Hot pursuit!

Post snorkel, enjoying some freshly squeezed mango juice on the patio of the Msemo, our favourite local seaside restaurant, we hear a motorcycle from the wrong direction.  We turn and low and behold, here comes a local on one of the very common Chinese 125 cc. road bikes, but to our amusement, he is actually driving over the reef at low tide.  We watch in wonder as his bike rattles and bounces and he struggles to maintain control, at far too fast a speed for such a bizarre choice of routes.  We shake our heads in wonder as he eventually makes the beach and fishtails up the embankment and disappears into the woods.  Our curiosity is soon satisfied as a second motorcycle, carrying an angry looking Policeman, blasts past bouncing along the same route.  Hot pursuit in Mtwara!

Christmas dinner was a disappointment.  Being a farm boy, I wasn't overly put off by the Christmas goat's pleas for mercy as he was led behind the hotel by the cook, and we had two turkeys flown in from Dar es Salaam for the holiday feast as well, but try to find a mouthful of meat out of any of the food laid out after our cook finished practicing his tradecraft.  It was seriously overcooked, whatever meat that could be found, but at least the rice was good.  I had a granola bar back in my room afterwards.

I was invited to a local birthday party the next evening, using my iPhone flashlight to check for snakes on the path through the woods to the small house.  Everyone crowded into the tiny living room for a few nervous speeches from various relatives, smart phone cameras flashed capturing the happiness.  Beer, juice, bottled water and Amarula was offered to all.  Birthday cake was cut and everyone was fed a piece by the birthday girl, her husband smiling proudly and plates were then passed out by the children in attendance, the Moms all dressed in shiny colourful satin dresses. The spread was as impressive as anything I've seen, North America or anywhere else, and the meat was succulent, far and away the best I've had in Mtwara, putting our big mzungu holiday feast to shame.  I really enjoyed myself, and was soon clowning for the kids, all watching the smiling white guy nervously.  I got the impression mzungus don't often attend these local functions.  The evening put the holidays back on track.

I'm presently the only SAR Captain onsite, so I'm relegated to SAR standby everyday, watching in envy as the line bird blasts off into the wild blue yonder.  I can't complain, it's been a good tour thus far, and we are soon off to Mombasa, Kenya.  Despite the security concerns, everyone is excited about living in a high-end beach side resort for at least a little while.  I've eaten some of thee best meals I've ever had in Mombasa's many fine restaurants, so I'm looking forward to returning.

Christmas in Africa

Six thirty Christmas Eve morning, pulling pitch on our sleek Italian AW139, pushing the nose over as the blades bite into the humid air, and soon the coral runway zips by beneath us, faster and ever faster and soon giving way to thick lush green African jungle.  We turn North towards Dar es Salaam and overfly the rusted sheet metal roofs of Mtwara, makeshift shacks arranged in an impossible, indecipherable pattern, the huts growing smaller and smaller, kids and goats and ladies wrapped in brightly coloured kangas carrying wood and water and fish along the intermingled red dirt paths, muddy and dark from the evening's rain, and soon it's the deep torqoiuse of Indian Ocean reef flashing in our chin bubble, but even that disappears as we climb into the clouds.

It turns into a very long day for various reasons, crowding the limits of our allowable duty, and we arrive back at our hotel tired and hungry.  Tough overcooked chicken, "chippies", and one lukewarm Ndovu beer later, I'm soon off to bed.  It starts not long after, the soft tapping of heavy drops of water on the hotel's tin roof, just above my head, and the intensity increases, and soon becomes a roar crowding out any capacity for thought.  Generally these deluges last for twenty minutes or so and head off over the horizon, but the sky flashes brightly and KABOOM!  The lightning and thunder assaults with an intensity I can hardly fathom, and if one were to let the imagination run free, you could easily imagine the end of days.  The room repeatedly flashes in bright purple light and the air seems to collapse as yet another crack challenges the roar of water on our tin roof, air rushing to refill the gap left by the massive discharge of electricity, the lightning often carrying some three million volts per metre.  It does not wane, but the intensity appears to surge as time rolls along, hour after hour and well into the morning, the tumultuous assault does not relent and one wonders how the earth could produce such energy.  The power is simply incredible and I have not experienced anything like it.  This is a storm!

Of course the electricity and internet were lost early in the eight hour tempest, and was still not available when I woke.  No calls to my family on Christmas eve. Christmas morning, I'm back at the hangar on SAR standby, having driven the company SUV through thick mud and three feet of water, the mosquitoes thick and the frogs croaking happily, drowning out the baying goats.  I'm still itching from jelly fish stings from a evening swim the day prior.  It doesn't exactly feel like Christmas, but I do my best, listening to a Christmas compilation I've burnt from the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson, Judy Brown, Lightning Hopkins, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, John Lee Hooker, Sugar Chile Robinson, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt and a host of other soul and blues artists from days long past, and I'm feeling kind of cool.   The power is now restored, but it's two in the morning in Eastern Canada.  I want to call, to touch base with home, but I know everyone is sound asleep.  I'm crossing my fingers I can talk to home later today, and wish them all a Merry Christmas. 

