Beauty in Congo

The Beauty and Sights of Congo

Congo is a very beautiful country. Most of the stories I have told you about in my blog have had to do with the people and the situation in the country. Tonight I want to show you some of the beauty found in the country - aside from its beautiful and wonderful people...

The photo on the right (above) is an early evening shot just outside UCBC - the Bilingual Christian University of Congo located in Beni where we hold our conferences. It shows the density of the greenery in the countryside, the clouds and the first orange rays as the sun sets in the early evening. The sky at times can be full of bright oranges, reds and various shades thereof as the sun sets and as the rays penetrate through the clouds. See the photo to the left - it is an evening shot taken from the house we stayed in in Beni. Rolling folds of clouds with wonderful colorful orange and red rays shining through. I love sunsets.

Goma

We visited Goma for the first time on this trip. Finally after a few years of wanting to go to Goma we were able to due to the situation being somewhat more stable. Goma is right on the edge of Lake Kivu and beside some volcanos. We flew over the active volcano that had a major eruption in 2002 along with some minor ones since. We literally flew over the top and got to peer down the center. The photo on the right shows the top of the volcano as we reach it - you can see part of the plane's wing - and the photo beneath it on the right is looking straight down in the center of the volcano. We could actually see flames beneath the smoke and we could smell the sulphur from the volcano. Interestingly, you can see vegetation growing between the very center of the volcano and the edge of the rim of the top of the volcano. We were in a little 10 seater plane and so very close to the top of the volcano. I had visions of the volcano erupting and the plane being tossed around like a tiny fly in whirlwind or vortex - with us in it! It was quite a thought to have while flying over the volcano - but it was an amazing sight to behold.

I also saw some really beautiful flowers in Goma. We stayed at this wonderful place by Lake Kivu which had beautiful gardens and loads of different flowers. It was wonderful to come home every day and sit by the peaceful lake, absorb the great scenery and enjoy all the beautiful plants and flowers. It was actually hard to wrap our minds around the fact that here we were staying in what felt like paradise in the middle of a hell hole. Not to say that Goma is a hell hole but it is just a place in the middle of the troubles of Eastern Congo and full of desperate and devasted people, and lots of suffereing and pain which you can see and feel as you travel around the city. It was somewhat surreal coming home every night. Anyway, here are some of the photos I took of the flowers.

And to close, here are a couple of shots of Lake Kivu taken from the shore of the guest house we were staying at.