Things that I remember, the images, the smells that never went away – Rwanada, twenty years later Setting up shop: Uli Michele and I made our way with all our gear to a run-down hotel in the small city of Goma, Zaire via taxi. The trip from the airport to the hotel was less than 1Km away yet took us about an hour to get there because of all the people walking in the middle of the road. There was this steady stream of people walking towards us, like fish swimming up river, they zig-zaged around our taxi, looking at us with as much curiosity as we were staring back at them. The Rwandan boarder was less than 2Km away and I was amazed to see the masses of people crossing the boarder from Rwanda into Zaire, a slow and constant flow of women, children and a few old men, each carrying their belongings atop their heads. We made our way to a hotel the cabby suggested and I was surprised how well he spoke English and of course French. Uli spoke French so it was all good. The hotel was dreadfully run down and it was going to be home for a while. We secured a few rooms at the front desk and moved in. We unpacked and connected the computers, monitors, hard drives and scanners. We managed to set up the satellite just outside our main bedroom on a patio, so we could move in & out. I converted the bathroom into our darkroom with all the film spools, tanks lined up in order of use. I wanted to mix up some chemicals, yet there was no running water in the hotel. We discovered later that the water was turned on in the middle of the night for an hour or less, and that’s when we’d collect enough water to bath, wash and use for the chemicals. Once everything was powered up, we made a test transmission. The Reuters Bureau was operational. Time now to go out and work. Excited and enthusiastic I ventured out with cameras dangling on either shoulder and without any idea of what was out there. Nothing in my life’s experiences had ever prepared me for what I was about to witness.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 15:48:30 +0000
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