It's Hot

One can dash from the air conditioned company Land Rover into the hopefully air conditioned rooms of our dilapidated hotel, or into the frisky Arco trailer offices at our temporary hangar, but that African heat will catch you somewhere.  The power often goes out, and the heat quickly builds, or the cleaning ladies, locals who have a morbid fear of air con, turn it off while cleaning one's room and forget to turn it back on, and it can take two hours to get the place back to an acceptable state, and there's always flying.  Sure we can claw our way up above the clouds and get into reasonable temperatures for the enroute portion of our trip, but it is far better to embrace the heat, like one embraces our Canadian cold.  Sure you can stay at home and hibernate, but think of all the skating and snowshoeing and cross country skiing and rabbit hunting one could be enjoying.  Granted I've been a little leery of cranking up my internal temperature pounding out single track in the hills on my mountain bike, but put on a hat and some shades and walk to the beach.  We've got a few ten kilometre hiking routes through town, stopping occasionally at road side shops, little more than rough shod booths in the shade, and enjoy some ginger beer (non-alcoholic), and best avoid going mid-day.  Accept that you will be soaked throughout by nine in the morning and remain that way all day, and drink lots and lots of water.  This is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and even the locals complain of the heat.  I just remind myself,  it is Africa.

I've had various opportunities presented to me recently, but none involve SAR.  They are all in places with a far higher standard of living than I'm presently exposed to, and much less risk.  We are off to Mombasa again shortly, and radicals are making the headlines daily; acid attacks, beheadings of moderates, grenades thrown at Westerners, security is a very serious concern, but I like Africa.  Everything one does is fraught with risk, and death is imminent for all of us, so there's not much sense in worrying about it.  I have considered the opportunities presented, and I still might make a move, but at present, I'd miss the SAR flying too much, the hoisting, the hovering, the low level circuits, the actual flying of a helicopter, as opposed to the routine passenger transfers to the exploration platforms, the operating procedures mimicking airline travel.  SAR flying is thee best flying I've done since my days of slinging drill rods over Canadian tundra, many, many years ago.  I think I'll hang out in Africa for a little longer.......

Busy, busy, busy

What a tour!  A day flying the line crowds eight hours of lofty shenanigans dodging tropical cumulonimbus,  dark and foreboding with spectacular displays of purple forked lightning, fully entertained with the exasperation in fellow aviators strained voices, pointlessly arguing with Tanzanian air traffic control in Dar es Salaam's hectic airspace.  This is Africa, just go with the flow boys.  The African sun is oppressive and scorching and the heat in the cockpit nearly unbearable, the humidity draining, but we are having the times of our lives.  We smile knowing the choices we've made have brought us here, not wishing or waiting or wanting of anything, just enjoying the right here and now.  This life as a helicopter pilot is a pretty damn good one.  And if I'm not flying the line, I'm taking out the Search and Rescue bird for training and recurrency sorties, struggling to organize boat availability with ship Captains, or perhaps just playing in the bay of Mtwara, hovering exercises with little reference (no auto-hover in our bird) and tight low level SAR circuits, rescuing dedicated mannequins or hoisting crew to small coral formations along the shoreline.  Africa is not for everyone and turnover is high, and there always seems to be a need to train up new guys for the intricacies of hoisting over open water and heaving boat decks.  Search and Rescue flying is the most fun I've had in helicopters in years, and instructing just gives me that much more exposure.  I'm smiling.  Life is good.

 

Us and Them

 

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

I have to admit, as I travel, the deeper I dive into the various cultures I'm exposed to, and the more often I hear fellow ex-pats from various nationalities make disparaging remarks about the locals, it's all the more that I appreciate having been born and raised Canadian.  Canada is extremely multi-cultural, and growing up in that environment gives one a sense of community within the world that I've seen sorely lacking on my adventures abroad.  I'm very pained to say that racism is strong and prevalent in the world.  Canada isn't perfect, but at least it gave me a little more understanding and exposure to those somehow different than myself.  When I first started flying helicopters in Canada's North country, I had difficulty understanding the overt animosity I witnessed towards our First Nations people, having spent my youth in a high school that was fifty percent First Nations, as I had many friends from the Six Nations reservation, just up the road.  The remarks were rather silly and nonsensical, folks blaming all sorts of things on "Them".  Us and Them.  It appears to be the human condition to wallow in self pity and to blame "them" for all our woes, to exploit and embellish our perceived differences.  It got worse as I travelled internationally, people feeling very comfortable with our shared skin colour, assuming I understood, voicing their distaste for cultures different than their own, one fellow even showing me the secret KKK sign, so a fellow racist can be identified by the like-minded.  It made me shudder that people actually think this way, but that attitude is not confined to race.  While that attitude is certainly distasteful when applied to racial differences as one has little choice of one's parents, the "us and them" attitude is certainly more acceptable when applied to one's choices, but it's still a plight on the human condition.  Be it visually distinctive race differences, varied religious beliefs, economic standing, political views, favourite sport team, different school, adverse musical taste, or any other stupid inane insubstantial indicator to help one feel superior to his fellow man, to feel part of some community, some pack, like-minded and validated, that aids them in gauging their own worth on this planet, because they are too weak to stand alone.  I'm saddened to say that I understand, even though I don't like it.  It's part of the natural order to want whatever you belong to or believe to thrive, to be correct, and when your culture, or ideals, or beliefs, or way of life, feels threatened in the slightest, it's natural to want to supress those that threaten, or differ.  I don't think it's right, but I understand it.  The more I delve into other cultures, the more I try to really appreciate people for what they have to offer, to see the similarities instead of the differences.  I see us all sharing this time in space, this shared struggle to survive, to work, to provide for one's family, to have some fun, to be happy.  See the similarities and don't be looking for the differences, don't assume that your view, your way of life, your choices, while perhaps right for you, apply to anyone beyond yourself.  I'm frustrated today with my fellow man and hence the rant.  Conversations regarding the locals, their way of life, and a general lack of respect for people born with so few choices, so few opportunities, with so very, very little, infuriates me to no end.  If you open your heart a little, take a step back and see the world, really see it, and the people, and see what we share with one another.  Try to understand.  We often forget that our frame of reference is not the only one.  The arrogance sickens me.  George Carlin said it well; "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"  If you wish to believe that you are the standard by which all others are to be judged, fine, but please, keep it to yourself.