congo!

after bad weather, late airplanes, and no one to pick us up in rwanda, we finally made it into goma exhausted and excited.  36 hours of travel ended with me having to explain myself in french to the customs official on the rwanda/congo border.  i don't speak french.  the border was closing in 5 minutes.  i hadn't gotten my passport stamped in kigali, because the customs official at the airport said that, as crew, i didn't need to.  at the border they thought otherwise.

although we were sure we'd miss our connection in ethiopia, they ended up holding the airplane for us, and i was even more surprised when i saw my one piece of checked luggage come sliding down the chute in kigali.  everyone made it with everything.  unfortunately, airserv thought we would miss our connection as well, and no one was in kigali to pick us up. luckily we got ahold of them after an hour or so.

rwanda is absolutely spectacular.  kigali is a beautiful town surrounded by lush green hills.  it is impossible to imagine the genocide of 1994 happening there.  the dirt is the richest soil i have ever seen,  a deep crumbly red.  you can almost feel the earthy vibrations of a distant homeland from a single glance.  driving through the jungle mountains, the summits shrouded in lazy grey clouds, you feel your heart pierced by a beauty that only a 36 hour sleep deprivation can make you hypersensitive to.

my part of congo is a strong contrast.  being ringed by volcanoes, all the ground in goma is rock-hard, razor-sharp, charcoal-black lava.  touching the dust is like handling briquettes.  the streets are filled with deep potholes.  riding in the landcruiser through ville du goma to the airport is like a free chiropractor session.

yesterday, i did my first flight, which is an aid worker shuttle around congo.  we made 4 stops and flew about 5 hours.  EVERYONE calls me captain, or commander, including all the congolese army with AK-47s patrolling ramps.  there is an air of respect for aviation and pilots that i've never sensed in america before.  the countryside is absolutely spectacular, and one of the strips was a fun, rocky, and uneven patch next to the congo river.  mud huts line the runway, but they have an official office to collect landing fees and flight plans.  we had to get a key to go to the bathroom, which turned out to be a crumbling mud outhouse with a rusted lock latch barely hanging on by one nail.  why it was locked remains a mystery.  i'm not sure why you'd want to break in, and if you did, you just have to pull hard on the door.  inside is a hole in the ground to do your thing.  

i was supposed to fly today, but it was cancelled.  friday is my next flight.  so far, the caravan is really easy to fly, although i'm sure some of the shorter strips will be fun....

the house is much more than i was expecting, we even have hot water pressure and electricity for about 6 hours a day.  there are currently 9 pilots in the house, but 2 are leaving soon for other bases.  the internet works decently and we have a cook who makes us dinner. there is a maid who cleans our clothes and rooms daily, and the backyard is right on the lake.  there is a ping pong table, pool table, foosball table, weight room, substantial house library, tv/dvd player, and a free tutor for french and swahili lessons.  although they need a little repair, there is a party barge to go out on the lake in, and a diving board.  a couple pilots and i are planning a horseshoe pit with tiki torches.  one of them plays guitar and i brought my mandolin and we are already jamming and writing songs together.

one of the pilots in my house is nicknamed cosmo.  he's a super cool, outgoing italian guy from new york city.  he speaks french fluently.  today we convinced the guards to let us go for a jog down the street.  depending on the security situation, this is not always allowed.  we have to be in groups and can only go down certain streets, during daylight hours.  otherwise, we have to be driven around everywhere in one of the airserv landcruisers.

cosmo and i jogged down to a hotel about a mile away, and it felt like a cross between dodgeball and a petting zoo.  but instead of red rubber balls being hurled at us, it's the overloaded trucks belching diesel fumes as they test suspensions on the unending igneous potholes of every road in goma.  and instead of animals in a zoo, it's little kids pointing at you, smiling and saying mzungu! (white person!)  it should be considered as an olympic event.  not only do you have to run on complex, uneven and sharp terrain around burning piles of trash, potholes and puddles, but you have to avoid the endless motorbikes that intentionally whiz by as close as possible.

my first day here, i met a very friendly congolese girl.  she said hello by licking my face and then rubbing her whole body all over my crotch.  we have gotten to know each other quite well in the past few days, and she is definitely an attention whore.  a (typical) high-maintenance pussy.

her name is splash and right now she is sleeping in my lap as i type on the back porch.  there is an impressive lightning show over the lake, heading this way, and the wind is threatening to blow my computer away, but she's dead to the world.  usually she is purring by mid-jump as she forces her way onto my lap.  no matter what i am doing, whether eating dinner, filling in my logbook, reading, or making flight plans for the next day, she lets me know that she is MUCH more important, and that i need to pet her and let her use me as a scratching post for the next hour or so.  

the only way i can get her off my lap is to stand up.  why aren't other girls like this?