Rumble: I love flying

We have become used to life being a series of arrivals or departures, of triumphs and failures, with nothing noteworthy in between…

There is not much to say about most aeroplane journeys. Anything remarkable must be disastrous, so you define a good flight by negatives: you didn’t get hijacked, you didn’t crash, you didn’t throw up, you weren’t late, you weren’t nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.

The gratitude brings such relief you mind goes blank, which is appropriate, for the aeroplane passenger is a time-traveller. He crawls into a carpeted tube that is reeking of disinfectant; he is strapped in to go home, or away. Time is truncated, or in any case warped: he leaves in one time-zone and emerges in another. And from the moment he steps into the tube, and braces his knees on the seat in front, uncomfortably upright – from the moment he departs, his mind is focused on arrival.

Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonian Express.

Just for the record. While there are people who feel exactly like Paul Theroux, I don't.

I love travelling, and I love flying. Even if it was just for a 45 minutes flight from Rome to Brindisi as I did this morning.

I get into the plane. Make my little nest. Put up a psychological curtain between me and the other 127 people in this space, take a book, read a few lines, doze off, wake-up, gaze through the window at the ever-changing world, and admire the skills involved in landing this metal box safely on a strip which looks no bigger than a handkerchief.

I love flying.

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Rumble: Italian soccer and flight delays

Yesterday evening, I was flying out of Brindisi, South Italy. After passing airport security, I found a group of people clustered around the window of the airport police's office. I thought something was wrong, and had a look..

Inside the office, the police officers were watching the Italy-Romania soccer match, and a small crowd was following the match through the window, shouting and commenting as if they were in a pub.
At the other end of the departure hall, two other guys had hooked up their laptops to watch the game via internet, drawing a small crowd around them too. I could even hear the luggage handlers next to the departure lounge cheering and shouting as the match went along.

Nobody seemed to mind the plane was late. Not even as the plane handlers were getting out of their office, at the last minute to prepare the flight for take-off. Every passenger understood that in Italy, they had their priorities straight: soccer first, plane later..

Eventually we took off, and when landing in Rome, the passengers did get annoyed though: the car bringing in the chocks to block the aircraft's wheels, was late, so neither the stairs nor the luggage handling equipment could be connected to the plane. Even after the chocks eventually arrived, all plane handlers took their time to engage into a lively discussion about the match, before they opened the plane.

Or would the passengers have been annoyed that in the mean time, the match ended in a 1-1 draw?


More posts on The Road about Italy

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News: Humanitarian airlift to China

The boys and girls from the UN Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) have been busy the past weeks.

There were several airlifts of relief goods into Myanmar, and since a week, relief agencies requested for the shipment of humanitarian goods to China, in support of the earthquake disaster.

Yesterday and last night, an Airbus 310 from Skycargo (Emirates Airlines) was loaded with relief goods from the Italian Civil Protection. Contrary to the normal practices, the plane was parked on the civilian side of Brindisi airport, so all goods had to be trucked to other side of the airport. All stuff is fixed on special pallets before being weighed and loaded onto the plane.

The cargo consisted of family tents and a full field hospital from the Italian Civil Protection, one of the agencies that stores their goods at the UNHRD depots in Brindisi.

The loading crew was ready at 2 am and the plane took off a few hours later. Next stop: China earthquake zone.

Pictures courtesy Lucien Jaggi (WFP/UNHRD)

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News: Humanitarian airlift to Myanmar

I am back in Brindisi.

I am sure you have seen the news of humanitarian relief goods being flown into Myanmar to assist with the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. I bet all of that footage was on the Myanmar side...
Those first relief flights actually all originated from here, from the UN Humanitarian Response Depot in Brindisi.

Here are some pictures from the first relief flights into Myanmar on May 10th. This particular flight had cargo from OCHA and Irish Aid, containing water purification units, moskito nets, blankets, kitchen sets, tarpaulins and water storage containers.

View the picture slide show of this airlift.



