Birthday weekend in Goma

This last Sunday was my b-day and I was able to spend it in Goma, DRC! Robyn has two friends (Erika and Rachel) visiting from the states. They had plans of visiting Rwanda while they were here, and I was invited to tag along. The plans of visiting Rwanda transformed into plans of visiting DRC, and before we knew it we were in Goma.
Robyn has a friend from college who lives in the area and he met us there and showed us all over the city.
Because there were four of us I didn't take many pictures, but hopefully I will get some from the other cameras and post them soon.



This is Mt Nyiragongo which erupted in 2002 and covered 1/3 of the city of Goma with lava. It's still active and at night you can see a red glow on the surrounding clouds. These pictures are from an area just outside of the city where we went to see where the lava flowed.

This trip was amazing and it was a great way to spend my birthday.

Pics

Some pictures from last week:

These are the guys that have been teaching me the traditional instruments. The instrument on the left is the umuduri, the center instrument is the inanga(I labeled it wrong in an earlier post) and the one on the right is the ikembe.



The inanga was traditionally played at night. The player would also sing along, but he whisper sings. It sounds amazing, and Im sad that the internet is a little too slow to upload the video of it. The songs are in an old style of kirundi, and they have a meaning that is difficult to figure out, even for native kirundi speakers.


These are the Burundian drummers.

One of the local universities was dedicating their new building and the president of Burundi came to dedicate it. We weren't allowed to take pictures of him, but I think that the drummers are more exciting anyway.