Kigali, which is a twenty minute flight over arange and a few volcanic mountains from Goma. On my second day in Kigalisome fellow pilots said they had rented a taxi for a country outing to see ashrine to victims of the genocide. Folks who follow the news may recall anasty piece of business in Rwanda in '94 when a Hutu militia dealt with agrowing Tutsi led insurgency by massacring several hundred thousand Tutsiand moderate Hutu citizens. (There is a book about it called "We Wish toInform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed Together with our Families." Idon't have the author's name). We went on a two hour drive on a dirt roadthrough some pretty and hilly scenery to a Catholic church at a place calledNtarama where a major incident had taken place. I was expecting the normalmemorial to victims of an atrocity but that was not to be. Except for asign outside the Church identifying the site, there were no plaques orwritings of explaination. It appeared that one project had started and thenhalted. Outside the church in an outbuilding on a large waist-high platformwere human skulls neatly placed in orderly lines. I was too taken aback tocount but I would guess that the arrangement was about fifteen skulls deepand fifty wide. I was more observant of the skulls with women's headscarvesstill on them, the little skulls, and the machete cuts in many of theskulls. Another platform had hundreds of limb bones neatly cleaned andarranged.Entering the church was another story. There were two sacks of hip bones, ahuge pile of old clothing, and strewn about was miscellaneous debris -notebooks, papers, cooking pots, and odd little things that terrified peoplegrab before running to a church for sanctuary. I started heading to thefront and felt crunching under my feet. To my astonishment I was walkingon bones. Apparently whoever was organizing this "shrine" had picked up theskulls and limb bones for the display and left the rest on the floor alongwith the clothing and other detritus. We walked on the benches as thesebones were everywhere. Surrounding the altar was the ghastly sight of twodozen or so nearly complete skeletons with their clothes on, lying twistedand piled on each other right where they fell about eight years ago. Therewas no commentary except what remains of us when we are massacred in achurch and left unburied. And there was a little dog skull staring out ofit all.I was indeed a long way from Austin, Texas, where I was recruited to fly aKing Air 200 from Ivory Coast to Pakistan for eventual relief work inAfghanistan, then was redirected during the Entebbe stopover to fly a TwinOtter in Congo, and then before that could happen had a volcano divert me toRwanda where I found myself communing with skeletons in a church. Life canbe so full of surprises.Perhaps the wonder and joy of life is all the more intense when we findourselves having a glimpse at death.Anyway, the Tutsi-led insurgency was victorious, in spite of the loss of somany of their people. The militia that led the nastiness faded into theCongolese forests, from where they commit occasional mischief. In theRwanda of today, it is considered impolite to even discuss the existence ofthe two main ethnic groups. Both speak the same language and so thepretense of them all being Rwandan now is easier to maintain than if theyhad different languages. Even the taxi driver who explained details of thegenocide would not discuss what made some people Hutu and others Tutsi orwhat they looked like. An ID card on the floor of the church had the namesof those two ethnic groups and two other smaller ones printed on the cardwith one circled. Today's Rwandan ID cards will not have ethnic identitynoted.At the airport the security guards were the most professional and efficientI have seen in Africa. They carried no weapons but I had a sense that ifthey were needed they could summon them quickly with their hand held radios.They did not make up reasons to pester us unreasonably nor did they whinefor cigarettes or tips. And they made Wazungu pilots in uniform walkthrough the electronic security systems along with everyone else!! Theyalso didn't smile unnecessarily and I had to work harder to elicit one thanelsewhere in Africa. How unfortunate that efficient people don't smile aseasily.The main impediment to our returning to Goma, besides concern about furthervolcanic eruptions, was the fact that the main lava flow had gone across therunway, the taxiways, and the apron. It also paralleled the runway as itwent down through the main business district. With many desperate homelesspeople there was also a concern about security for the aircraft if parkedovernight. However we began landing there as there was still plenty ofrunway even with the lava. My first landing was right after arainstorm. As the lava was still quite warm this generated some awesomeplumes of steam through which I had to maneuver the airplane while in thetraffic pattern. A new parking area had been cleared by hand and we wereable to park off the runway for passenger pick ups and drop offs. For abouttwo weeks we would return to Kigali after the day's work for overnightparking but eventually we determined that the security level would allow usto park overnight in Goma. It should be noted that the project for Airservin eastern Congo has been the transport of war relief personnel andmateriel. We have had little to do with the volcano relief efforts for Gomaitself as this involved trucks and larger Antonov aircraft.I should get this off to you good people and continue writing a few moreobservations about the process of destruction and healing in Africa, andbanana tree shoots poking their way through cracks in the lava. I'll havemore about the volcano and life in a town wiped out by one, details onflying the Otter, the Swahili language, and how I keep the dollar strong inCongo. No more about cemeteries and skulls. At this moment I'm in Entebbeon a maintenance flight and am able to use my computer to send this out. Ifthe work on the airplane delays further I might get another letter out in aday.May I recommend that people read Adam Hirschberg's "King Leopold's Ghost"and Michele Wrong's "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurz." They will be helpful inshedding light on the context in which I fly around eastern Congo. And ofcourse there's Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" which is a must.Love from the land of volcanos and bananas.