the Not Johnny Clegg Story of Travel In Africa
It’s August ‘97 in Joburg, and the phone rings in my office with a hysterical voice on the other end shouting, “So you’re the one going to Cameroon with me? What do you know about it? You know you can’t eat the fruit and vegetables, or drink tap water? In fact, you can’t eat anything but chicken there. And they’re corrupt, hey – worst bladdy Africans I’ve ever met!”
My boss popped her head round the corner and smiled. “You’ve met Rob*, I see.” After a few more shouty reasons why I should never ‘set foot in Africa’ despite living in it, I got off the call and was told I would be doing my first trip into another African country. Cameroon! I was stunned and delighted. Other than an Eric Clapton concert in Swaziland (now Eswatini by royal decree), I’d never set foot outside of South Africa. Eswatini is very similar to the eastern parts of South Africa, culturally, scenically and otherwise, so it wasn’t a new experience for me really. Pedants sharpen your pitchforks.
I prepared quickly over the next few days, including being introduced to our host on a ten-day trip to introduce South Africa to the Cameroonian business community. It was in the first flush of South Africa’s reintegration into Africa after apartheid – heady days, filled with promise and excitement. Eric, our Cameroonian host was positioning Cameroon as the gateway for Saffer business into the Central African region, and naturally himself as the gateway to trade. I worked for our trade promotion agency in those days, fresh out of unemployment following a long stint tutoring at uni here. They really shot for the stars.
We gathered at the airport the next Sunday morning to fly to Douala, the commercial capital and main port of Cameroon and then get a connecting flight to Yaoundé, the political capital, for the start of the first conference on the Monday morning. I was in the first row of non-smoking on Air Cameroon. The Cameroon boxing team took up a few rows in front of me and were happily puffing on cigars before we’d taken off, posing with their trophies from the African championships. I declined asking them to stop.
Speaking of stops, it wasn’t a direct flight – we were landing in Harare, Zimbabwe first and then Kinshasa, in what was still Mabuto’s Zaire for a few more weeks, before reaching Douala. Rob was mercifully seated a few rows away form me and the plane was full, so no listening to him on route. We took off with little fanfare and the hostess arrived with a lovely selection of ice-cold beer – I settled on a 33 Export and she gave me three with a smile. That should do me for the trip I happily thought, waving away plumes of cheap cigar smoke.
Just over an hour later we began our descent into Harare airport through a monumental thunderstorm. I’ve seldom experienced anything like that since, with the 737 being flung about like a ragdoll by an African elephant – I honestly have no idea how the plane didn’t disintegrate. Suddenly we lurched out of the storm and careened towards the landing strip with a thump and a skid and shuddered along narrowly missing a C-130 transport plane that was on the tarmac.
We taxied up close to the terminal building in the little airport with the Congolese and Cameroonians singing and praising the pilot, the Zimbabweans happy to be getting off and the Saffers wondering what the hell they were getting themselves into. I looked across to the waiting families, prevented from wandering over to us by a single policeman and a one-foot fence. Typical scene I would learn, of white farmers in their blue shorts and t-shirts and black businessmen dressed in suits. That was before the land invasions.
A couple of ours later we were back in the air, headed for Kinshasa, a city as fabled as it is cursed and with the double curse in those days of Mabuto’s evil reign. Not much to see out the window when you fly over the tropics other than cloud and the occasional glimpse of forest below, so I settled into another three beers and lunch thinking that this travel malarkey was alright. A bit of a scare, sure, but lots of beer, entertaining passengers and no Rob near me.
A little later, as I started to doze off, the captain announced that we were descending to Njili International Airport in Kinshasa. We should not worry about the sharp, corkscrew nature of it, it was simply a precautionary measure as the rebels were apparently closing on Kinshasa fast and were known to take the odd pop at planes (may be paraphrasing that a bit). Hmm. Shit just got a bit real. We banked sharply and the delightful Ghanaian woman next to me took my mind off things by remarking that she didn’t realise Kinshasa was a coastal city (it isn’t). Then I saw it – the massive expanse of the Congo River, some 16km across at its widest, where we were coming in from. Magnificent!
