7/2/12 Do you people know what “doucement” means?!

 

7 February 2012

Seriously, not matter how many times I ask them to speak slowly they always nod in understanding and then continue at the same speed as they started with! I have (at least I think I have) recently discovered that when they say “40 000” (and I’m spelling it phonetically) in French they seem pronounce it “ka mille” rather than “karant mille”. This wouldn’t be the end of the world if not for the fact that 4000 is “katr mille”. This led to much confusion and them needing to get a calculator out to type the number for me to see it. All because they don’t talk properly! Silly people!

So yes, I’m back in my hole for a third tour, quite probably the last, but when it comes to decision point anything can change, so we’ll wait and see when I get there.

My trip back to Gabon started with a 1-time flight (like Ryanair for the overseas people) to Johannesburg. Since I am always worried about delays to flights causing me to miss my international I fly up a good few hours early, so on landing in JHB I stayed sitting while everyone else leapt to their feet and then stood for 15mins while the doors were opened and everyone ahead of them slowly shuffled off. In fact I was literally the last passenger to get off. I had my dark glasses on as I’d been staring out the window on the bright and hot summers day in JHB (a dig at the Europeans who are digging their cars out from under 6 feet of snow!)

Anyway, so I’m sitting and chilling as the last guy walks past me to get off the plane, then he turns around and comes back to me, just as I get up to get my bag. “Oh sorry”, he says, “I thought you were blind and was coming back to ask you if you needed any help”. Made me laugh but a nice guy to come back to help me.

In the airport, my geeky eye saw the “self check-in” machine so thought I’d give it a go. Really impressive! I stuck my passport photo page into the machine and immediately it showed who I was, which flight I was on, what the flight details were, and had printed me a boarding pass. Brilliant! All I had to do, it said, was drop my bag off at the baggage drop desk and that was that. Wow! No queues! So I headed to the baggage drop desk. Where there was a queue. Not a long one so wasn’t too perturbed, and still buzzing from the bit of techy check-in geekness I had just witnessed. I had my bag weighed, was given a little paper stub with its weight on it, and then told to join the normal check-in queue to hand my baggage in at the check-in desk! WTF?! How much of a waste of time is that?! Instead of queuing for one desk which does everything, SAA offers a “much more convenient” process of going to three separate places and standing in two separate queues – one of which being the one you’re trying to avoid in the first place!! Someone is being paid a salary by SAA to come up with these awesome passenger service schemes.

In Libreville I was struck by how lucky I was to have been through this all before. Its very daunting for a first timer because so little is organised and logical that its very easy to get caught up in the confusion and end up in the wrong place or following the wrong people. Most people, including the officials, are not always wearing uniforms, which adds to the uncertainty. On my way to baggage claim a guy walked up to me (note he is on the air side of security) and told me to follow him. I start following him wondering what trouble I’m in when I see that he’s leading me to the baggage carrousel to help me find my bag…. Aaah, the penny dropped and I quickly overtook him, saying I knew exactly how to pick up my own bag, thank you. The thing is he never actually asked me if he could help me – he instructed me to follow him, like an official.

No sooner had I walked out of arrivals onto the main concourse the rest of them started gathering around to help. The problem was I didn’t know who my agent was who should be meeting me there (she doesn’t stand at the doors with your name on a sign or anything – you have to hunt for her throughout the airport) so while I insisted I knew where I was going and didn’t need any help I very clearly didn’t have a clue where I was going and was wandering around aimlessly. So they never left.

Anyway, because I couldn’t find the agent who had my ticket for Port Gentil, I missed the last flight and had to stay in Libreville for the night. Which is fine – arrive late, leave early, no food either way, but finally got to PG and then flew the chopper back to Onal. On landing a man marched up to the chopper and I wondered what I had done wrong. (see how I’m always feeling guilty… what’s with that?!) Turns out he’s the Chief de site (Onal camp boss). Named Jean-Luc. Amusingly in essentially the same position as the captain of the Enterprise… Hell of a nice guy and speaks English!!

Yesterday I flew to the Chinese camp again, but this time we were driven to the drill site directly. Was a 20min drive through bush, which I recorded a little bit of – just to show the roads and height of the jungle. I also got them to stop so I could get a pic of a stunning lake right next to the road with dead trees, black water and waterlillies everywhere. This is how water-logged this country is. The leaches must be plentiful!!

Pooling of water in the jungle	A very dusty ride through the jungle – giving an idea of the denseness of it…

The flight to Ethekamba from Onal was interesting. I think I was flying government officials inspecting the drill site. One of which was a colossal woman who weighed 125kg! (everyone has to be weighed with and without their bags). I barely got off the ground with 5 passengers, their baggage and full fuel! This woman was missing half her teeth and eating just before we got into the chopper. The flight was an hour and on landing she barrelled out of the aircraft frantically grasping for a bread roll the way smokers light up the minute they get off the plane! I felt for the other three women in the back, on narrow seats with very little room. Strangely the skinniest lady sat in front with me. She was tinier than me and I wondered why she wasn’t made to sit in the back to put a bigger person in front. Must have been more senior, I guess…

Well, no pics really this time, but wanted to just leave something (long-winded as ever) marking my arrival for a long 4 week stint… Leave comments when you can – gives me something to read. I (unbelievably) forgot to save a bunch of movies onto my laptop before flying back, so have hardly anything to watch. I’m going to lose my mind!!