The Misadventures of Paulo the Pilot
Sometime in 1988
(Journal entry)

By David Blumenkrantz

Dr. Andreas Steiner, the masterful Swiss surgeon who runs our medical programs in Zaire, recently made a rare appearance in Nairobi, to purchase supplies and make contact with the outside world. Due to fly back to the bush the other morning, he arrived at our Wilson Airport offices in a state of some agitation. It seems that Paulo, the pilot who was scheduled to fly him back in our Cessna had, perhaps in a drunken stupor, injured himself on a broken toilet seat the night before. "This idiot!," Steiner growled. The gash in his rear end would need to be stitched quickly, the doctor grumbled, so that they could leave Kenya on schedule . . .

The operation was performed on a conference table right there in our offices, and away they went.

Paulo lends a hand navigating a fishng boat on the Indian Ocean, on vacation in Lamu Photo by David Blumenkrantz

Paulo Pompili is one of those characters you'd expect to find in a European's "wacky adventures in Africa" book. Paulo is a good guy, around 40, who has already flown me in and around Zaire, and up to Marsabit in northern Kenya. He speaks passable English with a heavy Italian accent, and when in Nairobi has been seen in all the usual places drinking the Kenyan beer and chatting up the ladies. I like the guy, and we've even become friends away from work, though like everyone else who has flown with him I'm a bit nervous when airborne.

Technically (or is it legally?) an amateur pilot, ICA began using him recently, for reasons that remain unclear. I think he lacks only the requisite hours and a better knowledge of navigational skills to become a certified pro. He's extremely cautious, always obsessively concerned with the weight before take-off, to the point of annoyance for the veterans who are used to flying with former Vietnam pilots with their devil-may-care attitudes. I consider his cautiousness an attribute rather than a handicap, but what makes me (and everyone else) nervous is his tenseness when unsure of exactly where he is flying.

On a continent where the majority of expatriates have been characterized as being either "mercenaries, missionaries or misfits," reputations are often earned in the most dramatic of fashions. Paulo earned his at the controls, where his flying technique occasionally crossed the line from humorous adventure into pure terror. The first time he flew to Lumumbashi (the major city in the extreme south of Zaire), Dr. Steiner said Paulo couldn't find it, and was afraid they would fly into Zimbabwe airspace, where they would likely be shot down. Thus his legend has grown quickly, prompting our top administrators to introduce him with a sarcastic chuckle as "our new pilot."

Water engineers Curt Reynolds and Adrian Ratcliffe, Marsabit Photo by David Blumenkrantz

Once, when he flew some of our European administrators and fundraisers up to Sololo to visit water development projects, the plane disappeared into a thick bank of clouds just near Mt. Kenya, putting the passengers in fear of a collision with the landmark snow-capped peaks. Curt Reynolds, the Indiana native who ran our water development program in Marsabit, recalled that when the plane finally reached Sololo, he watched it approach the makeshift grass runway at a strange, careening angle. When it landed, the passengers were decidedly green around the gills, but happy that they hadn't accidentally flown into Ethiopia where they could have had the plane impounded indefinitely. Comic relief came when Paulo forgot to put the wooden blocks under the wheels, and the wind caused it the plane to roll dozens of feet before they noticed and chased it down.

On the flight back to Nairobi, the plane was supposed to land in the Rendille and Samburu tribal region of Ngurunit, where our British water engineer Adrian Ratcliffe had prepared a huge feast for the visitors. But Paulo felt the airstrip was too short, that he wouldn't be able to take off again with all the weight, so he bypassed the site. Fortunately Adrian was able to catch a ride with another plane that by chance happened to make a rare stop in Ngurunit.

For me, a similar mix of comedy and terror came in the same region, on a different flight.

On every flight I've taken with him, we end up charting the route as we go. Peering down over his shoulder out the window, he'll ask me, "is that a village?" or "is that a railroad track?", or "that's mount so-and-so-- no, it's mount so-and-so." This actually makes the trips more interesting, as I spot little towns and other landmarks for him, but as the following example illustrates, there are times when you feel like you take your life in your hands when you enter Paulo's world . . .

Two weeks ago I accompanied the water engineers on the flight to Maikona, the Gabbra village where they were to meet with Curt Reynolds to survey the area for future drilling sites. It was a beautiful clear day, and Paulo gave us the treat of flying a close as possible to the craggy peaks of Mt. Kenya-- one of the most spectacular sites I've ever seen-- mountain lakes, a bit of snow, the air so crystal clear you felt as though you could reach out and break off one of the icy peaks. This gave way to the northern country, marked developmentally at Isiolo, where the paved road ends in that part of Africa until somewhere probably near Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Once again it was "look for a small dirt highway there, a landing strip here, a village there . . ." on past Marsabit Mountain, which I knew from previous trips. Then it got tricky. Maikona is tiny town-- just a village really, an old missionary settlement-- some 60 kms northeast of the mountain. Following the compass directions as best as he could, Paulo was keeping us near the dirt road, which had to eventually lead us to Maikona. We were all looking for the place where the lava flows end and the desert begins; the landing strip of Maikona was supposedly along there somewhere. We were confronted with a series of dirt roads, confusing Paulo and I, and putting him in his tense mood. When he gets like that the sweat pours, and it's better not to say anything unnecessary, even if it's meant to be helpful. More than once I've had him slap my hand away from a map he'd positioned on my lap, as we crossed over the endless jungles of Zaire, or the deserts of Kenya . . .

This time it was getting thick, as we were surely nearing our destination, but uncertainty still prevailed. Once I said something to the effect that I thought I saw the town, and Paulo snapped back, "Don't tell me what you think you see, tell me what you see!" I was getting nervous.

At last we positively identified Maikona, a minute cluster of tin roofs and huts, with the mission school next to the rocky landing strip. As we made a complete circle over the town and headed for the strip, I couldn't see it, not realizing yet that it was merely an open area marked by a few stones along the sides. As the plane came wavering in, I was still wondering where the landing strip was-- we were only a hundred or so feet off the ground, coming in at a crazy angle, over treetops and camels, and heading straight for the school.

Suddenly Paulo muttered through gritted teeth, "Shit, I can't see the landing strip. I've lost it!" At that point I was ready for anything, then seemingly at the last second he regained his bearings, straightened the wings and took us down for a bumpy landing. How do you spell relief?

As a humorous epilogue, when we took off two hours later, it was into a strong headwind that caused us to careen wildly once again, this time directly toward the cluster of Gabbra schoolchildren that had gathered to watch the plane. Screaming, they scattered like chickens in every direction, leaving me laughing to myself at the wonder of it all . . .