I was glued to watching the river and tropical trees lining the river and airport as we landed, bumpily again, but possibly just avoiding potholes on the runway. Nothing, at all, ever, was built or maintained by the Mabuto regime in his decades of power, other than his bizarre jungle villas and the roads leading to them. We taxied to the arrivals and it was only then that I realised that other than a military plane, ours was the only one on the tarmac. It was eerily quiet, to begin with. Sitting next to the military aircraft that was being unloaded, we noticed that all the whisky crates had the ‘This Side Up’ arrows pointing firmly down, and they weren’t being handled with a great deal of care. Maybe Mabuto lost power through a lack of whisky? A commotion followed with military police storming the plane and dragging a guy off shouting in French as he protested his innocence. Stupid bugger had taken pictures of the aircraft and whisky and was arrested for being a spy.
We sat in the oppressive heat in silence for hour after hour. No inflight entertainment systems, no aircon. Nothing. Just the gentle click and fizz of beer cans opening. Then the distant sound of gunfire, followed by a more immediate sound of artillery. The smiling air hostess appeared again to assure us that we were safe. “The captain has established it is the war in other Congo you can hear and they very, very seldom fire shells across the river,” she beamed. Cue more beer. ‘Other Congo’ or Congo-Brazzaville is on the other side of the river, with Kinshasa and Brazzaville just 3km apart at their closest.
A sheepish Saffer (who else) got back on the plane after negotiating his release for being a spy and we were off again to much relief as we corkscrewed our way back into the air. We’d survived nearly hitting another plane in Harare and being caught in or near enough to a war in the Congo, maybe both of them. Surely we were home and dry! Surely? Well that’s a story for another time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a beer to crack.
*We’ll call him Rob for his own sanity and sanctity.
As relived by Deebee7
Onna telly this week
Friday 23rd April
| Stormers v Sharks | 18:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Bristol v Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport1 |
| Ulster v Connacht | 20:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Edinburgh v Zebre | 20:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
Saturday 24th April
| Italy v Ireland (women) | 12:00 | BBC iPlayer/Red Button |
| London Irish v Harlequins | 12:30 | Channel 5 / BT Sport 2 |
| Treviso v Glasgow | 13:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| England v France (women) | 14:00 | BBC2 |
| Leicester v Northampton | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Gloucester v Newcastle | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Worcester v Sale | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Bulls v Lions | 15:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Scotland v Wales (women) | 17:00 | BBC Scotland / Red Button / iPlayer |
| Ospreys v Cardiff | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Leinster v Munster | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
Sunday 25th April
| Dragons v Scarlets | 13:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Wasps v Bath | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
Ovally Balls 
We just need FD come along and tell us how the Western Force could beat all of them
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Mind you the Force seem to be winning games at the moment.
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Against who though? Even Glaws could beat some of their opposition.
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Glaws are in the EP
The Force were known as the Pro12 winning Force for a while. ‘cos of FD
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Not that I’m dead-horse flogging or anything
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The Force could beat anything in the ProWoo apparently.
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Chimpie – that’s how we know CJ really did break him.
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No Aus side has ever gone unbeaten through a regular season of Super Rugby and its rapidly evolving spin-offs. The Tahs did manage to go through this season winless though, and they were only playing other Aussie sides. Reckon the Lions would win their comp. Not the B&I Lions, mind. They would be competitive in the Kiwi version.
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Would have though FD would have been more resilient than letting CJ break him.
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Immelman is a good club player, nothing more.
Altrad’s boss, Montpellier owner made the mistake of importing dozens of journeymen from SA, together with some world class ones (Bismarck springs to mind) when the entire T14 moved away from the risk averse style of play necessary to win the thing. Now most teams play ” running” rugby, except those fighting relegation and that includes unsurprisingly Montpellier.
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In better news, France to tour Australia in July, albeit a bit condensed, the quarantine will mean they’ll play three games in ten days. The first one without the T14 finalists, as usual.
