Chickens in Goma's Past

Two days ago while at Mawe Hai I saw something that I thought was a perfect statement about Goma and the surrounding areas. I asked Wilfrieda where the workers were cutting the leguminous plants from that we were using to help make compost, and it was in the property next to Mawe Hai. We kept walking after seeing the leguminous plants (Leucena just growing all over in one spot) and I saw something I could hardly believe.

There were three buildings with metal roofs, concrete foundations and partial sides, and the rest was at one point chicken wire. These large buildings were used to house chickens before the first war in this area (in recent history) sometime after 1994. There were hundreds of chickens in each of these houses and during the war, the army came and took everything. Now there are pigs in one half of one building. I thought that was pretty cool and was happy Wilfrieda showed me that, but then we kept going.

Down a road a bit and through basically a jungle, we came upon more houses. There were probably 10 of them descending the hill along with the road on the left and on the right side of the road at the bottom. Some of the buildings at the bottom were housing chickens once again and in the distance I could see some more buildings that looked like quarters for workers to live (but I could be dead wrong). I didn't get many pictures because there were workers around and most people here don't like pictures very much, but I got some and put them in the Mawe Hai album.

To me this is a perfect illustration of what the Congo was and could be before the war. Now it's devastated and is reduced to 20 percent (or less) of what it used to be all because the army wasn't being paid at the time. I was really happy to have seen it, but it also made me think about the lost potential in this area and the incredible harm that has been done.