I just finished a booked called All Things Must Fight to Live about the recent history of the DR Congo. It was most depressing book I’ve ever read – boy soldiers, war, terrible crimes, desperation and everything else evil and bad you can think of. So, naturally, I was pretty keen to visit.
My Belgian friend Karen, like me, enjoys a bit of chaos. I met her in Haiti as a volunteer the first time I was there in late 2008 and we were really expecting Goma to be a lot like Haiti with garbage fires blazing, cheap street food, curious but friendly locals and ‘bars’ consisting of a guy with a cooler selling beer on the side of the road.
We got the friendly locals but they were certainly used to seeing foreigners. The streets buzzed with NGO SUVs and I think every fourth car I saw was a UN vehicle of some sort from SUVs to tanks to giant trucks. The place is expensive and there are plenty of places that cater for the foreign crowd. Another shocker was the mansions down by the lake that looked like they were pulled straight out of a rich neighbourhood in Miami.
But lets back up a bit. Goma is at the north of Lake Kivu right on the border with Rwanda. The bus ride from Kigali is about three hours and, being so close, it would really would have been rude not to pop in for a look. The border crossing went well but as we had no idea where to stay or what to do in Goma, I got chatting with some Germans who were on their way out. They gave some advice on where to stay and when I asked the girl what they got up to in Goma her reaction was (with a bit of an agitated attitude): ‘You really want to know? Do you really want to know how we spent out day?’ Taken aback a bit by her somewhat abrasive response I said ‘Uh… well I’m not going to beg you but if you want to tell me… um, sure.’
As her story goes, two guys she was with snapped some photos in a market area in town and were immediately surrounded by about 10 men who demanded their passports, took their stuff off them (including their backpacks, money and their phones) and took them away to some police headquarters while the girls ran away. Eventually the girls tracked their friends down and they were put into a room with them for five hours while the police (or maybe military) demanded they pay US$1000 because they were in trouble for taking photos in a military-controlled area. Eventually they paid all they had, US$150, and were released.
This warning wasn’t exactly a warm welcome to the country but I was intrigued… getting arrested in the Congo is a hell of a story! My friend saw the crazy glint in my eye and demanded that I not get us arrested. I agreed, still secretly hoping to fall afoul of the law somehow. As it turns out, we had an amazing time with no dramas at all. We got a lift one night by a UN vehicle, discovered a takeaway place that sold amazing hummous, found a great local bar with grass huts (with a leg of a goat hanging over a BBQ in one of them) and a tennis court in the backyard (the local country club, perhaps?), and felt really comfortable and welcome.
We went for a huge walk all over the city on one of the days and came across a section of the lake where hundreds of people had gathered to wash their clothes. We got an amazingly friendly reception and it got us wondering whether NGO workers or UN soldiers really walk around the town at all or if they’re always cooped up in their SUVs going from place to place looking out the windows at the ‘dangerous’ locals.
There was a small hill near to the lake and I was keen to walk up to check out the view. The military guy on the hill also looked like a good lead for getting arrested. We wandered up and as we got closer he started walking towards us. We asked if it was ok to head up the hill for a look and he led the way. Eventually we were joined by another couple of guys and we started to think ‘hmm… is this the best idea?’ but they were just a couple of local guys who wanted to chat.
They were telling us about the boats below that head to the southern tip of Lake Kivu to a city called Bukavu. Karen and I looked at each other and were suddenly thinking about a spontaneous boat trip. We walked down for a closer look at the vessel and were given a tour by one of the crew members of the first class area which came equipped with a flat screen TV and plush leather couches. Suddenly our new plan was to boat it across the lake and come back up to Kigali through the south of Rwanda. Unfortunately for us (or I guess fortunately) my often absent common sense kicked in and I suggested we ask at the border whether our visa would allow us to leave through a different border. After the border guy laughed at us for awhile, we learned that our visa only allowed us to visit the Goma area. Oh well.
So instead we went out for a dance. After a meal we headed to a bar called Mambo something or other. We drank some wine, played some pool and hit the dance floor. We were chatting to people and everyone was telling us what a huge party town Goma is and that we’d have to come back to the bar on the weekend. When that place closed we headed onto another bar and that’s when the dancing really kicked it. The place was pretty empty but raucous enough to let loose. We invited our moto taxi driver in for a beer and by the time the night was over we had a gang of Rwanda and Congolese buddies all tearing up the dance floor while I danced badly alongside them. At one point I ended up in some bizarre dancing triangle with a Rwandan woman and the taxi driver where we were all holding hands and spinning each other around. I hurt my shoulder in Haiti and it kills when I move it in a certain way (I should probably get that looked at) and here I was having my arms nearly ripped off my a Rwandan woman who was spinning me all over the place. It was hilarious but I thought my arm was going to fall off.
Goma is a strange place. It’s got a lot of poverty and people living in shacks, but it also has some of the biggest houses I’ve ever seen, fancy hotels and expensive bars and restaurants. On our first night we went out for a meal and ended up in a mysterious place without a menu that charged US$30 for a plate of meat. Instead we went to a hotel across the road where most meals were $10. After a $4 wine we fled and found a takeaway place were we ate for about $6 each. We were expecting roadside BBQs and meat on a stick (brochettes) for $1, not pricey restaurants and bars.
The next morning we were both feeling extremely seedy and we left with some good memories of a bizarre city. Who would have known that Goma would be a party town? Not what I was expecting but it was a great couple of days!
Does anyone have stories of cities that were completely not what you expected in either a good, bad or totally bizarre way?
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