Intro

My room smells like shit.  I’ve had the screen windows open for hours, a decent East African breeze fresh off the Indian Ocean, blowing papers about, and I’ve scoured the room for the source of my olfactory discomfort, but to no avail.  It still stinks.

I’ve just finished my first week of a six week posting in Mtwara, Tanzania, just a stone’s throw from the Mozambique border.  It’s the first time I’ve been to Africa.  At forty-five years of age, it’s about time.  My parents would drop me off at Grandma’s for my summer holidays every weekday morning, and I’d kill hours of boredom by scouring through her National Geographics and dream, dream of Africa.  Never did grow up.  Even after thousands of hours flying old Bell 47s and Jetrangers in the Canadian bush, living in pup tents for months, I’d spend the lazy afternoons sitting by the helo on the side of some stream, while the crews I flew in did whatever they had me fly them in to do, and after the fish stopped biting, I’d put the rod aside and read the diaries of Stanley and Burton and Karamojo Bell and pretty much anyone who explored or hunted Africa.  Damn, I’m here and I’m still dreaming.  Doctor Livingstone’s house is just up the road.

Mtwara is not a bad gig.  Why we are sitting in this dive is beyond me, but the resort where most of the ex-pats stay is a short hoof through the village’s dirt roads, and the snorkelling is the best I’ve ever seen.  I’ve been going every day.  It’s friendly enough.  You can walk through the streets in the evenings by your lonesome and not be concerned, although last tour some local witch doctor got a crowd riled up and they attacked our company Landcruiser with rocks.  The pilot driving was able to back out of the melee and they’ve apparently arrested those involved, so I guess it’s safe once again.  We hit up the local night club Saturday night and went hard till 3 am.  Once my nose became accustomed to that very human scent of sweaty Africa, the infectious beat got me out onto the dance floor and I quite enjoyed letting myself go.   I'm quite sure I was as ripe anyone out there.

I’ve been flying helicopters now for over twenty-seven years.  I had always thought helicopters were pretty cool.  Everything about them is cool; they chased and caught bad-guys, picked people off sinking ships, dropped water on fires, built things, filmed things, shot things, moved people, caught and tagged any assortment of animals, it just never ends.  They could fly along like an airplane but could stop in mid-air, and stay there as long as they damn-well-pleased.  And being a pilot?  Honestly, we try our best to be humble, but with the flight suits and sunglasses, helmets and headsets, they impressed us as young boys and we impress ourselves now.  We’re all romantics at heart, and there is nothing that compares, for me at least, and naturally I suppose, my perspective should be the one that matters to me.   I’m still working on the swagger, but damn if I don’t have the ray-bans.