November 6, 2016, Sunday morning from Bukavu, South Kivu, DRC
INCEF has been invited to Bukavu by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to do a training workshop with potential video producers and educational outreach supervisors. Let’s leave behind the many months of budget negotiations and delays in contract negotiations to finally reach the payment stage that flew me out of DC and to Kinshasa after the long hot summer months had ended and fall’s chill was settling in.
It's the 2nd of November and I’m sure everyone is exhausted with politics, happy or not about the World Series results and tired of seeing beleaguered refugees climb on to buses going who knows where.
It is 4am in Kinshasa. A knock on my bedroom door wakes me. Clever Demokolo INCEF’s logistics chief, spent the night on the couch. He’s already showered. I start a pot of coffee. Soon, I’m also showered dressed and we’ve finished the coffee.
The dark blue metal door opens revealing a dark damp morning beyond and Glodianne, INCEF’s General Manager and Sonny Fils Kabamba, cameraman and editor, along with TSHIMANGA “Tshim’s” Joseph a journalist and film producer we’ve hired to assist in this “gig” and our faithful driver Celestin break the silence ready pack up the cars and make the long traffic choked ride to Ndjili Airport where we’ll catch a African Company d’Aviation CAA, flight to Bukavu. Jeffery Travel (and yes that is the correct spelling) is also there with 2 SUV’s as we have 23 pieces of luggage to check.
7 medium sized boxes holding camera kits, five new empty pelicans and a printer,
5 pelican 1650’s holding projection kits,
5 suitcases - one for each of us
3 trunks, holding computers and XTPower Supplies and a lot of other stuff
2 pelican 1600s holding our own production kit
1 Sachtler Tripod in its case.
At 5:45 we reach the airport – not bad for a trip to Ndjili and then there is the argument with the military guy about where we can park. We’ve paid $17 to park and after an exchange of a few dollars more he finally let’s us enter the inner sanctum and park nearer to the check in door. A pack of baggage handlers in yellow neon vests with luggage carts in various stages of disrepair swoop in and start to argue about who was there first. It is really an old story at 3rd World Airports so lets just get inside.
All five of us are keeping count as our hand luggage goes through the security machine and our 23 pieces of baggage follow. It is just as dark inside the airport as it is outside. There is no electricity. We’re entering a mosh pit of hundreds of shadows burdened with their own baggage and pretty grouchy at this hour of the morning all doing the same aggressive dance toward the next security check that we have targeted. I’m still counting baggage as it moves through the shadows and slowly continues to the final security check before ticketing. There is one table with one man checking all baggage and we have worked our way to his side. We are trying to keep a steady stream going as other anxious travelers push ahead. Clever and Tshims have taken the lead and are working the rolls of scotch tape over the boxes. I’m standing to the side, Glodianne has enlisted the help of an airport police guard she knows. He’s just had a baby girl, and we all congratulate him as he pressures the security guy and she provides him with a “gift for his newborn child”.
Everything is going smoothly in the unlit airport terminal until he reaches the trunks and the XT Power Supplies. We were nearly through. We wait, I’m tapping my foot by this point, while he calls over a customs inspector who says simply “no”. I explain, calmly for me, that these batteries passed both US TSA and French TSA inspection because their wattage is below the unaccepted wattage indicated on travel restriction bulletins. He’s not convinced, hates me for using the USA, French Security comparison and wants to read the specs and try to turn on the battery and go through the various cables included. He opens two and then three boxes. All this by the light of Clever’s iphone which is beginning to run out of power. Glodianne tries to bribe him and he miraculously pushes it away and approves the batteries. It is now 7:15 and our flight leaves in 45 minutes. We still have to check in, pay for the excess baggage, pay our airport tax, go through immigration and the final security check before we can board. No matter that this is only Glodianne’s second voyage by air ever, she’s already dealing with it like a casino scam artist, unruffled and cool slipping airport personnel bribes up their sleeve cuffs and into their pockets. The three guys are sweating – well - like pigs and I’m standing on the sidelines practicing meditative breathing.
