by Tom Vitale
“Welcome to the jungle!” Dan said on the other side of customs. With a cigarette in his mouth, baseball cap, and rumpled Hawaiian shirt, Dan looked younger than he sounded over the phone. In addition to the usual fixer responsibilities, we were counting on Dan to get us through checkpoints, as well as keeping us from getting robbed, jailed, or worse.
“This episode is gonna be killer!” He grinned. “Figuratively speaking.”
Checking in to the Gorillas Golf Hotel—a generic establishment catering to business travelers—we met Dez, the team leader of our new “risk management consultants.” Along with Warren and Stew, the field medic, they were a group of confidence-inspiring ex–British military types. After the gear was unpacked and Tony arrived, we gathered in the hotel’s fluorescent-lit conference room to go over a security briefing.
“You gents have picked one hell of a place to make a TV show,” Dez said in a pleasant Kiwi accent. “As you well know, the Congo is in the midst of a very ugly war. The Eastern DRC is considered high-risk for hijackings, robbery, military and police roadblocks, as well as disease outbreaks. Additionally, as of last week, peace talks with M23 rebels who hold territory to the north and west of Goma appear to have collapsed. Unconfirmed reports suggest the M23 have moved closer to the city and could invade as they did last November. There are a number of warning signs that point to a possible escal—”
“Should I be wearing one of those cool Geraldo Rivera journalist safari jackets?” Tony asked enthusiastically. “Do they make those for men? I hear Christiane Amanpour has hers personally tailored at Yves Saint Laurent in Paris.”
“We’ll be monitoring the situation,” Dez said, clearing his throat. “But in terms of likelihood and probability, crime and logistics are the biggest hazards. We have a large footprint, which exacerbates the potential for harassment, intimidation, and demand for bribes by government officials, the army, and police, all of whom are highly prone to corruption and have a reputation for substance abuse. Interactions with anyone thought to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol should be treated with a high degree of caution and a cool head. Panic breeds panic. Unfortunately, there aren’t any ‘good guys’ in this conflict.”
“Welcome to my world,” Dan said. “About fifteen different ‘soldiers’ extorted cash from me at gunpoint just on the scout, and some drunk FARDCs started fucking with me because I approached a ‘checkpoint’ too late at night… I can’t count how many times I’ve been robbed, arrested, officially and non-officially, and shot at. This is life in Congo, man.”
WE SET OUT AT DAYBREAK for Goma. Our five beat-up Land Cruisers convoyed through steep green mountains, in and out of cloudbanks and highland villages. Animals, children, pedestrians, and street vendors were all well rehearsed at stepping out of the way of our trucks at the last possible second. We encountered the aftermath of a massive tractor-trailer wreck, but the roads were well paved, and thanks to the ban on plastic, Rwanda was spectacularly clean.
On the four-hour drive, there was plenty of time to question the wisdom of bringing our semi–food show to an active red zone where the population was starving, and most people lived off less than a dollar a day. Out the window, Rwanda’s terraced farms of plantains, cassava, and corn whizzed by in a blur. I’d read that in contrast the Congolese didn’t farm. If you had a patch of land with stuff worth killing for, someone would kill you for it. Our security briefing the night before had been a stark reminder of where we were headed. In most places there was at least some sort of rule of law, and you knew who might do you harm. But the Congo was in ruins: much of the country was a patchwork of lawless rebel-controlled territories.
Thinking it through logically it really demanded the question, Why the fuck were we going to the Congo? Was it just about satisfying one of Tony’s biggest obsessions? Or was it a way for him to use the show to shine a light on something bigger? When I asked Tony why he wanted to go to the Congo, he said, “Don’t worry about why, did he tell you why in Apocalypse Now? No. He wanted a mission. He got one.” Although I didn’t voice my concerns, I found Tony’s answer unsatisfying. I well knew Tony liked to make people think, keep them guessing, his storytelling style a reflection of unsatisfying real-life complexities. But this wasn’t a show sum-up, this was our lives we were talking about. There just had to be a better reason we were going to an active war zone.
“Get ready to say goodbye to civilization,” Dez called over the walkie as we approached the border. Entering Congo, there was no mistaking Goma was a battlefield. Alongside NGO trucks we navigated a maze of semi-passable roads, barbed wire, bombed-out buildings, and UN armored tanks, while choppers hovered overhead.
Checking in to the hotel, I made sure Tony was connected to the internet and asked if he had any b-roll shot requests before we headed out. “Women doing all the work, bathing and washing, the struggle to stay clean and alive,” he said. “The big takeaway is beauty and misery.” I left Tony to his iPad and went to join the crew loading up the trucks.
“Above all this country is a dog-eat-dog world,” Dan was saying in the way of a pre-shoot pep talk. “We will need to do surgical strikes. Get in and out quick before it gets too hairy. It’s fucking heartbreaking, it’s also reality. The city is built on and with lava, dirt, dust, trash, sorrow, and intensity…”
To break the tension, Jerry—one of our directors of photography famous for his affable and soothing demeanor—offered a group fist bump and said, “Superpowers unite, take the form of… Television Crew!”
As we hit the streets with cameras rolling, shouts of “Mazunga!” greeted us everywhere we went. Due to the endless fighting and various rebel groups roving the jungle just outside of town, Goma was overcrowded with refugees, and now with the looming threat of another invasion by the M23, society felt like it was on the verge of collapse. Downtown we filmed two men playing guitar; it was a moment of peace amid the crowding, yelling, bustle, and chaos of people struggling to stay alive in a garbage-strewn landscape.
Horeb, Dan’s right-hand man, was always with us. A native Congolese, Horeb had a gentle demeanor that stood out in stark contrast to the aggressive, hard-edgedness of, well, almost everything else. A youthful forty-five, he spoke eight languages and was constantly dealing with some sort of mini catastrophe like the multitude of people who came screaming at the cameras, demanding paperwork or money, or both.
“Why were those guys so angry?” I asked after what felt like a particularly aggressive interaction.
“They say people with cameras come, take pictures, nothing changes,” Horeb said. “I told them you are the good guys.”
Horeb’s words caught me off guard. Were we actually the good guys? At the moment it certainly didn’t feel like it. Working in more troubled parts of the world highlighted an uncomfortable aspect of the job. We weren’t here to dig wells or bring health care to the Congo. When your objective is to get footage that illustrates a story—in this case how much destruction and tragedy exists in a place—it puts you in the awkward position of witnessing human suffering as a goal. After asking to photograph someone in desperate conditions, I returned to a nice hotel, while they did not.
“It’s the worst for women,” Horeb said. “Rape happens all the time in Congo. It’s okay to rape if you give a chicken to the woman’s family. I do this job because I want my country to be better for my children when they grow up.”
While we were filming Goma’s lava-ravaged cathedral to illustrate the devastation from a 2001 volcanic eruption, street children started pelting us with rocks. Mo, our other director of photography—who wore multiple cameras like some people wore jewelry—kept recording while we jumped back in the truck. “What the fuck was that?” I asked as we drove away, Mo’s camera still rolling on a man chasing off the kids with a big stick.
“There is so much anger, even from the children,” Horeb said. “Everyone is tired of the war. More than five million dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees because of this war.”
What started at dusk as tropical rain had distorted into an unbroken roar by the time our trucks arrived back at the hotel. We joined Tony on the veranda for some beers under the protection of a leaking roof. When not filming standard food and travel stuff, what the show did best was talk to people when their world wasn’t burning down. The Congo, however, was on fire.
“These bottles are worth more than the beer inside,” Dan said. He was holding a half-full Primus up to the light while watching the carbonation expire. “They’re reused and re-transported over all the Congo’s shitty roads. Many of these bottles have probably seen several wars in their lifetime.”
Despite Dan’s tough exterior, I got the sense being surrounded by so much pain and suffering weighed heavily on him. “There aren’t any easy answers,” he said. “Many Congolese are forced into these rebel groups. They’re all fighting over ores like coltan, it’s some shit in every cell phone. There’s trillions of dollars’ worth of it here. So the fighting isn’t going to end any time soon.”
