Mind the Spitting Snakes

Contribution from Neville Desselss

In the late 70s, early 80s, we were requested to wet-lease a Herc for an operation in what was then Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Operations Manager at the time, Capt de Jager, Marketing Manager, Maurice de Robillard and I, were sent to discuss the potential operation with the customer. 

We took a Sabena Airlines flight from Johannesburg to Kinshasa, where we were met by the customer.

It turned out that the potential customer, Citoyen Tambwe Wa Lomami, was related to then-President Mobuto Sese Seko and obviously a wealthy man. He had coffee plantations in a place called Boende. They would grow and harvest the coffee there and then ship it by barge down the Zaire River to the port of Matadi where the coffee was loaded for shipping.

Unfortunately, his barges were being continuously being hijacked by rebels and pirates from across the river in neighbouring Congo Brazza, and he was wanting to fly product out.

After discussions on the operation, we were flown in his private QueenAir to Mbandaka, Boende where we landed on a terrifying airstrip called Boma. This particular airstrip has a sheer drop off a cliff at the end of the threshold and is located near the port of Matadi.

Our base for 6 weeks, was going to be Boende which was a village in the middle of the jungle. On the walk from the airstrip down to the village, the escort kept repeating “mind the spitting snakes, mind the spitting snakes”.

Our accommodation was extremely basic and quite how we were going to survive those living conditions with the disease, spitting snakes, and goodness knows what else was beyond me.

Thankfully, for some reason, the contract never materialised.

A couple of years ago in the early 2000s, our Herc contracted to the UN was tasked to undertake an airfield inspection at the same airfield in Boende. While our Hercs can go anywhere there are some places we maybe just didn’t actually want to go!