We are nearly at the ticket counter. The lights go on and a sigh of relief –oohs and ahs moves like a stadium wave across the mosh pit. The lights go off again, accompanied by a moan of disappointment then flicker on for good or so we hope. I watch from the sidelines while my team works to get each piece of baggage weighed and ticketed. I won’t even get in to the discrepancy of their scales, which are easily 3 kilos above the Air France scales at Dulles Airport. A box of empty pelican cases weighed 3 kilos there and here it weighs 6.
The clock is ticking and now the baggage has to paid for the flight is boarding and 3 of us go through immigration, another security check – computers out, but they let me keep my shoes and coat on, walk across the tarmac toward the airplane where we have yet another security check and finally climb the stairs of our CAA Airbus 320. The interior décor fake leather covered metal benches separated into three seats by plastic armrests on each side of the isle It is certainly 8 o”clock, but I’m too afraid to look. We cheer as Clever and then finally Glodianne enters the plane. I’m told it is almost 8:30.
By 2:30 pm in the afternoon we’ve reached Bukavu after a stop in Kisingani and then Goma where we change from the airbus 320 to a Fokker. On the flight, so far we’ve been given our choice of water, Fanta or that sticky red soda called Vitalo, two bread rolls of different sizes, coffee or tea. We’re all starving and tired. From Goma to Bukavu the flight is really only 20 minutes and we are given nothing. But there is blue sky showing through and we can see the lush mountains of South Kivu rising up to the clouds bordering Lake Kivu.
WCS is there to pick us up as promised, after a small argument with immigration about whether Clever is a student or an employee of an NGO with a righteous immigration officer who is certain it is impossible to be both, our names and other info are written in the arrivals book with a borrowed pen, the baggage is counted, tag numbers are checked and we are free to go.
As we drive the road from Kavumu to Bukavu I look out at a mosaic of fields climbing the mountains where refugee camps once stretched to the farthest reaches. This road along Lake Kivu was once famous for the huge trees that lined it all the way to Bukavu. Replacements are growing and feeling of well-being that the worst is over comes over me. I’m wrong.
To be continued….
INCEF has been invited to Bukavu by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to do a training workshop with potential video producers and educational outreach supervisors. Let’s leave behind the many months of budget negotiations and delays in contract negotiations to finally reach the payment stage that flew me out of DC and to Kinshasa after the long hot summer months had ended and fall’s chill was settling in.
It's the 2nd of November and I’m sure everyone is exhausted with politics, happy or not about the World Series results and tired of seeing beleaguered refugees climb on to buses going who knows where.
It is 4am in Kinshasa. A knock on my bedroom door wakes me. Clever Demokolo INCEF’s logistics chief, spent the night on the couch. He’s already showered. I start a pot of coffee. Soon, I’m also showered dressed and we’ve finished the coffee.
The dark blue metal door opens revealing a dark damp morning beyond and Glodianne, INCEF’s General Manager and Sonny Fils Kabamba, cameraman and editor, along with TSHIMANGA “Tshim’s” Joseph a journalist and film producer we’ve hired to assist in this “gig” and our faithful driver Celestin break the silence ready pack up the cars and make the long traffic choked ride to Ndjili Airport where we’ll catch a African Company d’Aviation CAA, flight to Bukavu. Jeffery Travel (and yes that is the correct spelling) is also there with 2 SUV’s as we have 23 pieces of luggage to check.
7 medium sized boxes holding camera kits, five new empty pelicans and a printer,
5 pelican 1650’s holding projection kits,
5 suitcases - one for each of us
3 trunks, holding computers and XTPower Supplies and a lot of other stuff
2 pelican 1600s holding our own production kit
1 Sachtler Tripod in its case.
At 5:45 we reach the airport – not bad for a trip to Ndjili and then there is the argument with the military guy about where we can park. We’ve paid $17 to park and after an exchange of a few dollars more he finally let’s us enter the inner sanctum and park nearer to the check in door. A pack of baggage handlers in yellow neon vests with luggage carts in various stages of disrepair swoop in and start to argue about who was there first. It is really an old story at 3rd World Airports so lets just get inside.
