Back in M'banza

After just about three months since my plane crash in my front yard in M’banza Congo, I was on my way back…by plane. I have to admit, I’ve developed a nice little fear of flying since that day. There haven’t been any flashbacks or nightmares or anything like that. But when I’m in a plane, especially when it’s landing, and really especially when it’s in Angola, my heart starts beating pretty hard. So, I obviously wasn’t looking forward to the return flight to M’banza Congo, which I knew was coming soon enough. Like the last time, lots of flights were cancelled or full, and I was having a hard time getting a seat. I thought I was going to have to go back with TAAG (the airline that crashed), but ended up going with a small company called AirJet. Maybe TAAG would have been preferable. Not that anything went wrong during this flight, but the plane, which looked like it must have been from the 1960s, didn’t do much to inspire confidence. And then the landing. I need to talk to a pilot here to find out why planes here land so damn fast. Especially in MBC. I think it must have to do with the short landing strip. Anyway, we came down pretty fast and it brought back some unpleasant memories. When I was buying my ticket back to Luanda with the same airline, standing in front of the tiny wooden shed with a hand-painted AirJet on the front that passes for their office, I seriously had to question what the hell I was doing. I really like my work and all the experiences I have here, but is it really worth these risks? Then I bought the ticket.


Once on the ground, I was happy to be back. I love coming back to MBC after being away for a while. All the staff and neighbors come out to greet me, the little kids run up and jump into my arms. Because it’s so small here, there’s really a feeling of family and community that I don’t get in Huambo and certainly not in Luanda. And of course, the wreckage of my plane still sitting in my front yard. The seats were taken out; the neighbors were using one row as lounge chairs in the front yard. Kids climb in and play in the cockpit. And TAAG came by to paint over the TAAG name and symbol on the plane, as if everybody in the country doesn’t know it was a TAAG plane that crashed. The neighbors are still living in a house that is half destroyed and looks like it’s going to fall down any second. The other neighbors informed me that they had been thinking about constructing another house in the yard. To make room for the new house, they were planning on cutting down the tree in front of my house the very day of the crash, but didn’t get around to it. That tree, of course, is what stopped the plane (and me) from going directly into my house. I wonder if anybody has ever crashed into their own house before…


The word from the black box is that the crash was the result of pilot error. In reality, there’s no way to know. Personally, I think it’s entirely possible, even probable, that the government would choose to blame it on one pilot who’s now dead, rather than admit that there was a problem with one of the planes from their national airline. I suppose we’ll never know for sure.

The day I left, a big international commission arrived in M’banza Congo. Word is it’s being considered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While not all that much to see these days, MBC has a storied history as the capital of the former Kongo Kingdom (see previous posts for details). And the local government is hoping the old church will bring the tourists in. They also inaugurated a new museum of the Kongo Kingdom. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get in to see it before I left, but from what I saw from the window, it looked pretty legit. The weekend before the arrival of the important visitors, efforts began to make the plane in my yard disappear. On Saturday morning we were advised to leave the house in case the plane exploded while they were cutting it up. First people started banging on it with axes to little effect. Then some big saws were brought in and they began cutting the plane up. The tail of the plane was lifted by a crane into the back of a truck, but when the truck looked like it was going to fall over, they pulled the tail out and cut it into more manageable pieces. By the end of the weekend, one could hardly tell that there had once been a plane there. Strangely, it was kind of sad seeing the plane disappear.

My departure this time was a little bit ambiguous. We finally hired somebody to take my place in MBC, so I can concentrate on the program in Huambo. So, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be back, but I also don’t know that I won’t be back. My farewell party was good fun, with all the staff, neighbors, friends from UNHCR, and the Cuban doctors. Funny how you really realize how much you’ll miss people when you’re about to leave. I hope I’ll be back, but it would be nice if the trip could be by teleportation.