HTFU

You hear it often amongst the crews here.  I believe the helicopter business draws some very strong personalities to start with.  I always cringe when people say "you are so lucky", as if being a helicopter pilot just falls into one's lap; no dream, no desire, no commitment, no acceptance that it wouldn't happen, no effort, no drive.  Although I will admit to being lucky with the choices I've made.  Like envying people in good shape.  One should envy their self control, dedication and commitment.  But enough of tooting my own horn, I've always respected those that worked overseas.  To thrive in some rather rough conditions living amongst cultures far removed from one's own, on the other side of the planet, quite often in third world countries, it takes another sort again.  So when I started whining about my very sore throat and painful sinus congestion that I woke with, the gentile souls around the breakfast table gave me all the sympathy they could muster...."HTFU".  Harden The F### Up.  I'm smiling, but my throat still hurts like hell.

I just finished "The Masque of Africa:  Glimpses of African Belief" by V.S. Naipul, a Nobel Prize in Literature recipient (I particularly enjoyed  his "A Bend in the River"), to hopefully give me a little better understanding of life in Africa.  Witch Doctors are the real shit here.  While the Tanzanian government is doing all that it can to stem the activity, rural albinos still live in fear as their body parts weigh heavily in traditional ceremonies, more so if taken from them while alive. It's a far cry from the dairy farms of Lake Erie's North shore.  The vast majority of beliefs are quite harmless though, and some quite beneficial, stemmed in tradition from eons of forest living, passed down from generation to generation.  Methadone, the heroin and morphine substitute used in the West is actually the time immemorial eboga plant used in Gabon for centuries to cure many things.  I dare say the pygmies aren't the ones getting rich from it's "discovery".  The lure of Christianity, the ever growing cloud of Islam, all competing with a way of life ingrained in one's soul.  I dare say that if I was to believe in anything, some of Africa's mystic compares favourably with religion's interpretation of the Bible or the Koran.  But I don't. 

If the book, or actually being here, has taught me anything, it's to not under estimate anyone, nor their beliefs, priorities, customs or way of life. Whose to say we do things better in the West?
I quite like the African Proverb; "The man who has gone nowhere thinks his mother's soup is the best"

So I bath my dry throat with warm instant coffee, and contemplate attempting to rest, something not easily done with the midday heat and noise, or just goop up with SPF15 and walk to the beach.  I've got some night flying/training to give tonight so the rest would be wise.  I'm pretty sure "wise" won't be found anywhere on my epitaph, so I guess it's off to the beach!