The pilot, the thief and the aidworker
(I)
I
fall asleep on the flight to Malemba-Nkulu, until the plane starts shaking and
jolts me awake. Malemba-Nkulu is in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of
Congo. I am flying in a nine-seater Cessna Grand Caravan. My history with this
model of plane is not a good one. Rather than taking turbulence with a grain
of salt, I try to get a general since of whether we are going to crash. It is
like I have a thousand tiny soldiers yelling “Remember Tunda!” Tunda is my
Alamo. First I look down at the swampy terrain and wonder where the pilot
would choose to land in an emergency. Stewardesses on major airlines are
always preparing us for water landing, so perhaps that is because water is a
good thing to land on, despite the obvious logic that landing on anything not
solid is a really bad idea. Below looks like grass until you catch the sun’s
reflection on the ground, revealing that it is actually patches of grass on
water, which seem like they would be pretty inconvenient for an emergency
landing. Next I check out the pilot, Olivier. It is not with confidence that I
can entrust my life to someone named Olivier I cannot envision anyone ever
saying, “Damn! The engine’s out! Get Olivier on the line! Olivier will save
us!” I would be much more confident with the head pilot. He is 6”2 and named
Dawson. Now that is a man who I picture saving a cat from a burning building
moments after safely landing a plane with no landing gear.
Either to check out the landing options, scare me, or just to have so fun,
Olivier does a low fly-by of the runway and then turned sharply back to land
on it. People back home would pay good money to fly over the African bush, and
low and behold, I get all this excitement for free. We touch down with a
couple of little hops. Air safety is not really a Congolese strong point.
Local aviation authorities in areas with a dirt runway are more concerned with
getting extra money from the pilots than, say, making sure that groups of
children are not approaching a plane’s whirling propeller. On one flight I had
taken in Maniema the pilot was concerned that we might kill the man who kept
jumping in the plane’s path in order to “direct” it. Because we might
accidentally head into the jungle instead of the dirt parking area. Between
the American pilot with fifteen years flying experience and some Congolese
dude yelling in Swahili and pointing frantically, my money is on the pilot.
I like sitting right behind the pilot in order to better observe their
activities, as though my oversight ensures that they will get us there alive.
Sometimes I chat with the pilot before take-off and explain that the small
planes make me a little jittery and ask whether they have a healthy fear of
dying.
Olivier hops out of plane like a cheery pilot and lets down the stairs. I
squeeze behind his seat in order to climb down the special pilot ladder. As I
pause on the dusty runway and check out my surroundings, I should pause and
have a caption under me that says “Sarah – Aid Worker.” Only climbing out of a
helicopter beats it for feeling like a badass. I hope my coolness is not lost
on the throng of children and random adults who stand three feet from me and
just stare as I unstick my pants from my thighs and sift through my purse for
my green sunglasses. In Congo, observing what people are doing is a national
pastime, second only to soccer and breaking and entering.
We unload our field gear: 12 motorcycles helmets, 7 thin foam mattresses, a
generator, and three bottles of liquor. I should have charged the liquor to
the program since I will be giving it to staff from other organizations along
the way. Liquor is the basis of humanitarian collaboration. If humanitarians
could organize assistance the way we manage to get alcohol to remote areas,
the world would be a better place. I actually posed to my supervisor that I
could sleep with one of the Medecin Sans Frontier guys if we thought that
would get us a truck. He looked like he was seriously considering it, or at
least seriously considering how he could respond to my offer without offending
me. In the end he just laughed uncomfortably. I told him of course I was
kidding. No way would I sleep with anyone for less than a helicopter flight.
When you land on a hot Congolese airstrip everyone – passengers, onlookers,
people waiting for packages from the city from which you came – gathers under
the tiny patch of shade under the wings to escape the heat. Then some token
air safety person or other adult takes a stick and whacks a few of the kids so
that they back off from the sacred shade. They scatter with a look of mock
terror, pause a few feet from the man with the stick, and then laugh at him. A
Congolese kid at three is already as cheeky and rebellious as your average
American teenager, minus smokes and booze.
A few days later I find myself on a cot where the mattress forms a U shape and
I stare at my mosquito net. Outisde my agents are fighting with the Abbe who
runs the Catholic lodging and church where we are staying. Some of the women
who work for him as cooks stole our plates and buckets when the agents refused
to pay a higher price than agreed on. I let them sort it out.
One of my days in the field. Similar to many:
5:45am – Wake up to Cathedral bells. Roll over. Wonder if they have a snooze
button.
6:00am – Church bells go off again. Apparently they do have snooze button.
6:30am – Remove seven-foot piece of wood leaning against door as make-shift
lock/alarm. Go outside to latrine.
6:45am- Brush teeth and wash face using a bucket of water outside. Children
sit ten feet away and stare.
7:00am – Team returns that went to refugee camp at 4am to figure out how many
people really live at camp. They recount that local chief was pretty pissed,
that the camp was only 1/3 inhabited, and that people from the local village
came running into the camp once word got out the check was happening.
7:30am – Eat breakfast: Small doughnut-like thing, cup of tea. Children sit at
the window and stare.
7:45am – Told that the cook for my field agents stole our buckets when they
refused to pay her more than they had agreed on. Ask them to figure out a
solution.
8:00am – Start to sort out coupons, beneficiary lists, motorcycle problems,
and radioing to figure out where truck is.
3:00pm – Meet with local chiefs regarding fraud for beneficiary registration.
Use such fun phrases as “we know that massive fraud occurred in the
registration process” and “we are helping you help your people, so no, are not
going to pay you.”
5:30 – Get back to town where we are staying.
6:00 – Start generator without assistance of male colleagues. Point, Sarah.
6:02 – Generator starts sputtering and smoking. Point, Afica.
10:45 – During sat phone call to supervisor, generator runs out of gas.
11:30 – Crawl under mosquito net for a good nights sleep.
To be continued…..
Africa
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