Eat Sleep Fly

Some iPhone footage of some night rig training.  Don't fret, I'm not flying, I'm recording from the jump seat behind the crew stations, checking out a new instructor.

I'm still plugging away here in East Africa, and having fun to boot!  The weather has been relatively cool, making the mountain biking pleasant, and I've managed to avoid the machete welding thugs that mugged the last guy to ride my bike.....so far anyways.  Life is good.  We've been warned that the local environment has changed due to a stupid bar brawl some of our compadres stumbled into, but I refuse to change my modus operandi.  I still wonder about the brazen stares from the majority of locals, as if I had two heads, but my local friends laugh and tell me it's because mzungus generally don't walk around so freely, nor in the areas I tend to frequent, generally preferring to sit in the air conditioned comfort of the omni-present white Land Rovers that crawl the landscape like locusts.  I'm on foot in a quest for fresh mint to share the "Moroccan Whiskey", or sweetened mint tea, that I fell in love with in Morocco, with my friends here.  I finally discover an East Indian shop owner whose neighbor has some growing in her garden, and he closes his shop and we head off to pick some!  Hand shakes and smiles and I'm off again, when I hear a scream and turn to see aformer base security guard running towards me,  then giving me a big hug, proudly sporting the "CANADA" t-shirt I handed out to all our staff for Christmas one year.  I give her some fresh mint.  As opposed to being a Moroccan social lubricant, I discover that in East Africa mint is used as medicine for a bad stomach or dental problems. Ah, life in Mtwara, taking it day by day to the sounds of cows mooing, roosters crowing, goats baying, calls to prayer and school bells, hawkers yelling indecipherable gibberish selling their wares, in cheap plastic bins balanced precariously on their heads, and music everywhere, always far louder than the speakers can handle.  Mtwara really hasn't changed.  Fuel is still being stolen at the airport, and I think it always will be.

The threat of ebola hasn't reached this side of Africa, and it's a BIG continent, but still our corporate headquarters expect us to be prepared, and we couldn't resist trying out our ebola suits!  Stylin!