Adventure in Africa

The village of Rapale is about three quarters of an hour’s drive from Nampula, a large city in the north-east of Mozambique. It is decidedly green there in July, thanks to its tropical temperatures. Endless grasslands are interspersed with groups of trees thriving in the humid savannah climate.

It takes nearly a day to fly from Schiphol to Nampula and when Hans-Peter van den Heuvel, Richard Geerling, Gert-Jan Kampshof, Jesper van Es, Cees Biesheuvel and Rolf van Rijn land there on 12 July, they are hit by a wall of heat: 30 degrees Celsius.

The lanky Civil Engineering students will be working on a water project at a chicken slaughterhouse, some five kilometres from Rapale. Two pick-up trucks are there waiting for them. The lads think it strange to see someone riding in the back to guard their things but quickly accept the situation.

Initially the students had wanted to go to South America, until one of them heard about this project in Mozambique through a church contact. The slaughterhouse wants to expand but needs more water to do so. The organisation wants to explore various options for this, such as building a reservoir and dam to store rainwater.

This project appealed to the lads as they certainly didn’t want to go to a Western country. In search of a challenge, they opted for a culture shock. The students know little about Mozambique, they’ll see when they get there. Their motto is: just take things as they come. The project is worth 10 ECTS, so they went through the TU registration procedure.

Uninvited guests

So here they are, riding along a bumpy dirt road in southern Africa in a pick-up truck. Far from home. The dusty road leading to the deserted farm is partly concealed by the trees. Trees uninvited guests could easily hide behind. The trucks drive up to a gate where there are two guards in uniform armed with walkie-talkies and clubs.

Behind the gate on the left is the office of the slaughterhouse. A little further, hidden by some trees, are the house and a bungalow belonging to the owner of the grounds. Diagonally opposite are silos full of chicken feed to breed brood hens.

The trucks jolt past the long chicken sheds. Narrow side tracks lead to the homes of families that work on the farm. There are 650 hectares of grounds, equivalent to nearly a thousand football pitches. At the end of the drive – about two kilometres from the gate – is the house of the students’ Dutch supervisor.

A little further is a school under construction: the lads will stay in one of the classrooms for the time being.

A group of some twenty, thirty builders are working there. “Tudo bem?” How are you? The boys don’t understand much Portuguese. They unpack their things: clothes and mosquito nets, six laptops, mobile phones and money.

At night two security officers guard over the school: builders in T-shirts. They are guarding the expensive electricity cable that is waiting to be installed, and are also supposed to prevent anything else being stolen. They are armed with machetes around 40 cm long; ‘catanas’, or so the lads hear.

Machine gun

In the early morning the six students are woken by the cawing of crows. Time for an open-air shower. With a fantastic view, it must be said: a vast and tranquil green plain, with grey rocks dotted about the landscape, typical of the region.

The farm is soon a hive of activity. There are about thirty people at the gate, all waiting for work. The boss’s German shepherds are barking. Loud clucking can be heard from the chicken sheds. Time to get started, to gather information on the scale of the extra water requirement, prepare calculations, determine the costs, devise alternatives.

As they will be doing their own cooking, on electric stoves, they set off to get some groceries. The armed guard at the supermarket is carrying a machine gun. ‘Good security’, Gert-Jan notes. ‘Why?’, Richard wonders. They joke about it, level-headed as they are.

They don’t feel at all unsafe, except maybe that one time they spent a weekend on Ilha de Moçambique, an island where the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama first set foot on land. On the way home it was so busy at Nampula station that they made barely any headway in their hired car. Dusk was already falling. ‘If the car is stopped now, we’ll be robbed.’ Indeed, a family was robbed here only recently. The man of the house had fought back and been wounded by a katana. Then again, that was in the city.

After about six weeks – they already have a host of calculations on their laptops – it’s time for a short holiday. Cees and Rolf decide to go kite surfing in Pemba. The others opt to spend five days in Gorongosa National Park and five days in the mountains, in Gurue. They enjoy some great walking there.

Raid

When they get back from holiday, the builders are just completing the school. The boys have to leave but they can stay in the boss’s bungalow as he’s going away on holiday. The bungalow is situated around two hundred metres from the gate and consists of two small unconnected rooms.

A family on the farm cooks them a delicious meal. That’s fortunate, as travelling has exhausted them and they want to turn in early. It’s a warm night. Jesper doesn’t feel well and is sick a few times. The Alsatians are restless. Maybe there’s a wild dog in the area.

Just before two o’clock Jesper wants to go out for some fresh air. He slips outside and sits down silently under the carport. Suddenly two security guards in T-shirts appear and hiss something at him in whispers. He has no idea what they are saying until he catches the word ‘catanas’.

The men suddenly run off. Screaming. A large machete crashes over the iron fencing in front of Jesper. No time to hesitate, he runs inside. ‘Raid! Catanas!’ he yells. His room-mates Richard and Gert-Jan are bewildered and think he’s joking.

Jesper quickly hides his mobile phone and stands in front of the door. “Help, won’t you!” The Alsatians are barking. Gert-Jan comes next to him. At that point they suddenly realise: thin wood! They step back… just as an axe cleaves through the door.

