(RM) Kinshasa

13-16 March

The first welcome to the Congo came around an hour before Air France flight 898 landed, as the sun was setting and the captain came on the intercom to announce that it is illegal to photograph the country from the air. Ok, well it’s really too dark out anyway, and of course I’m in a middle seat.

I was the last passenger off of the plane. I had so much carry-on luggage, and my duty-free Bailey’s had been broken somehow as someone else grabbed their carry-on luggage from the overhead bin, so sticky sweet-smelling milky stuff was all over the place.

The heat was pretty prominent at the airplane door, as was the smell of the air. Clearly, this is a place where people burn wood a lot. The air was thick with the humidity and the smell of charcoal. Down the steps, onto the shuttle bus, and over to the terminal.

Kinshasa is not a popular destination. I gather that there is never more than one plane getting to the airport at a time, and I think our arrival around 7pm was the last of the day. Immigration was fun. Again, I was last in line, and it took a while. Lots of passengers, a few uniformed people trying to corral the various people into certain lines, and a few booths with officials and stamps in them. “Is this your first time in Congo? Oh, because for first-time visitors we stamp the entry stamp right over the visa, so it becomes illegible. But if you help me out with some money to take care of my kids, you can have the stamp on the opposite page.” “Yeah, whatever, put the stamp wherever you want to.” It eventually went on the opposite page.

There is a luggage carousel at this airport. Actually, there are a couple of them, although I wonder if the others work. The luggage is unloaded from the plane into a truck, the truck pulls up at the end of the carousel, and we all crowd around hoping to find our luggage. Again, mine seemed to be last. My new boss had gotten his two items first, and was not impressed with the amount of luggage I contributed to the pile.

Then was the trek from the carousel to the jeep. Really, the airport consists of just one big room with the baggage carousel and a door leading to the parking area. Three-wheeled luggage trolleys look familiar, and we loaded ours high with luggage. Little did I realize that the front wheel doesn’t actually turn. It needs to be pulled, not pushed. And what about the stairs from the door? At least the first few lanes in front of the airport had no traffic in them, just random kids asking for money or eyeing our luggage suspiciously. Two dudes were somehow recruited to navigate the trolley to the jeep, with one crouching in front of it to pull it from below, and the other pushing. They knocked it over at least twice. Thank goodness we made it to the jeep with everything! (It was little over an hour from plane to jeep, although, unobstructed, the walk would have taken about three minutes.)

The drive into town was hilarious. It was probably around 8pm, and the road was full of action. People walking along, people selling stuff off of blankets or little wooden boxes, the odd gas station or two, some gas lanterns, no streetlights. Several pedestrian bridges were in existence, although they were missing the cross spans; just the stairs remained on either side of the road. The other traffic on the road consisted mainly of VW busses filled with passengers. They all looked like they had been rolled down a hill a few times (imagine crumpling aluminum foil and then uncrumpling it, and that’s what the metal of these vehicles resembled), with all of the glass panes removed from the window spots, and all of the seats removed from inside and replaced with benches to stuff as many people inside as physically possible. The back doors were open, with a bungee keeping them from flying open, so that more people could hang out of the back but not be entirely outside. They rode pretty low due to the weight. I really wonder how often the axles just plain snap. In addition to the VW busses, whatever else could carry passengers did. My favorite was a semi cab pulling something of a hay wagon, with people actually riding the hitch between the cab and the trailer.

I got dumped at a place called CAP: Centre d’Acceuil Protestant. I was introduced to Andrew, a chimpanzee expert, who had been there for about 24 hours already. CAP is a nice little compound with several buildings of rooms, and walls all the way around. Guards stay at the gate all day and night. Andrew and I were taken by a guide to the nearest strip of wooden shack establishments a block away, where we went to drink Coca-Cola. Actually, I got a big cold Primus beer, while Andrew drank soda. The Primus hit the spot, although at 720ml it even hit me a bit. It was a nice welcome to the country.

The next day we were eventually picked up by our boss, since we needed to do a number of things. We were dropped at the British embassy, where we registered with our names and passports. We then went to a café where I ate a big cheese sandwich on a baguette and drank Coca-Cola from a bottle. Then we got dumped at CAP again, and didn’t really know what to do next. We didn’t do much, really. We did go searching for food, and ended up at a little restaurant where we were the only customers, but it still took something like an hour for them to make our chickens. Damn. We went back to the same wooden shack for Coca-Cola before going to bed.

The next day was to be our last in Kinshasa, and we had no idea whether or not we would be picked up and taken anywhere to get our errands done. So eventually we decided that we just needed to head out and figure things out on our own. We walked all over the downtown! The place isn’t that bad, and we actually didn’t get too hassled. We tried to do internet, but that place sucked. We’d sit for half an hour, and then the network would die or the power would go out or whatever. We tried that place three times, and I finally got an email sent. Yay!

Downtown Kinshasa appears to have one western-style supermarket, and another store that was somewhat like Target or Wal-Mart with all sorts of stuff in addition to all the groceries. I got some last chocolate and ice cream. I got malaria drugs at a pharmacy. We found a market near the port (Kinshasa is on the Congo River), and bought some soap and a padlock. The market had one monkey tied to a pole next to a huge birdcage filled with 20 or 30 African grey parrots. I wanted to go set them all free, but we probably would have been lynched.

