The Nairobi airport and I are not friends. I have spent entirely too many hours sitting on its uncomfortable benches, hauling heavy bags and confused about what time it is/should be because of the previous time on a plane and the knowledge that I am about to step onto another one.
So when I walk across the tarmac (far too early) that Tuesday morning and see bags strewn haphazardly here and there, I’m thinking ‘This is not a good start.’ Quickly I calculate how much emergency gear I have in my hand luggage in case my bag never makes it – none. Not even a toothbrush or a change of underwear. Frequent travelers are now thinking – ‘Fool! What was she thinking?’ Well, as it happens, I’m not ordinarily this foolish but the Logistics Department at head office in London has loaded me up with satellite phones for the field, and there was no room left for extra clothing.
The flight from Nairobi goes via Burundi before arriving in Kigali, Rwanda. Flight routings never made sense to me, and this is just another example of geography not matching destinations. Normally I would have taken the time to rest up before the next leg of the journey. But the person sitting next to me is a chatty American and she’s drinking (un)healthy quantities of vodka. At this point it’s eight in the morning where we’re sitting, but I’m sure as country singer Alan Jackson would say ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere.’
A few hours later I arrive in Kigali – and so do my bags! Things are looking up. Step three (or 17 depending on how many modes of transport you count) of this voyage is one of my favourite parts of living in central Africa – a three-hour car ride over the Rwandan mountains. The scenery is lush and the road well-paved. With any luck, the taxi driver even has a decent music collection.
A little later, waiting for my paperwork at the border station in Gisenyi, we hear there’s been a plane crash in Goma, but details are scant. Is it a commercial flight? Were people on board? Driving into Goma, we see the smoke. The rest most people will have seen on the TV, so I’ll not elaborate here.
In the end, I didn’t see the crash site except in pictures. Some pilot friends watched the actual carnage and friends and families of staff members were also affected. For once, DRC made the international news. Friends and family, knowing I was already back in the country started sending worried-sounding notes.
Sadly, this was one of the worst of unfortunately quite a regular occurrence in DRC. With a severe shortage of paved road for such a large country, goods and people are frequently ferried around by air. More often than not, these aircraft are overloaded and under maintained with as-seen disastrous results.
Tags: charity, democratic republic of congo, drc, international development, medical aid, merlin
