Goma-thology

September – I spent a couple of weeks in Goma, capital of Eastern DRC on the border with Rwanda and city that was ravaged by the eruption of Nyiragongo volcano in January 2002, driving thousands of people from their homes. The lava cut the city in two and flowed into Lake Kivu. Today, the armed forces of both MONUC and FARDC patrol the city. UN and international humanitarian organizations vehicles are everywhere, getting their way through the anarchic traffic and slaloming between the taxi-motos and the indolent pedestrians. Goma is covered with the black dust from the volcano. Its extremely poor population breaths the dirt of temporary settlements that became another lasting shanty-town. Government, institutions et al. are as corrupted as a failed state can be. Decades of Mobutu and Kabila(s) were marked by clientelism, despotism, military dictatorship, massacres, rapes which traumatised Congolese for generations. Providing assistance to health centres and community groups, in order to reduce child and maternal mortality and morbidity, is just a tiny contribution in comparison to the immensity of needs and desperation here. That’s my job. I’ll try my best.

Going out there...

"I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there," he said. "And when they come back, too?" I asked. "Oh, I never see them," he remarked,"and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know." He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. "So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting, too." He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. "Ever any madness in your
family?" he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. "Is that question in the interests of science, too?" "It would be," he said, without taking notice of my irritation, "interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot, but …"

From the Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad