Out crawls 2013

2013 has finally dragged it's sorry ass out the door.  The year has actually been excellent, but this last week was anything but pleasant.  I've been paying brutally for bragging about how robust my guts are, about how I can eat anything local in numerous third world locales.  72 hours of keeping a loo at arms length and getting very little sleep at night, my days spent on SAR standby as the only available SAR Captain,  spending far too much time in the rudimentary airport loo, ventilation non-existent and roasting in the sun, temperatures often reaching into the high forties (Celsius for you Americans) in the cramped, dark space, shared with geckos, biting ants, mosquitos and horrid assaults to the nostrils, the heat unbearable and one is soon soaked in sweat, further contributing to headache inducing dehydration.   To add to my discomfort, my room's air conditioning failed and flooded my room, and we cope daily with the whims and whimsies of competing customers, forever changing the plan and complicating our logistics of mobilizing a base, all the while barking insults and behaving quite poorly.  It's been a long week with no flying nor days at the beach.  Out crawls 2013.

But that's quite enough whining.  A couple of our South African co-workers took over the BBQ duties of our local chef and more meat was flown in from Dar es Salaam.  We had a rather pleasant New Year's eve dinner, and my appetite had returned with a vengeance!  The temperatures are still hot but there's always a good breeze blowing now.  I sit in the shade at the airport and watch scores of swallows dive bomb the flying ants, black and white crows hop about feeding on some very exotic looking moths, geckoes and multi-coloured lizards scamper from nook to nook, and I sit back, relax, and bury my nose into a good book.