Peace keeping

Peace Keeping

It’s the first time that we are going on UN flights. With 180,000 people, the UN peace keeping mission can well justify having its own air service, but since their seats are not always full, they allow other humanitarian workers, like us, to fly. Provided, of course, that the seats are not taken by UN people who will always have preference, right up to the last minute. This can be annoying. The flights leave at 8.30 or 9, but check-in is at 6, which means getting up at 4.30. To be told at 8.55 that you seat has been given to a UN person is not a good feeling.

Anyway, on this occasion we are spared this annoyance. The departure lounge reminds me of war films: the no-frills furniture and institutional colour scheme match it perfectly. We look at the departure blackboard: two flights are going to Bukavu. One will get there at 11.00, the other at 5.30 p.m. We are on the second one. The Vol Touristique as someone jokes. A little coffee bar opens which cheers people up.

The plane is painted white, with a huge UN on the front. It looks like, though I’m no judge of these things, a fairly modern small turbojet. Our crew have hard to place accents (Latin American/Bulgarian??). This is the UN, so French is out: all communication is in English.

The first flight lasts an hour, and takes us over hilly, and very pretty green country. None of us know enough about the geography of the country to even recognise the name of the first place we stop. We are asked to kindly disembark, as our flight ends here.

That’s a UN-style joke which we hear five times that day, because there’s another flight taking off to the next place within an hour or two. Meanwhile, they take us to a special UN hut (not, of course not, the public air terminal) where we sit around wondering what’s going to happen, and when. Incongruously there is a television showing a repeat show of a South African provincial rugby match.

The next place looks very important from the air. It is laid out like a miniature Washington DC, with grand malls and imposing buildings at key points, though even from the air we can see that these buildings are crumbling. The terminal is much grander, with posters put up by homesick peacekeepers – Uruguay, Jordan, Morocco. We are protected, as always, by rolls of razor wire, and outside we can see a large Congolese Army barracks set in the midst of a field of head-high grass. Soldiers wander around chatting. We entertain ourselves by looking at the lizards, huge ones, highly coloured, bright reds and blues. They chase each other, hurdling neatly over the razor wire like tiny horses.

Two stops later it is Kalemie, the unreachable place which we chose not to include in our project due to its remoteness. It sits so peacefully next to Lake Tanganyika, a beautiful spot that could be on the Indian Ocean, with sandy beaches and palm trees.

Each time the mix of passengers changes, as does the proportion of military to civilian people. It’s interesting to look at the peace-keepers. They have a standard uniform, but each wears his national colours and country name on his shoulder.

The countryside changes from jungle, to savannah, to lush banana plantations and forests. The crew and aircraft change too. The last one is a full-blown jet, with a Canadian crew. (The service is operated by a Canadian company: that must be a pretty lucrative contract, though not without its dangers).

The fifth stop is our last. It is now 5.30 in the evening, as we land at Bukavu, one of the larger military centres, mostly staffed by Bangladeshis.

We are met by our man in Bukavu, who greets me with the solemn manner of the region: you clunk heads – at the forehead level – first left, then right, then left again. French greeting without the unhygienic kissing bit . . .

While engaged in this interesting pursuit I look over his shoulder and see Indian and Pakistani soldiers shaking hands with apparent warmth. Peace keeping must be having some effect.