There were UN tanks all over the place, and I actually felt bad for the Italians or Serbians or whatever other suckers were stuck sitting in them, getting heckled by the locals. Apparently the UN doesn’t have the authority to do anything but just be there, so if two local sides are fighting the blue helmets don’t intervene unless directly attacked, so the locals don’t attack and are therefore safe from UN retaliation. And if things get too dangerous, the UN leaves and goes to Brazzaville (in the other Congo across the river) to wait it out. Of course they don’t get much respect.

I personally didn’t really feel in danger while in Kinshasa, although I admittedly steered clear of potential risk. Andrew and I always moved around as a pair, and we never got in any vehicles. We didn’t go to the grand marché, because the guys at CAP told us we’d just be robbed there within minutes. And we didn’t hear a single gunshot. There were plenty of other white folks around (relatively), though presumably mostly expats who dealt with the place on a daily basis. No problem.

I nonetheless don’t recommend Kinshasa to anybody. I don't think there are any tourists. The place isn’t really all that interesting, and it’s not exactly inviting. We were on a mission to find a couple of basic things, and they were apparently nonexistent (except perhaps at the grand marché!): flip flops (there were some pretty cool sneakers though), a functional watch (there were hawkers selling ‘Rolexes’ everywhere, although the one Andrew bought gains or loses a few minutes every hour or so), and postcards (I got some, for a dollar each, but of course the stamps were even more elusive so none got sent). The place is also really expensive, so three nights was already more than enough. CAP is apparently the cheapest ‘safe’ lodging, and it’s over $50 a night. No thanks.

Friday morning was departure time. We got a ride to the MAF building to weigh all of our luggage, and ourselves. MAF is apparently the most reliable airline in the country. The plane we had chartered could hold up to 900kg, including passengers. Passengers included me, Andrew, my boss Gottfried, New Yorker reporter Ian, and a man we addressed as ‘Papa’ from the village where we were headed. Luggage included sacks of sugar, milk powder, a car battery, liquid nitrogen for field samples, biscuits, phenology workbooks, sardines, and so on. We loaded everything onto the roof of a minivan and headed to the city airport. That ride was the only time I was able to (surreptitiously) photograph Kinshasa city scenes. They didn’t come out very well. It was an interesting ride though, through quarters that we hadn’t crossed on foot the day before.

The city airport is about as formal as a neighborhood basketball court in the States. The migration office guy had avocado all over his hands as he flipped through my passport and stamped the hand-written ‘ticket’ I handed him. The health officer stamped my ticket, even though I admitted that my vaccination certificate was buried in my luggage. Then we sat at the hangar for hours.

The hangar next door seemed to be some sort of day care. Ragged kids ran amok, climbing the metal grate and waving at the white folks sitting and waiting. I didn’t see any adults; at least the kids didn’t come bug us. The hangar on the other side had a fire truck with someone lying beneath it. The thing actually started up while we waited (we were there a while), and drove few meters and back. Military guys walked by sometimes, or peed behind the shack on the other side of the pavement across from our hangar. Chickens mingled among the children, the shacks, and a parked plane. A couple of planes took off and landed during the hours that we sat there. Across the unmown expanse was a UN compound where, I guess, more international blue helmets sit and hang out. What a great posting. At least they don’t get heckled as much as the ones downtown.

One of the arriving planes was ours. Once emptied of its passengers and contents, it was ours! Too bad the promised fuel truck never came. Jerrycans of fuel were wheeled to underneath the wings, and people on ladders with suction pump things managed to get some of the fuel into the plane. Not enough to get us to our destination, but enough to get us to another airstrip with more fuel en route. We loaded up our stuff into the undercarriage compartments and into the rear portion of the cabin. I tried calling my mom with my cell phone one last time before leaving civilization, but it was too early in her time zone.

The captain offered us a last round of cold Coca-Colas and told us to pee before we boarded. In the plane, he turned around and pointed out the exits, through which we had just loaded our luggage. We asked if taking photos was ok. “Wait until the engines are going so we can outrun the military if they see you!” And we were off!

This is when my mom got my message and called back. I was amazed to still have service as we ascended, but it was good to say hi. The pressure also changed a bit, which caused the liquid nitrogen to offgas and fill the cabin with white smoke for a minute or two. I think it was shortly after I told my mom “oh, there’s smoke coming out of the liquid nitrogen canisters” that the connection finally cut off for good. Only on recounting the timing of the phone call to the others later did I realize that my mom might have suddenly freaked out from the context (she didn’t). Apparently the pilot’s reaction was “do you guys care? Ok, then I’m fine to keep going too.” No problem.

Kinshasa from the air was cool. You’d think waterfront property would be desirable, but it was clear that shantytowns ruled at the land-water interface. Then it was the boat graveyard, with rusted hulks stranded among mud and vegetation. People seemed to be farming some of the sandbars that formed in the river. Then civilization soon ceased.

I took some cool photos of various little villages along the way, although I later realized that I had forgotten to put the memory card in my camera. There weren’t many roads, but the land was nonetheless fairly tamed by man. We had yet to reach the forest. We landed in a largish village (though without roads) to refuel, and someone arrived at the plane with a small catfish in a bucket. Our captain bought it, and put it in the shell of an old shopvac for the flight, so he could put it in his garden pond at home. Gottfried bought a nice big papaya. We stood in the shade of the wings as they were filled with fuel.

Once airborne, the forest seemed to take over below us. Open land gave way to a carpet of trees. Villages were few and far between, and very small. There were no visible roads, and only a couple of rivers. I wondered how many groups of bonobos lived in the forest we were flying over. Ipope’s airstrip was the next stop, with the hike to our forest camp to follow soon thereafter.

Travel almost done, life in the forest almost begun.