In
Mombasa, we also looked after Somalia but there was no business and my time was
better spent in Nairobi or elsewhere in East Africa where our cargo mainly came
from. But one day Rotterdam asked me to go and have a look so as to update the instruction
book, so off I went by plane via Nairobi to Mogadiscio.
We did have agents so no sweat! I arrived on a sunny Sunday afternoon and took
a taxi to town about 10 KM away.
Now
as you may have seen from the pictures of top fashion models like Naomi
Campbell, Somali women are quite good looking. So I was pleasantly surprised
when hundreds of them lined the road whistling and beckoning at me! Being a shy
type I did not react straight away but then I thought I might as well stop and
talk to some of them. It turned out they wanted a lift to town so I loaded up
all the available space with these tanned virgins. Pleasant ride!
The
one and only major hotel was old but alright. In the evening I went to a
restaurant on the roof of some two storey building and enjoyed a sumptuous meal
of lobster, crabs and other delicacies. Italian wine in
abundance. At 9 o'clock a band struck up on an adjoining roof and I
danced away until well into the night with the nubile nieces of aforementioned
Naomi.
The
next day was spent with the agents except that I suddenly developed a severe
ache in a lower front
tooth. It was so painful I could not talk properly and in
desperation I asked the agent to take me to a dentist. He operated from a house
with a large front waiting room chockabloc with
Somalis who also needed his attention. But of course the white Bwana could not
be kept waiting so I was duly pushed through the crowd into the doctors
surgery.
The
chair was old and the drill foot operated by the Doctor. But what struck me
with horror was the floor, covered with blood which the patients had spat out.
No water to flush your mouth! And you know what: my toothache disappeared as by
magic right there and then. I fled the slaughter house and the tooth behaved
until I got back to Mombasa. The power of fright!
Ships
calling at Mogadiscio are unloaded into lighters at
sea because there was no harbour big enough to accommodate ocean vessels. The
Roads were always quite choppy which caused damage to the ships from the
lighters hitting the sides. Main reason why Nedlloyd did not
call there. Not healthy for the lighters either. Whilst I was there a
ship was outside unloading camels! Yes, camels from the Persian Gulf (probably
Afghanistan) which are used a lot in this barren place. Poor things were put
into a sling and then hoisted up and put overboard by the ship's winches which
as the vessels were usually old, were steam driven. Quite a sight! Could not
count the broken legs but some went straight to the knacker.
They
were, in fact, building a harbour to accommodate big ships including a cruise
liner! As things work in these dictatorships (Col Barre
was the roverhoofdman at the time) infrastructure
development takes time.
A
year later, just before I was due to go on overseas' leave, Rotterdam informed
me that the Bovenkerk was on her way to East Africa
with a cargo of 1000 tons of cardboard boxes for Chismayo
a port just North of the Somalia-Kenya border. As there were no records of port
performance they were getting a bit worried about possible congestion or very
slow despatch. One would think they should have thought about that before
loading the cargo but never mind, Jansen was there to fix things! They did know
that Chismayo had a deepwater quay where the ship
could offload with its own gear.
They
asked me a few days before the ship was due in Kismayo
to go down to see whether everything was alright and do something in case it
wasn't. This was five days before I was due to go on leave to Holland with the
family. First obstacles was to get a visum. This normally takes about two weeks. Anyhow I
trouped off to Nairobi , went to the Somali embassy
hoping that they would take two weeks. But I felt obliged to make at least an
effort! So I presented my Consular identity card to the counter clerk. He took
it to the Ambassador who immediately came out of his office to shake my hand.
Invited me in for coffee and ten minutes later I had my passport back with
gratis visum! I am going to look through six 60 page
old passports to put a date to all this! Hang
on............................................................... It was in
January, 1976!
So,
with lead in my shoes I boarded the flight to Mogadiscio
via Nairobi on a Wednesday arriving in the late afternoon. Had asked the agent to arrange my
trip to Kismayo. The only opportunity was to charter
a small Cessna 140 which they had fixed, take-off 9 A.M. Thursday morning. The
Somali pilot was a very nice chap. Infact I like
these local pilots very much. Whites are in the habit to forever fiddle with
the controls. Trim: left-right-nose down or up, engine revs etc. This guy
started the bloody thing, took it to 10.000 feet and there we cruised along the
coastline. Hard to get lost in brilliant sunshine! What struck me that every 50
kms or so there were canals from the coast going
inland.. They must have been irrigation channels to
the big river running parallel to the coast. The pilot
who must have seen it dozens of time, did not know either. But it stuck out
that in this barren country somebody had dug these huge canals. No doubt the
Italians, who governed this part of Somalia until lost to the Allies in the second world war. Then "independence"! (from sanity!)
Although
things were not as Barbaric then, under Barre, as
now, the Europeans living in Mogadiscio, (mostly
United Nations personel) lived in a
large walled compounds I knew somebody and visited. Could
not have been all that kosher although I walked around alone at night without
any problems.
The
pilot obligingly circled the "Bovenkerk" a
couple of times very low just about taken the flag of the mast but at least the
Captain was alerted so that he could get the beer cold and bitterballen
warm. I went on board shortly afterwards and found everything working very
smoothly. In fact the ship sailed the next day which was good going for 1000
tons of light cargo in those days.
With
a few hours in hand, I decided to have a look around Chismayo's
surroundings and we went to the mouth of the river which was very wide (about 1
km) and beautiful. Large herds of Camels had congregated after trekking through
the desert, to drink and bathe accompanied by Somali women with large water
jugs on their heads and a rope to the lead camel.
They
took the opportunity of the camels having a deep drink to "brick"
some the males. That is castrate them so that they
would be calmer and not impregnate every female (camel) in sight. To do this
the women would slink up to the Camel's rear and pulverise the two clocks of
their clock and hammer spiel by smashing two bricks on them!
When
I was given a demonstration I nearly went through the roof and shouted at the
women: "Doesn't that hurt?" to which they replied: "Oh no! Only when you don’t retract your thumbs in time!"
But
the story has a happy ending! The Agents mentioned, (in fact they talked of
nothing else) that the harbour would be ready on one month time and the first
caller would be the German liner "BREMEN" with a couple of hundred
tourists on board. That was the good news. The bad news (for them) was that
although they had bought a tug to moor the ship the thing was still in
Rotterdam
and not big or fast enough to sail all the way on it's
own steam safely! But again: "Jansen to the rescue".
We
had a monthly sailing from Europe to East Africa and I remembered that the next
vessel due to sail from Rotterdam in a few days' time was the Seine Lloyd which
had a 250 ton heavy lift derrick, one of the few ships in the fleet.
I
told them that I would be in Rotterdam on Monday and would fix it. And that is what I did. Rotterdam happy to get an additional US$ 100.000 for doing very
little. The last port was Rotterdam and the first one Mogadiscio so the tug would not be in the way in
intermediate ports! As a bonus we got a second tug a few sailings later for the
same freight figure!
I
managed to go on leave as planned as well!
This
proves once again that one often goes out to get beer to come back with
champagne or cognac!
Anton Jansen
28 May 2002