I made it!

The team and I arrived in Goma around 1 or 2 pm on the 17^th. Coming from Entebee to Goma I was able to fly shotgun on the single engine plane we were in. The bins of medical supplies took off just before us and we followed for part of the hour and a half flight and then took over the lead as our plane was faster than the cargo one. We flew through clouds and over clouds, and my favorite, under the clouds. At times we were really low to avoid the clouds and you could see everything on the ground. One time as we flew between two volcanoes and the land raised up between the two I saw people and cars. It was pretty sweet.

As we approached Goma, there were visible patches of lava from the volcano eruption in 2002. These were huge paths of black/gray rock that nothing grew on. Some of the rest of the countryside was covered in vegetation, and the rest just nothing. There is a lot of bare dirt/rocks here.

We visited the hospital yesterday afternoon and this morning went to Mawe Hai (living stones) which is an agriculture project of HEAL Africa. It is a demonstration farm where they grow things on top of the lava rock using soil that they bring from elsewhere and maybe compost. It sounded like they brought most of the soil in. It is amazing how well the vegetables grew in that soil! The eggplants and peppers looked great and they had strawberries too. Another aspect of the project was growing tree seedlings because most of the surroundings have been deforested by the volcano, war, and greed. This would be one place I could work, but I’m keeping my options open. They do want to expand a lot, and especially into small animals, and there would be great opportunities to get to know some of the workers there as I pick up French or Swahili.