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That’s a bit harsh on Montpellier, flair. They were very strong from 2015 to 2019, always a top 6 side and even topping the league one year. The signings were mostly down to Jake White and relative cheapness I thought.
Now a lot of the Saffers are gone and of those left Pollard’s been injured. Serfontein is injured a lot, Jacques du Plessis is off, Bissy’s a very old man, Willemse’s French. Don’t watch them ever so don’t know how Reinach’s been going but a couple of days ago Nico Janse van Rensburg was reported to have got a call-up to the Bok virtual camps.
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Sharks by 15, Bulls by 10.
Apologies, Deebee.
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I see Tommy Seymour has announced his retirement from internationals? Lions options narrowing rapidly.
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He retired from internationals a year or two back Deebee.
This is his retirement from rugby completely. he’s had concussion issues this season I think which means he’s barely featured, no doubt contributing to Glasgow’s poop-ness.
Was a fine player at his peak.
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Matt Banahan is still available
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Dougie Fife is tearing up that American league. Possible bolter?
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Horse still galloping along at Exeter
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Hexperienced Lion too
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Canes have come back from 7-17 down to lead the Highlanders 29-17 midway through the 2nd half. A great bit of vision, stepping and pace from the 10, Ruben Love, set up Du’Plessis Kirifi for their last try.
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‘Landers get one back, with a maul try. Mitch Hunt takes the best part of 10 minutes to skew the conversion attempt wide of the uprights. Was seriously at least two minutes from try to missed kick.
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Aaron Smith caught napping and going the wrong side as the Canes bust up from the scrum, two offloads and they’re in for another 5-pointer. Really simple, but bad from Smith and the first up tackling on the first receiver who was able to give the ball to Lose (Iose?) to canter in untouched. Conversion missed, 34-22 with about six to go.
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Well, we were released from purgatory this week and allowed back on the pitch – training in pods of 15, no whistles, no bibs, no switching between pods – still and all we got 37 on the pitch – 3 groups.
Only tag/touch allowed plus non-contact drills. We only played tag – we’ll let the GAA clubs (who are also back) flog ’em… – can’t make up for 4 months of inactivity in a few sessions – so we might as well make it enjoyable (or as enjoyable as we can) !
Season notionally ends at end of May but we might just tick over with weekly tag/touch for a few more weeks.
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Some great work by the Canes, getting the ball through the hands quickly to create a wee bit of space down the left touchline, but my oh my, the tackling was weak to non-existent, allowing Salesi Rayasi to canter over and score under the posts. 41-22 in the final minute.
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I’d hesitate to call Dougie Fife a flat track bully, but he was a good club player who sometimes could be very very good. His problem was that it wasn’t anywhere near often enough.
He had a couple of good runs inna Scotland shirt too.
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‘Hear me out: why Johnny Mnemonic isn’t a bad movie’
Yikes. Really scraping the barrel here. It’s not a bad movie. It’s an atrocious movie. And I say that as a fan of bad movies.
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Fife could certainly do some decent stuff in attack at ProWoo level but his defence left a lot to be desired.
Says Chimpie from his armchair.
Not entirely surprised he got shipped off to 7zzz, US league sounds like a good move for him.
I’m more mystified why Glen Bryce has been shipped around so much then let go by Glasgow when their squad is in a right state.
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Shame Cat’s not here. That would probably be worth at least a 5 page rant.
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Chimpie, the Glasgow forum after last week’s Benetton result was quite something.
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some of their ‘hear me outs’ have been reasonable. Watched Tomorrowland with the kidz recently & quite enjoyed it.
But this one is just ridiculous.
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I can imagine, Ticht.
Think that was Benetton’s first ProWoo win of the season. And it was a proper pumping.
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Sorry to revisit bad memories BB.
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Bennetton’s always a tough place to go in late April. It’s when the new season’s collections come in,
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You got mail, Thauma…
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Chimpie, I think the phrase is ‘pfft’.
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New post in the offing.
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New post is here.
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