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A rough start in Goma

By explorer

June 23, 2008 2:13 PM

Naomi Schwarz

National Geographic Television

I crowd into the tiny bit of shade on a curb next to Goma’s airport building, already mostly filled with a tripod bag, a camera case, my bag, the producer’s backpack, some empty water bottles, and Brent, the print photographer for the NG magazine story, and Mick, the producer. Just as I sit down, I look over to where Erin, the cameraman, is setting up the camera and tripod. A man in a uniform is zeroing in. I jump up to join Erin to try to stave off the confrontation before it starts. It’s 12:30 pm, and we’re awaiting the arrival of Paulin Ngobobo, the key witness in the prosecution’s case against those accused of illegal charcoal trading and the massacre of six members of a gorilla family known as the Rugendo Group. He’s been reassigned to Kinshasa, Congo’s capital city, all the way across the country, but he’s flying back today to testify in a closed hearing. We’ve been here for about an hour already, but the plane is going to be an hour late. Or it might have been cancelled. Or else it wasn’t supposed to arrive until two. Ish. What I’m saying is, Paulin, the arriving witness, has texted a contact here to say he’s on a plane and it’s heading towards Goma. He’ll get here. In the meantime, we’re trying to hold our ground at the airport. Our fixer, Ferdinand, the local contact who managed to arrange permission for us to film here at the airport, is busy a few feet away. He and the airport hostess assigned to keep us company are arguing with a couple other guys who claim to be airport staff. Ferdinand is waving around the documents and letters he painstakingly gathered over the last day and a half giving us the right to enter onto the tarmac to film Paulin’s arrival. Erin’s new adversary arrives, and demands to know what we’re doing.

Continue reading A rough start in Goma.

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Heading to the Congo…

By explorer

June 19, 2008 3:00 PM

Naomi Schwarz

National Geographic Television

I’m not quite sure how to handle Rwanda. We’re not staying. We’ve flown into Kigali, the capital, but we’re on our way to Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Goma is one of the biggest cities in eastern Congo, and it’s just over the border from Rwanda. We’re going there to film a documentary about wildlife conservation in Virunga National Park, the first national park in Africa, and one of the world’s most diverse and fragile ecosystems.

It’s the home of more than half of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas, several of whom were massacred last year in what seemed to be a cold-blooded execution. People are telling us these killings are closely linked with the illegal trade in charcoal being conducted within the park. On the face of it this has nothing to do with Rwanda. And yet I can’t treat this stopover like any other. Not hard to figure out why. The Rwandan genocide is old news at this point, sadly superceded by the crisis in Darfur and the war in Iraq and everything else that has happened in the last 14 years. But this is the first time I’ve been here. These are the first impressions, the first images and faces and people I’ve ever seen up close to give context to the genocide that killed nearly one million Rwandans in the space of about three months.

Continue reading Heading to the Congo….

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A rough start in Goma

Heading to the Congo…

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