So I’m hanging out at the UN base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in the city of Goma. I’m taking pictures of an active volcano in the distance and this DRC Soldier marches up to me and asks very seriously to see my photos. I show him and he looks through and wants to make sure there are no pictures of him. He’s got an AK-47 over his shoulder. My new friend Schimer (an officer in the Indian Army) says we are just taking pictures of the volcano. So the guy says that “You’re the boss inside the fence. I’m the boss out here”.
I think: don’t take the camera, it’s got all my gorilla pics on it! He doesn’t. He walks away. And we continue to take pics of the sunset over the cooled lava field that buried Goma 6 years ago like a modern Pompeii. An hour later, after being offered tea and cakes about 5 times in 2 hours, we hear machine gun fire from about a mile away. At that point I decided NOT to climb the active volcano tomorrow and camp on it’s rim. :)
So you say… is this all BS Craig? I mean, really… the CONGO? It is not BS my friends. I went to Rwanda, and was sitting in the rain at a restaurant eating when these 3 Indian fellows asked where I was going. I said Gisinyi (the resort town where Dan Mirvish made his infamous phone call from a war zone in 1991 (I got pics of the place Dan!!!)). I told them this and they said, we’ll take you there. So I sat down, we chat and off we go. Only one vegetable tossed at us on the way (Rwandan’s don’t like the UN, go figure).
Welcome to Africa!
Craig Ouellette is a world traveling, independent filmmaker, and karaoke fiend. He has been to dozens of countries, made dozens of films, and sung more karaoke songs than he can count. He hopes the tales of adventure will entertain.