All five of us are keeping count as our hand luggage goes through the security machine and our 23 pieces of baggage follow. It is just as dark inside the airport as it is outside. There is no electricity. We’re entering a mosh pit of hundreds of shadows burdened with their own baggage and pretty grouchy at this hour of the morning all doing the same aggressive dance toward the next security check that we have targeted. I’m still counting baggage as it moves through the shadows and slowly continues to the final security check before ticketing. There is one table with one man checking all baggage and we have worked our way to his side. We are trying to keep a steady stream going as other anxious travelers push ahead. Clever and Tshims have taken the lead and are working the rolls of scotch tape over the boxes. I’m standing to the side, Glodianne has enlisted the help of an airport police guard she knows. He’s just had a baby girl, and we all congratulate him as he pressures the security guy and she provides him with a “gift for his newborn child”.
Everything is going smoothly in the unlit airport terminal until he reaches the trunks and the XT Power Supplies. We were nearly through. We wait, I’m tapping my foot by this point, while he calls over a customs inspector who says simply “no”. I explain, calmly for me, that these batteries passed both US TSA and French TSA inspection because their wattage is below the unaccepted wattage indicated on travel restriction bulletins. He’s not convinced, hates me for using the USA, French Security comparison and wants to read the specs and try to turn on the battery and go through the various cables included. He opens two and then three boxes. All this by the light of Clever’s iphone which is beginning to run out of power. Glodianne tries to bribe him and he miraculously pushes it away and approves the batteries. It is now 7:15 and our flight leaves in 45 minutes. We still have to check in, pay for the excess baggage, pay our airport tax, go through immigration and the final security check before we can board. No matter that this is only Glodianne’s second voyage by air ever, she’s already dealing with it like a casino scam artist, unruffled and cool slipping airport personnel bribes up their sleeve cuffs and into their pockets. The three guys are sweating – well - like pigs and I’m standing on the sidelines practicing meditative breathing.
We are nearly at the ticket counter. The lights go on and a sigh of relief –oohs and ahs moves like a stadium wave across the mosh pit. The lights go off again, accompanied by a moan of disappointment then flicker on for good or so we hope. I watch from the sidelines while my team works to get each piece of baggage weighed and ticketed. I won’t even get in to the discrepancy of their scales, which are easily 3 kilos above the Air France scales at Dulles Airport. A box of empty pelican cases weighed 3 kilos there and here it weighs 6.
The clock is ticking and now the baggage has to paid for the flight is boarding and 3 of us go through immigration, another security check – computers out, but they let me keep my shoes and coat on, walk across the tarmac toward the airplane where we have yet another security check and finally climb the stairs of our CAA Airbus 320. The interior décor fake leather covered metal benches separated into three seats by plastic armrests on each side of the isle It is certainly 8 o”clock, but I’m too afraid to look. We cheer as Clever and then finally Glodianne enters the plane. I’m told it is almost 8:30.
By 2:30 pm in the afternoon we’ve reached Bukavu after a stop in Kisingani and then Goma where we change from the airbus 320 to a Fokker. On the flight, so far we’ve been given our choice of water, Fanta or that sticky red soda called Vitalo, two bread rolls of different sizes, coffee or tea. We’re all starving and tired. From Goma to Bukavu the flight is really only 20 minutes and we are given nothing. But there is blue sky showing through and we can see the lush mountains of South Kivu rising up to the clouds bordering Lake Kivu.
WCS is there to pick us up as promised, after a small argument with immigration about whether Clever is a student or an employee of an NGO with a righteous immigration officer who is certain it is impossible to be both, our names and other info are written in the arrivals book with a borrowed pen, the baggage is counted, tag numbers are checked and we are free to go.
As we drive the road from Kavumu to Bukavu I look out at a mosaic of fields climbing the mountains where refugee camps once stretched to the farthest reaches. This road along Lake Kivu was once famous for the huge trees that lined it all the way to Bukavu. Replacements are growing and feeling of well-being that the worst is over comes over me. I’m wrong.
To be continued….
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