Pictures courtesy Fulvio Pirato (UNHRD/WFP)

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Rumble: Lunch at the beach

This is the view from the restaurant, where we had lunch yesterday. It lays right at the rocky beach in Brindisi, built at the end of the airport runway, next to the yacht harbour, and facing the sea. It stands by itself, just in the middle of nowhere... No frails, only sober tables and plastic chairs in a square room, with an overall Balkan's feel to it.

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Rumble: Just a building....

I am back in Brindisi for a few days. Stayed an extra day as I can think much clearer while not sitting in a crowded office in our Rome headquarters, allows me to take a distance and re-evaluate some of the stuff we work on...

Despite the fact it is still pretty cold for the time of the year (and certainly at 7:30 in the morning), I had my morning coffee and cornetto outside, on a terrace. I was looking at the building in the picture.

Nothing extraordinary. Just a building, out of the thousands in Brindisi, probably millions similar ones in Italy. Just a window, of just a house, in just a street, of just a town. And yet, that image, at that moment, grabbed me.
I know, when that happens to me, it means something.. It is a sign on the road of life. I sat back, with my coffee and cornetto, at 7:30 in the morning, and let my mind run free for a while.
Different thoughts came up:

- It is strange how there is beauty in ordinary things... This is just a window, just a wall, and yet the colours, shades are so beautiful.
- there is more to life than only work... Let's just sit here and enjoy this view for a moment.
- We do not enjoy life enough. We do not enjoy the moment enough. We don't see enough the beauty of simple things around us. And how much beauty there is in simple things. Things we normally just walk past, and don't even notice...
- And my practical mind. The physical work environment often defines how people work. We lack - chronically lack - space at work, so we start to face issues mainly due to lack of proper work space, which creates disfunctional communications. It is my task as a manager to ensure the proper work space is created.

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Rumble: Brindisi Once More...

I am back in Brindisi (previous posts). Has been since late September. Seems like yesterday. Time flies.
Anyway, what I wanted to say: the weather is cold, but with gorgeous sunshine. That, in combination of the sea (Brindisi has a beautiful natural port, see picture taken this morning), makes this heaven.
Oh, yeah, and I am here for work, not for holidays,... Remind me..! What I do for work, you ask? Right now, I am here to check the implementation of a warehouse management system, which will make the operations of the UN Humanitarian Response Depots more effective. Details another time! :-)

Our office is at the other side of the port, in the right back of the monument. Check it out with Google Earth...

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Rumble: Humanitarian Airlift from Brindisi

This morning, as we were still preparing the emergency simulation exercise, on the other side of the base, the "real thing" was going on: They were loading a cargo plane with humanitarian goods bound for Uganda. (Check here for more photos and details)

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Rumble: Earthquake in Brinland

Newsflash:

Brinland struck by Earthquake

Thursday September 20th, 2007 8:30 AM GMT
BRINDISI (FC News) – There are confirmed reports that an earthquake has hit Brinland at around 06.30 this morning. Early estimates indicate that the earthquake registered 7.2 on the Richter scale. There is no information yet on the extent of damage, and the initial death toll is approximately 500.

Several times per year, we train a few dozen of our staff in emergency response. With the mock flash press release above, we kicked off the simulation exercise starting tomorrow. About twenty people are called in from different parts of the world, to assist in a simulated earthquake disaster called "Brinland". The exercise is held in a remote army base in Brindisi, South Italy.

As one of the facilitators, I will help the participants explore and understand their team dynamics so they can work better together, even under high physical stress.

Today, we did the last preparations of the exercise. Tomorrow, the participants arrive, and we start the simulation.

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Rumble: More on Brindisi

There is a certain peace and calm about Brindisi. Even though for the humanitarians, it is one of the main starting points for many humanitarian emergency interventions: this is where a lot of the logistics and life-saving equipment is stored, and shipped from, on a moment's notice.

And even though, we are co-located with the UN Peace Keepers' logistics base (UNLB) within a military base..

In close-up, even the fighter plane in the center of the military base, has a palm leaf sticking out of its side.. (well not really a palm leaf, but a leaf...)... If that is not a sign of peace..!

