Today. Has. Been. Awesome. I left my house this morning at 6:30am,
bummed that I would have to sit at the airport for 3 hours waiting for the UN
flight to Voinjama. Then, around 9:30, they started handing out earplugs to the
passengers waiting in the holding area. I was told that sometimes the flight
between Monrovia and Voinjama is a Dash-7 plane and sometimes it’s a helicopter.
Since we were leaving from the international airport, my colleague (our
Liberian Field Coordinator) and I were resigned to taking the plane. But when I
got the earplugs I knew…it was chopper time!
When I was working in Uganda in 2010 I was overseeing Mi-8 flight hours
for the Ugandan military flying from a base in South Sudan to the Central
African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of their mission
against the LRA rebels. I was also overseeing C-130 cargo flights from Kampala
to Mogadishu for the African Union Mission in Somalia. I got to spend some time
in the presence of these cool aircraft but I never got to actually fly in them
and I have always wanted to. So when the chopper came in sight of the minibus
that was taking me and the 15 other passengers to the flight, I got super
excited. I wanted to bounce up and down on my seat and squeal and clap my hands
like a little schoolgirl, but I refrained. Since all of the other passengers
were male, mostly African, Yemeni, Jordanian and Pakistani, and most were in UN
military or police uniforms, I figured they wouldn’t appreciate my naïve excitement.
Also, they all seemed to be a bit bummed because the plane is faster and more
comfortable than the chopper.
My excitement only grew as I walked up the three little steps into the
cabin. There were two benches running down each side of the chopper and our
luggage and cargo was strapped down the middle. We all boarded and took a seat
on one of the benches. One of the crew asked the guy next to me to move down
further, but there was a bag hanging from a hook in the wall that was blocking
the seat. “Sir, you can take down that parachute and put it on the floor at the
end of the bench next to you” said the crewman with his Ukrainian accent. “So
this one’s for me I guess” the man said with a cheeky grin to those of us
sitting next to him. There was another parachute hanging across the aisle and I
made a mental note that that one was gonna be mine, lol.
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| Inside the cabin |
The Ukrainian crewman gave us a safety briefing. “Thank you for flying
with us today. Please buckle your seatbelt. There are three exits…here, here
and one in the back compartment behind that green curtain. The windows open
like this” (open) “ and close like this” (close) “Please wait until we park in
Voinjama to stand up. Using your earplugs will make you more comfortable”. Do I
totally have a crush on the blond haired, blue eyed, tanned and muscley Ukrainian
crewman in his combat fatigues with his chopper headphones on? Ohhh da!
(actually, yes in Ukrainian is apparently tak, but that joke is much better in
Russian J).
Eventually they started the engines and the seat started vibrating and the rotors
starting whirring causing a mini strobe-light shadow effect in the cabin. We
briefly lifted off the ground and hovered for a few seconds and then set back
down and started driving down the runway. Next thing I knew, we were in the
air. We flew the 1 hour journey at about 2,000 ft. It definitely was not a
comfortable ride. My back was up against the wall and half of a window, so I
mostly leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees and my teeth chattered
from the vibration the whole time. Some of the guys managed to sleep which I
thought was impressive despite the guy next to me occasionally nodding over
into me.
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| View out the window I was leaning against |
Days like this remind me why I love my job. Who needs rush hour traffic
and a tiny cubicle with florescent lighting when you can be in a helicopter flying
out into the African bush?
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| The Voinjama airfield |
Looks both cool and terrifying!
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