goma

here's a few photos to show you the area where i live. this whole basin is also where so many rebel groups are hiding out in the jungle. they are fighting over everything from mining control to current congo politics to leftover remnants from the rwandan hutu/tutsi genocide of 1994. the volcano in the background is about 9 miles from the center of goma ville, and last erupted in 2002. it is kind of ironic, how the natural beauty of this mountain valley is pregnant with violence just waiting to explode.

the first shot is looking north, and you can see a patch of black at the far end of the runway. this is lava from the last eruption, which covered the last 1/3 of the runway and a good portion of the town. it is up to 15 feet deep and is basically a wall, guaranteeing harsh consequences for overrunning the runway.

at the other end, or beginning of the runway, you can just see a wisp of white smoke. this is a smoldering congolese DC-9 that tried to take off overloaded and lost an engine before take-off speed. it went off the end and dropped 20 feet or so onto a house, plowing through town. these aircraft usually barely rotate at the end of the runway, struggling to fly; and now everyone in town stops what they are doing to watch them take off. these companies do little to no maintenance, pilot training, or runway analysis. it is just a matter of time until something like this happens. this crash killed only 1 passenger, but an estimated 100 in town. there was an american missionary family on board this flight that airserv ended up transporting to kinshasa later that week.


the second shot is looking southeast from a left downwind. the mountains are in rwanda. you can really see the lava flow here. at the end of the asphalt, in the center of the picture, you can see a concrete taxiway and then a dirt parking area that comes off the right side. this is where we park, at the end of that row of aircraft. they are mostly czech-built Let-410s, similar to our canadian DHC-6 twin otters. my house would be a few miles to the right, along the lake in the background.


here is a picture of a AN-32, a soviet-built cargo aircraft that overran the runway on landing and crashed into the lava pile last week. there are alot of crashes here, because of shitty aircraft that are not maintained being flown by pilots with little training and experience.


this last one is the main mode of transporting goods through town. it is a totally wooden bicycle, called a Tchukudu, usually pushed by little kids. you will see them pushing these with enormous baskets of produce hanging off both sides 3-4 feet. they bring in crops from the farms outside of town to sell. they earn less than $2 per day for pushing hundreds of pounds a few miles through the mud.



see, your job doesn't suck as bad as you think.