Afriqiya -- Hole in the Plane

Louis Egbe Mbua

Note: This is not a negative rendition of the Afriqiya Airways. Their services were very good.

In July 2009, I arrived at the Douala International Airport in Cameroon en route to London. I had come to Cameroon to attend my brother’s wedding in Kumba.  With the formalities over and all marriage vows etched in stone, I found my return ticket, and was escorted to the Douala International Airport. The Afriqiya flight was scheduled for 11.00 pm Cameroon time; and was, therefore, important that one arrives at the airport at least an hour so as to check in and board. Furthermore, there were no computers displaying light emitting signals on huge electronic boards in the airport.

The consequences are that travellers have to depend on their raw instincts to ascertain as to what time one’s particular plane arrives. The trick, I found out later, was to check in as quickly as possible, and then move on to quickly find your way into the waiting room. As most of the waiting rooms are adjacent to the runway; and that their glasses windows are in the same geometrical location opposite to the runway, one can actually physically see their aircraft complete with their logos and inscriptions in the fuselage, landing and then taxiing to the gates. Or so I thought.

Having arrived in time, I went through the motion until the last security post manned by a certain burley Cameroonian “security officer” in plain clothes, possibly a secret agent as the custom of Cameroon.

“Ton passeport Monsieur! “, he growled in French looking a bit menacing straight into my eyes. I handed him my passport. He took it, looked at it intensely as though observing the parts of a microscopic organism poorly magnified by the traditional microscope. Having thoroughly examined the soft back, he opened the first page, scrutinised it again and saying in his breath:  “Not sure about this”. I equally hissed under my breath, quite instinctively: “sure, you won’t”.

“Tu as dit que quoi?”, he half-shouted in a quite self-important intonation and apparent anger.

“Oh, I was just practising one of my songs”, I threw back a hastily concocted reply in English to save my skin; and risking the presumption that he may not understand English fully (Cameroon is officially bilingual although the officials in the French-speaking part of the country always insist on speaking in French and assuming that every other person understands French).

The security guard was taken aback.  His countenance recovered from my seemingly surprising positive attack on his attitude.

“Alors,tu es musicien a Londre?” he asked with a mixture of excitement, surprise and seriousness on his face.

If I said yes, he would have to investigate me further, and possibly delay my check in, almost certainly missing my flight; but if I said no, then he would have to suspect what I had just said putting my “security” clearance under profound jeopardy. So, I quickly answered without batting an eye lid:

“Oui  et Non, man no make erreur.” I kept my face straight holding back an audible laughter in case he mistook me for a kind of stand up comedian. He stared at me; and I Iooked at him, inspected him from top to bottom, and then fixated my darkish brown-blue iris( I change the colour of my Iis to frighten potential adversaries), which actually change in colour as the circumstance warrant, on his face in a bid to apply an importunate psychological dressing down and to administers some fright. It transformed into a stand-off match in an intimidating battle of the batting of the eyelids. The security man was frightened out of his wits.

I allowed my eyes to wander around the other commuters who queued behind me without actually turning my head or alter my iris position. I noticed from the corners of my eyes that every eye was fixed on the unfolding spectacle, some of the travellers actually giggling.

Confused, and perhaps believing that I was some kind of Lapiro De Mbanga supporter, the Security man demanded abruptly as if one were in a military training selection exercise in a camp somewhere in the middle of the forest:

“Can you make a photocopy de cet passporte?” he demanded in a new version of Franglais or Camglais as some would like it be referred to, depending on what part of Cameroon one has their origins.

“Why would you require a photocopy of the passport when you actually hold the real document?” I rhetorically responded fervently in English and in half-amazement, with conviction.

“By the by, do you have a photocopy machine in the airport?” I made a reasonably polite demand.

I was ushered into a shop in the airport, handed out a  CFA 1000 (about  70 p) note to the lady on the till, who made a photocopy of the desired pages of my passport, hurried back to the check-in point and gave the copies to the custom officer or the suspected l’homme de CENER. He glanced at it, thanked me, handed back my passport and opened the gate. I reciprocated the polity; but not after again questioning the officer as to why he would need a photocopy of a passport.

 “Well, I’d have to send it to the London High Commission for checks of authenticity”, he replied. “We have to be absolutely sure that this is your passport,”   he said quietly.  Not to cause any more commotion, I decided to leave it at that and trudged the long straight corridor, turned one or two sharp corners into the waiting room.

There were other travellers waiting for the Afriqiya aircraft. Since there were no computers or bill board to indicate flight schedules, one had to depend on his own sight or that of other travellers to actually see the aircraft taxiing to the gate for passengers to board. One had to keep asking;

“Has the Afriqiya plane arrived yet?”

“Non,” was the answer from a seasoned traveller. “It is normally late by up to two hours,” he continued.

He was right.  At about 1.00 am, the distinctive 999 logo pasted on the tail of the Airbus manufactured aircraft could be seen advancing onto the gate, a cool 2 hours late. No apologies were given but each and every traveller was relieved that the plane had arrived; and that we are to leave at last. We boarded the plane and had a smooth, enjoyable and uneventful flight to Tripoli where we had to catch the next plane to London Gatwick. There was another delay in Tripoli but we eventually boarded a similar Afriqiya Airways Airbus plane.

After a brief announcement by the flight attendant, we boarded the aircraft. Took my seat by the window, pulled out a book and began to read. Next to me was an African woman of about middle age range. After exchanging a few African pleasantries, the flight attendant began her health and safety instructions and signifying that the plane was set for take off. At that very moment the African woman pointed at the hand luggage compartment just opposite to and above our seat:

 “There is a hole in the plane!” she exclaimed. I looked intently and actually saw that one of the compartments was damaged and that there was actually a hole in the plane. To be absolutely sure, I got up from my seat and had a good old-fashioned look. To my ultimate horror, there was actually a hole in the plane. However, the hole appeared to be confined onto one damaged luggage compartment. At the same time, who knows where the hole led to?  Did the hole lead to the outside of the plane?  I went back to my seat, picked up my book and resumed my enjoyable perusal. The plane was geared to take off anyway.

“What happens happens,” I thought, secretly frightened out of my wits.  But the African woman continued to insist that there was a hole in the plane; and reported the matter in full hearing of the already disconcerted passengers. So, we decided to draw the attention of this seemingly grave technical matter to the flight attendant who was already giving health and safety instructions in case of a plane crash! The Lady next to me, pointed to the hole, asking the flight attendant to “do something about this”. She looked around, appearing at a loss for words and said “Oh it is but a small matter, it is not important, and the plane is about to take off.” Now, we did not know what this meant exactly. Is it because the plane was about to take off that made the hole unimportant or was the hole unimportant because it didn’t actually lead to the outside – the atmosphere? And if the second hypothesis is true, how did she know where the hole led to? Was she speaking from experience? And even if she spoke from experience, was she a qualified Aircraft Engineer? With all the arguments and counter-arguments conflicting in my mind, I decided to leave my seat, took off my glasses and took a good old fashioned look again, but this time I went nearer to the whole. I saw nothing because the hole was dark.  At least I didn’t see the outside lights of the day; and because we were travelling during the afternoon, I could conclude that the hole was confined to the single luggage compartment.

Extracted from the forth coming Book: A 21^st Century Trilogy of Essays Book 2.