stranded in the sahel

so this is the new year...
and i don’t feel any different...

as a planet, we're off to a good start. what is the news of 2009 so far?

a suicide car bomb in afghanistan kills 14 children.

israel is again fighting with hamas: 277 dead.

here in chad, we medevac an old man from a darfur camp who is unable to urinate.

back in arizona, my buddy and his wife wait in vigil over their premature firstborn son. he has a heart condition, and the doctors don't know what to do. they're not sure if he is going to make it at all. surviving will bring a whole new set of bitter challenges to his life.

i look up at the sky. the charges are heavy.


nice place you've got here.

god looks back down at me, through the deep blue celestial sea, and says nothing. instead: filtered through my polarized sunglasses, a haunting quality of light spilling down on these hot clean rocks. cranking some tunes on the ipod as i run. the urgent, overdriven guitars churning around my pounding heartbeat. feeling the hissing rush of blood through my eardrums.


a drenching pure beauty surrounding me. i fight this incongruity. such caustic pain amongst sheer radiance. sweet desire swirled with decay.



******



across the desert in khartoum, sudan, the 5 major chadian rebel groups sign an agreement to unite their efforts to overthrow idriss déby, chad's president. the french base and chadian army are each reinforcing their positions in abéché in preparation for an expected rebel offensive. they are tired of déby skimming the cream: chad was named the world's most corrupt country by forbes magazine.



******



this is the sahel.


it's a borderlands of the sahara. it's still the desert, but instead of dunes we have flies; instead of palm-treed oases we have camel piss flowing through dusty streets; and instead of belly-dancing girls we have south african pilots.

these guys are alot of fun, but none of them are here for humanitarian purposes. politics being what they are, most humanitarian contracts are now flown by disinterested, commercial third parties. the pilots come for the money and to get their time before moving on to an airline. south africa dominates the humanitarian aviation market now, even though none of the companies are humanitarian companies.

i often find myself over at the south africans' crew house, not knowing how or why. maybe it's because of the wet bar they have set up, with all of our squadrons' emblems drawn on.





or maybe it's because of the hott hussy female pilot they have (who already has a boyfriend back home, and assures me he is a "proper" [airline] pilot).

wow. shut-down twice in one sentence!!!

i think maybe it's just a way for us to keep some sanity in this place; surrounded always by razorwire, bone-crushing poverty, genocidal fundamentalists, relentless nose-crawling flies, rebels wielding kalishnikovs, desert refugees begging for water.

an escape from my own hypocrisy: filled with the knowledge that places like super walmart exist.

in any case, the aviators of the desert flock together. a lot of mornings, we depart at the same time for the same place.


one of them, simon, has become a really good buddy. he is a much more experienced pilot and human being than most of the cocky, wet-behind-the-ears, frat-boy wondersticks that he is stuck babysitting. we get along well, always hanging back a bit from the madness.


flying over the scorched lands; dry capillaries forming into ouadis. the sands' version of the tree of life. in reverse. running everything together; these desert fractals.


another sudan refugee camp slides under my wing, as i glide untouched and ignorant, far above it all.


i land in koukou, stopping in front of the tree that serves as short-term parking, airport terminal, baggage check, security screening, and the food court all in one. another load of humanitarians, trusting me with their lives.


a quick turn. me playing the role of ticket counter agent, baggage handler, gate agent. and then i have to get in and fly the damn thing. this one's a quick hop, just a 10 minute flight to my last stop and then home. i'm tired; it's been a long hot dusty week.

i turn final for runway 35 in goz beida. she is crabbing hard into the significant crosswind from the right. there's always a crosswind here. i work her down, reassuringly; gently encouraging my lassie. convincing her to let me put her in a different and uncomfortable position. uncoordinated. right aileron with left rudder. the wench goes along with what her captain wants; a good girl.

settling onto the sand, my gentle mare suddenly pulls hard right, and i feel her bogging down, like we're rolling through wet concrete. i step on left rudder and brake to keep her on the runway. she's sluggish to respond, but i manage to keep her on the strip. i pull off, set the brakes, and shut down.

what's wrong, cupcake?

hopping out, slowly tracing my fingers along her fuselage. inspecting her tail section. working my way around to her right leg. there it is. the right main tire is not all the way flat, but already halfway there, and you can hear a quiet whistling finishing the job.

