The end of my contract is now very near, and I decided to take one last long trip ‘out there’ in Congo. On the map, Kasugho is no more than some 350 kms from Goma, but this involves traveling by plane for an hour to Butembo, and then by road for some 4-10 hours – if there are no trucks stuck in the mud and if the rain holds as well as it can.
Leaving aside the exhaustion, and the fact that even if all your papers are in order there will ALWAYS be someone to come up with a ‘new rule’ that changed overnight and threaten to arrest you or something, there’s a certain beauty to this trip. First, the luggage weighing is out of this world. You stand in this dark corner and pass your stuff one by one over a rope to some guys, who fight for the right to smash your laptop bag. They hang your suitcases on this scale, and then they shout across the room to someone in another dark corner: “8, 12, 14, etc, etc.” Another guy is then supposed to cross this room and get the bag labels reflecting those kilos. By the time he is back, of course no-one remembers which bag was 8, which was 12, etc., especially as there are tons of people whose luggage is weighed at the same time. They start quarreling, and too bad for you if you end up with someone else’s luggage labeled (miraculously my stuff has always arrived in some shape).
Then it’s time to cross the main lobby, and turn down offers from guys who want to sell you cheese and boiled eggs. You then disappear behind this new wooden panel to go through border control. Usually, they are fascinated when they see a Romanian passport, and they go on and on about Mobutu and Ceausescu. This last time, a lady behind the counter was very confused and required some information: “Les gens de la nationalite de la Roumanie, il s’appellent comment?” When I told her I was ‘roumaine’ she had trouble entering that into her register, so we had to spell it slowly a couple of times, until the whole room was staring to this weird nationality of a girl. We then cleared my ‘ordre de mission”, an A4 paper which states exactly when and where I am traveling, and which requires a LOT of stamps back and forth upon taking off and landing. Luckily, the guy at the guichet for the yellow fever certificate was not there this time (that’s how ‘strongly’ they enforce they protection against yellow fever), so I escaped another round of discussions (i.e. ‘this stamp is not valid’, ‘what does it say here’, etc, etc.)
Finally, I arrive to the waiting room. While I wait inside, with the doors somewhat closed, for my small Butembo-bound plane to show up, a huge plane is just boarding for Kinshasa in front of us, and when it starts rolling for take-off I feel like all the dust in the world is magnetized towards me and that I’m swept away with it on the runway. I try to ignore it, but somehow the whole building seems to be shaking and the glass windows are not offering that much protection. I wonder, again, why this plane cannot be parked a bit further away, just like our little tiny one is (we have to practically run outside to get to our Tupolev). I was especially interested in getting a seat ‘up front’, to escape being on the window under the wings, so that I can take some decent pictures.
As luck has it, I got a magnificent seat: some 20 cms. away from the pilot’s cabin, which, for some reason, was left with the doors open. It was quite THE fascinating flight, me sticking my head between the pilots’ seats and watching closely all they were doing throughout the flight (AND recording it all, without bothering to ask for permission). It really is fascinating, flying these small planes across the jungle, but so low down that you can see everything out there. My favorite command (not sure what it does, though), was “Bleed air”, which they were turning on and off quite a bit. I also almost developed a crush on the co-pilot, who was young and seemed quite good looking from the profile. And who, thank God, landed us safely some 50 minutes later, on this dirt strip amid potato fields in Butembo.
I had not been there in some four months, and things had progressed considerably: they had sealed off the ‘landing area’ with a rope between two poles, and the waiting crowd was committed to the parking lot, some 15 meters away. Which meant, of course, that I had to carry all my luggage by myself to the driver, George. To my immense joy, the airport chief remembered me very well. “Demian, vous etes ici!” Indeed I was. “Et vous allez a Kasugho”. He was right again. I just needed his stamps and his blessings, and off I went.
The next thing you need to understand about the drive from Butembo to Kasugho (actually Katoyu, a suburb of the grand village of Kasugho) is that because it is such a difficult and expensive ride ($120 for fuel), they always need to make sure the SUV is always filled to capacity, with both people and merchandise. Somehow though, none of this is ever ready by the time I land there, so once I’m out of the airport it’s time to go around Butembo and collect them people and things. Too bad if you happen to arrive on a Friday – which is reserved for ‘public works’, so pretty much all shops are closed until noon. To get the items on the list (paint, salted fish, water, gas, all sorts of onstruction materials, plus documents from different offices) we need to go in circles around town several times, which is even more difficult nowadays as half of the city is closed down for road repairs. Eventually, some three hours later, we are uber-loaded with stuff and we start collecting the people. Soon, the back seat will contain 3-5 mostly sweaty-smelly Congolese of different affiliations, family or work relationships, so we are finally ready to embark on the jump-up-and-down road journey.