“SHIT, MAN, I JUST GOT a call from the driver heading to Kisangani with our supplies. He got fucking held up for all his cash!” Dan said, finishing a cigarette. “Aren’t ya glad we’re flying?”
Weeks before, while planning how to get the 400 miles from Goma to Kisangani—our closest rendezvous point with the Congo River—it had become clear the overland route was not an option. The Congo’s once well-developed network of highways had been all but reclaimed by jungle or destroyed by war and, as warned, was a hunting ground for bandits. But flying didn’t seem much more appealing. In the Congo, commercial airliners were known for going down on a somewhat regular basis. “Look at it this way,” Dan said. “Planes here crash in the jungle all the time. Would you rather be in a Boeing going five hundred miles per hour or a bush plane going fifty miles per hour?” To someone like me, with a morbid fear of flying, it sounded like a sensible, if unsettling, argument.
Dan knew a charter outfit that operated some cinematic and historically significant aircraft. “My bush pilot buddy Wiyo told me he’s flown JFK’s private jet and Elvis’s old tour plane,” Dan said. “Dude has some crazy stories.” At least if we were going to die in a plane crash, it was going to make a good scene.
Approaching the airport, Mo got shots out the car window of UN guard posts and abandoned 707s. Once we arrived, the crew started to unload and set up gear while Dan, Dez, and I went to investigate the airworthiness of our plane. Seeing the comical antique shoebox of an aircraft for the first time, I thought, there’s no way in hell Elvis or JFK would be caught dead in this thing. It looked like a less aerodynamic version of a 1960s Winnebago with two propeller engines and an unusual stubby double-finned tail.
“SC-7 Skyvan,” Dez said, kicking the tire. “Same type my mates Sledge and Nobby were killed in. It’s a good crate.”
“This was the plane used to transport Queen Victoria’s wardrobe on her tour of Africa,” said a proud young man in pilot’s uniform.
“Meet Wiyo,” Dan said. “Don’t worry, he went to aviation school in Florida.”
“So, Wiyo, Dan tells me you’ve got some interesting stories about flying,” I said, making small talk.
“Oh, yes,” Wiyo said with a broad smile. “I was landing one time and a poisonous snake dropped out of the console above my head. Make a move and it bites, I die. Don’t move, I crash the plane. What to do…?”
“FIVE MINUTES TO TONY, FIVE MINUTES TO TONY,” crackled over the walkie, and I was actually glad for the distraction this time.
“So, what’s your evil plan?” Tony asked me as he arrived.
“Well, I thought we’d do a little ‘pre-game’ talk before taking off. The weather is turning,” I said, eyeing the darkening sky. “And I’m told this was formerly Queen Victoria’s ‘Flying Wardrobe.’”
“I think you mean Queen Elizabeth,” Tony corrected, looking doubtfully at the airplane. “Though she must have been very young at the time.”
Seeing Tony was in a frolicsome mood and Mo had the camera ready to go, I asked, “So, what are we doing today?”
“We’re flying to Kisangani; this is the preferred route,” he said. “The alternative is how many hours?”
“Four and a half days.”
“Yeah… well, we could drive for four and a half days over what could only notionally be called roads, or we could… fly this.”
A huge bolt of lightning and boom of thunder shook the runway. “Uh oh…” Tony said with a slightly nervous laugh. “Well, I’m a fatalist. I don’t worry about individual aircraft. I figure your number’s up, your number’s up. And today’s not my day.”
As if on cue, there was another flash of lightning and peel of thunder. “Well, let’s get this thing airborne,” Tony said. “You’re anticipating a smooth flight today?”
“No,” Wiyo said, looking up at menacing storm clouds. “As you can see, the weather is deteriorating now.”
“So, a little bumpy?” Tony asked.
“I’m wondering if we should wait until after the storm,” I said.
“Yeah—” Wiyo began.