i send out a distress call to our HF radio operator. the static swallows most of it. his reply is unintelligible. i try again:

"alpha x-ray base, u.n. charlie one, over."

nothing.

stranded in the sahel.


i sit on the packed red sand under the shade of my girls' tailfeathers. the sun is approaching it's most oppressive zenith. a dust devil dances across the dirt strip.

i finish my first water bottle. you can't drink fast enough here to not feel perpetual dehydration. you can almost feel the moisture sucked out of you with every breath.

i do have additional water in the emergency kit, but want to conserve that for later. this could be awhile....

the relentless flies arrive. they want in my mouth, up my nose, on my sunglass lenses, on my bare arms. no matter how many times i shoo them, they return immediately; rubbing their six shit-covered shanks together.

staring at me with their damned kalidescope eyes,
daring for me to squish them or even lift my hand to try.

driving me madder than a rat in a tin shit-house.

janvier. bon année. happy new year. another lap around the sun. what distinguishes this from the previous year?

in the evenings, darfur refugee women are still being raped as they wander further and further from camp scavenging for scarce firewood for their cook fires, just like in 2008.

this week, i flew a flight for a sudanese newborn baby with a heart condition (isn't your heart supposed to be broken after you've been here awhile?)

we did an additional medevac from goz beida for a little girl with a brain tumor. and another one who was born with a hole in her head.

because being a refugee from darfur is not enough of a burden for one lifetime.

a hot dusty wind whips my face, slapping me with it's indifference. a building breeze from the east; carrying secrets. something approaching. whispers of rebel forces massing in sudan; mounting guns on the roofs of their stolen pickup trucks.

i picture my buddy with his wife, 8,000 miles away, in a hospital room with his firstborn son. waiting. stranded in his own desert, in his own crisis.

sitting, staring at his shoes in the ICU.

what a cosmic kick to the nutsack. such great people having to go through all this. is it just dumb mathematical odds? the pure randomness of a universe stripped of any residual meaning?

i can't imagine how he feels; waiting a month to hold your own son, surrounded by i.v. tubes and ventilators and doctors without answers. just the stony inky vacuum of silence.

here i am, stranded in the broken heart of a continent. lost in the badlands; wanting to help but helpless. wanting to buoy my friend, but sinking myself. at the mercy of the sands....

and my whiny damsel there laying on her wounded leg.

getting thirsty. the buzzards are soaring overhead on the thermals; circling, waiting. that eternal patience.

i have to keep getting up to follow the shade. it's getting late. time to start thinking about spending the night. i can probably stay with the aid workers i just flew in. got to be cautious, though; goz beida is not a secure town. carjackings and robberies have been occurring almost daily for the humanitarians working in the area.

i don't want to leave my ship either. i can't abandon her to the cold desert stars.

blurry heat waves rise above the sands like gasoline vapors. i start to hear things. (don't be a damn fool!)

silence.

a hard blue sky slowly roasting my gizzards. the faintest of breezes that teases my ears with the sound of the sea. thoughts of pools, waterfalls, rivers, oceans. ice cold showers and beers. (stop it right now, captain!)

in the distance, a dull droning. i lift my hazy gaze from the ground. is it?

no. that's just the quiet ticking of my bird's engine cooling. let's stop it with the fantasies!

wait, there it is again, and growing louder. yes!

an aircraft! she flies overhead my lame caravan, rocking her wings. buzzing me before pulling up in a bank; peeling off to set up for a landing. it's u.n. two zero whiskey. simon at the helm! (none other!) they touch down and i've never been so glad to see an airplane in my life.


my radio operator did receive my message. what's more, simon has brought elish our mechanic, a jack, and a new main tire.

my girl gets a new shoe on and soon i am spooling her up; she's ready to go dancing again.



******



we approach abéché just before dusk; when the golden-red sun ignites the smeared cirrus and kisses the pinkish mountains poking up through a dust-choked atmosphere.


i turn a low and fast downwind over the south africans' house, rocking my wings. i spy them down there in the inflatable pool, enjoying their refreshing adult beverages.

a couple minutes later on the ground, there's a text from simon:

i see you made it back. get over here for beers.