Surprisingly, this time it all went quite smoothly, with no incidents in the first three hours. As we were almost ready for a record finish, we did have to put our expectations on hold, arriving in a curve where the road was literally cut across in two. They had dug up this four-meter deep ditch, to put pipes across from the mountain on the right to the river on the left, so that rain water should easily pass under, not over thee road. Important improvement, no doubt, for future travelers. As for us – well, just get out of the car, walk around, give bonbons to a hoard of kids gathered around, and quietly wait for about 2 hrs ½ to finally get the road back.
Five days later, at five a.m., the trip back starts – again, with quite a loaded car. My colleague Sandy and I were supposed to catch a flight early afternoon, so we started off quite early, to avoid any possible mishaps on the road. It all went amazingly well this time, with our driver George getting us out of some pretty nasty muddy situations. We were then left in Hotel Butembo eating and drinking for some three hours, not knowing that our biggest challenge would come at the airport. The chief apparently found that Sandy’s visa was expired – which, actually, it was not. Issued on Oct. 12 and valid for 6 months, it would have expired only on April 11, but since the officials also included October in the counting – there it was, over and done with. Luckily, with my amazing math skills, I saw the problem, and in a very enthusiastic French I was trying to make him see it too, as Sandy was confined to a corner, not believing what was happening to her. So, we gathered every airport officials in a room, got two calendars available, a piece of paper and a pen, and started:
Oct 12-Nov. 12: 1
Nov. 12-Dec.12: 1
Dec. 12-Jan.12: 1
Etc, etc. Of course, by the time we would get to March, they would all get confused, and we had to begin all over again. The chief would pause now and then, saying wisely “Je suis en train d’analyzer la situation…” After some 20 minutes he did admit he was wrong – for which conclusion he definitely deserved a chocolate bonbon, that was still left somewhere in my bag. In turn, he gave me a long-overdue gift as well: the DRC independence anniversary pin, which I had asked him to get for me since last June.
Ufff, we could finally board the plane. I was exhausted from my advanced numbering session, and all I wanted was to get going. The same cute pilot was on duty – but somehow didn’t seem as cute anymore. I put it this was to Sandy: “This pilot looked better proportioned a few days ago,” to which she said “You mean you found him attractive.” I guess yes, that’s what I meant. Weird to have turned politically correct in Congo of all places?!
The flight was marvelous, as for the first time I sat down on the ‘Ugandan side” of the plane, flying over the majestic Lake Edward that separates the two countries. I was lucky enough to get amazing pictures, of this mind-blowing landscape, as well the lava path near Goma. What an incredible country, by all accounts!
Indeed, surprises would not end there. At the Goma airport they somehow felt like picking on MY passport, saying that I cannot travel for work with a tourist visa (which we just recently purchased for $475!), and that I had to get a new one in Kinshasa of all places. I started ‘arguing’, and asking how come it was possible for me to travel for the past 9 months on ‘tourist visas’, and the guy kept rambling on and on about a ‘new law’ and the ‘good of his heart’ – that he as going to let me pass ‘only this time’. BS, of course, as it turned out soon enough, when our man, Jackson, came to pick us up. He knew the guy all to well, and he clearly explained how he was just looking for a small bribe from ‘la roumaine’.
Oh well. At least we had arrived back safe and sound. As for the ‘Goma mission’ – a completely different saga…
One of our American neighbors, Jock, a retired professional biker who participated five times in Tour de France and who now coaches the Rwandan team, has finally picked up on my suggestion and took me for a ride. A splendid motorbike on a splendid road (newly paved, going to Gitarama), through tea plantations and rolling hills. It had been my dream FOREVER to be on such a bike, but I never quite imagined I would have the ultimate thrills like I did today. I smirked for the whole two hours, not quite believing the amazing freedom (and yes, the taste of danger) that I was experiencing in such a forceful way. I have never felt more liberated in this country, where everything is so tightly controlled or so overcrowded.