It is at the wheel of a MONUSCO 6x6 truck that Sergio Guerra has been assigned as a UNV Convoy Leader. His volunteer work is not common: travel around Congo and neighboring countries to deliver cargos to all MONUSCO bases. With the soul of a backpacker, Sergio has combined his passion for driving with his desire to become a volunteer. He answered our questions.
What is your volunteer assignment?
I am in charge of leading MONUSCO convoys. My responsibility is to manage the planning, loading and dispatch of vehicles and drivers while ensuring the safe transportation of cargo according to the priority of the load. Before departure, well, I decide the itinerary, the number of miles per day, the amount of fuel to take with us and so on. During the journey, I process the clearing of the cargo to cross the borders, foresee the downtimes on the way, etc. For this kind of assignment, I need to work closely with my supervisor who I call as soon as we have a problem or encounter anything unexpected on the road.
And more specifically, on the road?
I spend most of my time on the road, with two to three convoys per month. We depart from Entebbe, where I am based, to different regions of Congo: Kisangani, Goma, Beni, Bukavu, Mahagi, Aru and many other places. A convoy is made up of between 2 and 12 trucks depending on the size of the cargo to be delivered.
How long does a convoy take ?
Travel time depends on the distance. For example, from Entebbe, it takes 10 days to reach Kisangani, and around 6 days Goma. My longest journey lasted about a month on the road; I had to deliver a cargo from Entebbe to Beni. From there, we loaded a new cargo for the South African contingent who was reassigned to Goma. We made 2 trips to bring all the cargo. Then once in Goma, I was sent to the MONUSCO base in Kigoma, Tanzania, to bring containers. To get there, we passed through Rwanda and Burundi.
The roads conditions are most often very bad, which makes driving very difficult. In addition, Congolese roads are full of pitfalls and surprises. I remember having led a convoy to Bunia via Mahagi during the rainy season. The roads were muddy and slippery and we had to drive very slowly, between 5 and 10 kilometers per hour. Although there were only 200 km between the two communities, it took us two days to reach our destination. At some point, we found a civilian truck stuck in the middle of the road. Hard pressed for time, we disconnected our trailers and one MONUSCO truck went ahead to help the trucks and open the way for us. Then we connected our truck together again with a chain and climbed up the hill.
Indeed, driving on roads in poor condition is extremely tiring. Since there is only one driver per vehicle, we have to pay attention to the driver’s fatigue: when we are tired, we just decide to stop and to continue our way on the next day if the road conditions and the security situation are ok.
In some situations, days can be very long. As an example, when we were sent to Bunia, we drove for 17 hours in a row, from 8am to 1am of the following day. Given the road conditions and the security situation in the region, we had to keep driving until we found a safe place to park our trucks. In general we sleep in our trucks because we cannot leave it behind. It sometimes happens to us to sleep 2 to 3 days in our trucks.
Yes, I do! The convoys often pass through national parks, where the only other vehicles allowed to enter are safari vehicles, full of Muzungus tourists (foreigners in Swahili). One day, I was driving from Nebi, in Uganda, and I passed by a national park. The road was fantastic and flat. As I got closer to a group of trees next to the road, I saw a big elephant 50 meters away. I then realized how lucky I was to be on the road and pass through such places.