“I’m sorry. Are you the pilot?” Tony interrupted. “If the man says we’re ready to take off, then I put my faith in him.”
“You didn’t even let him finish!” Turning to Wiyo, I asked, “Are we good to go or should we wait?”
“Yeah,” Wiyo responded.
“Okay, then let’s go,” Tony said, boarding the airplane. “There’s no room for yellowbellies on Queen Victoria’s Flying Wardrobe!”
At this point all sorts of things were running through my head, like I was pretty sure Wiyo had been trying to say it wasn’t a good time to take off. And I was losing control of the situation because Tony was in a hurry. And our plane must be overloaded with gear, and this was the worst day ever for my seat belt to be broken, and I didn’t want the headline to read, “Anthony Bourdain and Unnamed Film Crew Perish in Flying Wardrobe,” and what had happened to Dez’s friends Sledge and Nobby? Fortunately, by the time the crew loaded up, a torrential downpour with accompanying crashes of thunder enveloped the airport, and it was clear we weren’t going to beat the storm. “Beer o’clock,” Dan said, as we all ran to the terminal for cover. A frighteningly huge crack of thunder made everybody jump as sheets of rain came down sideways, the power went out, and staying in Goma was starting to seem like an attractive option.
“So what groups are in between us and Kisangani?” Tony asked.
“We’ll start off going over M23,” Dan said, opening a beer. “But we won’t get enough altitude to get out of firing range.”
“Right, so if somebody’s a little high and wants to pop off a few rounds at us, there’s that?” Tony said with a laugh.
“Pretty much. Then once we pass them, we’ll go over the FDLR.”
“And those are the former Interahamwe, genocidal Hutus?”
Dan nodded. “After that we go over the FARDC.”
“Which is the, uhhh, not particularly nice government forces?”
“Exactly. Then about fifteen or twenty Mai Mai groups.”
“And you get along with those guys?”
“Yeah, they’re cool… except for when they eat people.”
“Now, let’s not be judgmental. We respect all lifestyle choices on this show,” Tony said. “Okay, shut the camera off. You’ve had enough of my tarmac snark.”
The weather cleared enough for a DC-10 cargo jet to land, and we reboarded. As the engines spooled up and our flying death trap accelerated down the runway, Tony closed his eyes to take a nap while my hair turned white. Once airborne, water started leaking through the ceiling, but Dez was more concerned that Dan was smoking. Several hours later, approaching Kisangani, Mo strapped on a harness to get some aerial shots of the river. Wiyo opened the rear cargo hatch and the cabin depressurized, sucking out a flutter of production receipts. Despite my having absolutely convinced myself that our plane was going to crash in a vast uncharted jungle full of cannibalistic re
bels, we landed safely.
“THE PLACE HAS A MYSTERIOUS vibe,” Dan said as we drove into town. Kisangani was once the Congo’s second largest city, and we passed Belgian colonial houses, administrative offices, hotels, and tall apartment buildings; many of them were choked with trees and vines, giving the impression of being dragged back into the jungle against their will. Compared to Goma, however, the local population was quite friendly.
Tony was in a strange mood and eager for his first look at the Congo River. I was starting to get the idea we weren’t just about to embark on the dramatic climax of the Congo episode; as far as Tony was concerned, this river trip was going to be the climax of his travel career. No pressure.
Standing on the bank, we watched commuters traverse back and forth across the water on hollowed-out tree-trunk canoes called pirogues. Larger wooden boats arrived crowded with passengers while goods were loaded and unloaded via narrow planks. Women and kids transported large yellow containers of water on their heads. Squealing livestock was tossed overboard and rounded up. Between concrete staircases leading to nowhere—the orphaned remains of what must have once been a network of piers—women did laundry, men washed motorbikes, and kids splashed in the water.
“So, this is Kisangani… Known in Heart of Darkness as the ‘Inner Station,’” Tony said to the camera with a wistful expression. “It’s what Conrad saw here that inspired the book and, of course, Apocalypse Now. It’s been a lifelong dream to retrace Conrad’s steps. Now here I am.”