A group of men storm into the room wielding machetes. One of them has an axe. “Money! Money!” they shout. They’re wearing shirts and shorts. One of them has tied a sock round his head, balaclava style. The students put their hands straight away. “No money.”

The burglars turn the whole place upside down. One of them lifts Richard’s mattress off the floor. There’s nothing under it. They do find his SLR camera, but they don’t want that. “Money!” Another one of them lifts up the same mattress. They’re in a hurry but find nothing. The valuables are in the other room. When the third robber tries, Richard lifts up the mattress himself. Angrily. There’s nothing there!

In the next room Rolf and Cees quickly hide all the laptops and other valuables under a bed. Hans-Peter phones their supervisor but there’s no reception. They hide silently in a corner, hoping the burglars won’t bother with their room. Vain hope. The door is kicked in and five men rush in shouting.

Hans-Peter puts the light on. He doesn’t want the flying knives to hit him. One of the attackers is wielding a bolt cutter. The students scream. In the other room they think they’re fighting: ‘Stop, don’t!.’ The attackers leave.

Someone outside sends them back in. The intruders push Hans-Peter off his bed with a machete. “Money!” Another man presses Rolf up against a wall holding him at knife-point. The men find the laptops but look as if they don’t want them. They raid Rolf’s wallet and through it away. They fail to notice the secret zip pocket full of money.

The men find Hans-Peter’s wallet in his case. He puts it down beside him, knowing his camera, phone and the ‘joint purse’ were still in it. Six to eight minutes after the raid began, the intruders run away, disappearing into the dark wilderness.

This is Africa

Rolf and Hans-Peter decide to sprint to their supervisor, two kilometres away. Screaming all the way. To the others left behind, it seems to take them ages. They discover that four laptops, a lot of money, almost all the mobile phones and Gert-Jan’s camera are missing. His passport is outside. Families on the farm take care of the young men but they don’t sleep another wink that night.

At nine o’clock the next morning staff find the uniformed security men tied to a tree. They are covered in lash marks and blood stains. The dogs are hiding in the woods, frightened. Then the students hear that the robbers had already been on the site for half an hour, and had searched in vain for money in the office. The police in Rapale had been called but they don’t have a car. This is Africa.

When a farm worker reported the incident, it turns out that the gang was known to the police. The students call their parents and have their stolen cards blocked. That evening they mail TU Delft. The university contacts the students the very next day, telling them that they can come home if they want to, and then telephones their parents and contacts the embassy, after which which someone from the consulate goes to see the lads.

Two of them, Gert-Jan and Richard, want to go home immediately after the attack, but after talking to the others decide to stay to complete the project, to properly finish what they started. Moreover, they’ve had a wonderful time there and would like to give something in return, in the form of their report. They leave just over two weeks later, but not before buying a souvenir: a catana.

 

‘Staying calm’

“My compliments: these students kept their cool and walked away from the door”, says Ebe Brons, Director of the Centre for Safety and Development. This consultancy provides worldwide safety training for NGOs and other organisations including TNO and various universities. A workshop is available for Master’s students in which they learn to be aware of safety risks and, through role play, learn how to handle aggression. “Staying calm is the key challenge, and the only way to learn is by practising”, Brons explains.

 

Tips from the safety and security expert

• 
  Find out as much as you can about a country in advance, from embassy websites and the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example.
• 
  Assess the risks and take appropriate precautions.
• 
  Note the phone numbers of the embassy, hotel and who to call in an emergency on a card and carry it with you.
• 
  Ask yourself how quickly those at home would be informed if anything did happen to you: arrange to contact them at set times.
• 
  In the event of aggression: cooperate if they it is objects they want. Don’t hide things, as then you will have to lie. That makes you unreliable. The aggressor wants to exercise power, and it’s not worth risking your life for money.
• 
  Are you tall? Make yourself small. That is less intimidating to an aggressor.
• 
  Try to de-escalate rather than fighting.
• 
  In the event of a raid: move slowly and describe what you are doing. An attacker may think you are pulling a gun if you reach for your wallet too quickly.
• 
  Make back-ups of computer files ‘in the cloud’.
• 
  Above all: trust your intuition.

Register and check

As of January 2012 students travelling abroad as part of their study programme are obliged to register in the Osiris administration system at least two weeks before departing. They must state where they are going, for how long, and who to contact in case of emergency. The university consequently has more insight and the students are automatically insured.

When registering, the students must work through a safety & security-checklist. This states that they must register with Dutch Embassy of the country they are travelling to and that they should note the telephone number of the embassy there. In addition, they should check the travel advice for the country concerned on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs(www.minbuza.nl) and read the travel tips and last-minute information.

Finally, they are required to print out the checklist and take it with them as it states exactly what to do in the event of an emergency: call the insurance company’s crisis desk, inform the embassy and alert TU Delft.

In the event of a relatively large emergency the university will activate the internal crisis plan and form a small crisis team led by the dean. This team will inform the parents. The team will maintain contact with the embassy, the student and his/her coordinator.

The Safety and Security department plans to add a short film to make the above list more interactive. They will also provide safety and security training once a month, during which students receive a one-hour introduction which will enable them to then make their own risk analysis of ‘their’ country.

Ultimate responsibility remains with the student.