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Rumble: Back in Brindisi

I am back in Brindisi until the end of this week. This is the view from the office this morning. It is the inner courtyard of a military base, of which they gave us a piece to use (see this rumble).
With a view like that, not much can go wrong. Crisp clear blue sky. A slight transmontana wind blowing in from the mountains, cooling everything down to 23 degrees.. A change from the 30+ degrees we had in Rome last weekend.
Life can be good. Even if in the background, I can hear the forklifts moving, loading a plane with relief goods for the Peru earthquake...

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Rumble: Sailing for a Good Cause

I was in Brindisi a couple of weeks ago, just as the Brindisi-Corfu Regatta started. WFP entered with a boat in the race, raising money for the humanitarian cause. The boat was a MAXI80, same type they use in the America's Cup. They ending 4th in the Regatta and they raised over US$250,000.

I thought "Hmmm, imagine if we'd do the same in a Transatlantic Race, maybe we could raise more money and visibility..."

The owner of the MAXI80 was receptive to the idea, so at this moment, we're trying to put all pieces of the puzzle together. How to get the boat to the Canary Islands, for the start of the ARC2007 - the same transatlantic regatta I participated in last year (see these posts), how to get 10 professional crew working with 10 WFP staff totalling a crew of 20 on the boat... How do we find sufficient sponsors. How can we get the boat back to Europe? Minor stuff.

Will be exciting...

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Rumble: Brindisi

I was in Brindisi last week, for work. Brindisi is in the southeastern tip of Italy. It was an important natural harbour since way back, even during Roman times. They actually built a Roman highway (the Apia Antica), all the way from Rome to Brindisi. Nowadays, there is a bit of marine trade, several yacht harbours, a station for the Italian Navy and Coastguard, and a gateway for ferries to Montenegro, Albania and Greece.

So when you walk around town, you see a lot of shops where they sell tickets to the Eastbound ferries, or for cruise ships passing by. The 'passing' tourists never stay very long, apart from an overnight in town before or after a ferry trip... It is also much to my surprise so many of the local people speak English. Very contrary to Rome, which is much more of a megapolis.. Weird..

Brindisi feels very different from Rome. Much more 'southern', with a bit of a 'Balkans' flair to it. On the left you see one of the main promenades early in the morning.. One morning, the promenade was blocked by a garbage truck.. The drivers were having coffee and left the truck in the middle of the street... Everything goes at an easy pace here...

Brindisi is an important logistics base for the UN. It is the main support base for the UN Peace Keepers, where they hold their worldwide stocks of logistics equipment, tools, etc... For us -we are very different and separate from the UN Peace Keeping Operations- it is one of the five humanitarian response bases we have across the globe, next to Ghana, Panama, Dubai and Malaysia, where we procure, store, manage, and ship logistics support materials on behalf of several UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations. And that is where my current project comes in. So you see that humanitarian work comes in many types and flavours (see also this post)... You have the aspect of Enrico and Cyprien, in the stories and pictures from the past days... But you also have the part with the 'machine behind' the field work. And for us, it is mainly the logistics support, the emergency support, the preparedness to react in no matter what humanitarian crisis, anywhere in the world, at any time..

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Rumble: Humanitarian Airlift from Brindisi (full post)

We have an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane prepositioned in our UN Humanitarian Response base (UNHRD) in Brindisi. The IL-76 is a cargo plane often used for humanitarian interventions. This medium range workhorse which can carry a payload up to 45 metric tons.

Everyone who has ever flown on an IL-76 knows the best place to enjoy the flight is the small cabin under the main flightdeck, which is the navigator position. You sit at the height of the plane's belly (makes interesting landing!), but with a wide view.

The plane's cargo hold is high and can carry all kinds of cargo.

This air lift was destined for Uganda - there is a problem with the flooding in the North of the country. The flight was transported cargo for UNICEF, Irish Aid, OCHA and WFP. It contained water purification equipment, and temporary shelters.

(This post is backdated to show full picture details. The pictures and facts are from Sept.23 2007)

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