We took the UN bus and Headed to MONUC HQ. The bus was quite comfortable, so we enjoyed the travel. The first impression of the city was numerous, one of them is I saw the longest market I have ever seen which is starts from the airport until couple hundreds meters from the HQ. The people just flocked at the market. Truly, I want to share it, but I would rather say no. We have to respect them. (again if curious, just find me..he…he…he)

The bus stopped in front of the MONUC HQ gate. The driver asked us to get down with our luggage, because he blocked the way. We were amazed, why he didn’t try to find a parking space instead blocking the traffic, heck with that. Now, the disorientation was begun. It was purely our fault. We hesitantly contacted or asked our colleagues about our and their details, such as flight detail, phone number, office, addresses, contact person and so on. This idiocy leaded us to the confusion. Not knowing what to do next, we remembered all the briefing that adequately briefed by Major Samsul Bahari. He is also a Milob’s in MONUC. We were quite fortunate to meet him while he was on his CTO in Jakarta. He told us to pay attention to the people behavior in Kinshasa. Never trust them. They love to get your money out from your pocket. He told us to not let them take our luggage to Indohouse (this is known as the house for all Indonesian officers in Kinshasa which is located at the 9th floor at the new presidential gallery building) that actually nearby the HQ, at around 200 meter away from the building gate to the HQ gate, without any agreement about the price.

At that time, so many people came to us offering a help to bring our luggage. They claimed their know Indohouse and also the officers from Indonesia. Finally, after being cornered by those hustled-buck robbers, we started to ask the price. They answered nothing, just keep silent while lifting up our luggage. We hold them and asked how much? We then know how they playing trick with this kind of situation. They wanted to put us into “no choice zone” after carrying up our luggage to the 9th floor; they will push us to pay more. We kept asking them the price; finally we gave them the price, $ 5. They just say yes while walking to the building. Ups, really apologize, I almost forget to mention one thing that I promised to give you at the first part of this story. The people here are using word “papa” for calling a man and “mama’ for woman, just like the word sir and mam, or monsieur and madam, bro and sis etc. At first you will hardly accept that, but the time will give you the confident to use that.

Climbing the stairs to the 9th floor was not a pleasure at all my friends. After long hectic time of flight, lack of sleep, and of course the dry, hot and humid Kinshasa say hello to your body, your body will begging for rest. The fighting spirit almost hit the rock of bikini bottom…he…he…he… (Sorry to SpongeBob), but the military title that vested on us, always push us to the limit. Finally we arrived in front of the Indohouse’ door. We checked the number, 9 B. Our heart was pumping rapidly, difficult to breathe, actually I saw many stars …ha…ha…ha…ha, and then another breath-stopping moment, the door was locked. Now we screwed. But (there is always a but) those guys who help us with the luggage insist that there were somebody inside. We were looking each other, how come? The door was padlocked from outside. They kept knocking the door and surprisingly they were totally right, there was somebody inside.

The door opened, we saw Major Edwin stood behind the roll bars. He was surprised while looked at us; because he heard nothing about our arrival (again, we are sorry sir). After entered the house and dropped all of our stuffs on the floor, we took our wallet to pay the luggage master. They asked for $ 10. We so pissed, because before they agreed for $ 5. We argued with them while asked Major Edwin the appropriate price for this kind of service. Then we came to our human sense, our luggage maybe more than 15 kg, we could imagine how they struggled, so we just gave then $ 10. We are so darn sweat; hence without any hesitation we took off our clothes, put just the short and shamelessly drink many glasses of water. For some moments three of us laid down on the floor and the heavy eyes attacked us, but the reminder from Major Edwin regarding the necessity to get our MONUC ID as soon as possible bothered our nap. We really wanted to sleep but we couldn’t.

It is 1415 already. We had to clothing up for reporting our arrival to the HQ and of course get the ID card. The most important thing to do after your arrival in the mission is get your ID immediately. The UN determines your date of arrival based on what it is written on your ID, so the entitlement of the MSA (Mission Subsistence Allowance) started when your ID issued. We rushed down still with the exhausted feeling, but the 164 pushed us to move (wish everybody knows what it means). We arrived at CMPO (Chief of Military Personnel office) branch and handed many forms that we have to fill up, fortunately we didn’t have to fill it that day. Since that was Friday, the staff hesitantly received bundle of papers. We can hand it in on Monday instead. Then we hurriedly run to the bus stop. There are many separates MONUC offices in Kinshasa. Each location has different function of work. The UN provides shuttle bus that we call it “dispatch” to move from one office to the others offices every 30 minutes. Now, we needed to go to COTEX to make the ID card and hand in the MSA form to finance section. We almost missed the bus; we had to run in the middle of the day, the hot and humid Kinshasa, the dust and the exhaustive, wearing the hot-trapping camouflage with the unnecessary heavy backpack, pushed us again to the limit. We got in the bus and the sweat wet our uniform. We (Me, Amrin and Aji) looked pale. We were done. We just kept silent on the way to COTEX. Amrin never lost his coolness; always remember to bring his sunglass and his space mask ha…ha…ha. He put it on that made us all smile. That was funny, for me personally, I have never thinking about my sunglass and masker in this kind of chaotic circumstance that actually required us those stuffs. Not only to protect us from sun bright, in the middle of road construction, there were dusts all over the Kinshasa city, its also protect our eyes from the dust and the mask keep our lung from the dirty polluted air. But Amrin still enable to think about it. He was so blessed at that time.

30 minutes had passed. We were at COTEX and again horribly run to the ID section. We were so fortunate. It was 1615 already that mostly the staffs reluctantly to receive any paper work, but because the ID machine was broken for several hours before, they extended their working hours. Finally our ID printed. We were legitimate MILOB and entitle for the MSA (always be the most issue hahahahahaha….). Then, we went to the room next door to handing the financial paper regarding how much money we wanted to keep here and send the rest to our Indonesian bank account. After completing all financial papers, we felt relieved and then our conscious emerged, we realized that we hadn’t had any drink for almost one hour. I thought we were closed enough to be dehydrated. We asked Major Edwin about the cafeteria at COTEX, he said no, OMG we were screwed, our throat so dry that needed the fresh water flow trough it. Then he mentioned that there is a cafeteria at CONGOBAT without hesitation we asked him to bring us there, it was water emergency.

Again we had to wait for a bus to CONGOBAT, darn; a minute seemed like an hour. The bus came and we rushed aboard, we thought the distance between those locations were far, we surprised when it took only five minutes. Arrived at CONGOBAT, Major Edwin guided us to the sanctuary. Inside the AC room, all the tiredness vanished, especially when we sighted the fridge full of cold water and of course the most tempting drink to refresh (I think the company should pay me for this) Coca Cola. We rushed to the fridge and vigorously grabbed two bottles of Coca Cola. After paid the drinks, and forgot about the straw we directly drunk from the bottle (hi… hi… what a shame). I think in that kind of situation the embarrassment feeling doesn’t exist, does it? After stomach full of coke, we went to Movcon office to take out passport back. Finished the entire requirement papers as new comers and received out passports, we travel back to Indohouse. Another exhausted day was over, but we were happy, all the necessary incoming processes were done in time. The time to enjoy the weekend, it was sleeping time.