[disclaimer: what you are about to read is offensive. it is one pilot's personal account of life in and above some of the craziest places in the world.

long ago i derailed myself from the respectable airline track that most pilots aspire to. instead i chose adventure: different airplanes, jobs, and countries. i wanted to serve some of the poorest downtrodden souls on the forgotten corners of a planet. you will read about refugees who have nothing and live in war zones; victims of rape and senseless rebel violence. people who are basically being kept alive and dependent by western 'aid' while we extract their countries' resources.

i understand that it all may be a tad uncomfortable. hell, i hope it twists your entrails. that's the whole point of writing it down and releasing it into the wild. awareness, the seed of potential change.

a note on literary style: many ex-patriates and aid workers acquire an extra-dry sarcastic sexually-twisted gallows-type humor in the field. it is one of the things that helps you get through the day and cope with the madness of the job. an evolutionary adaptation, if you will. and i will.

i hope you can differentiate the serious from the tongue-in-cheek ironic. i want you to be offended by what is happening in the world, rather than how i paint it.

and if all of that makes you queasy, you are probably not tall enough for this ride.

thanks for reading! -p]

Thursday, May 8, 2008

departure

i have completed ground school for the C208B and leave tomorrow morning from washington d.c.  i am anxious.  i am excited.  "i think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain."

there are 3 of us in this class; myself, and a husband and wife team from oklahoma.  david has spent a year with airserv before, flying king airs in the congo and afghanistan.  amy has been flying corporate jets.  she and dave have spent 3 of their 10 married years living apart, supporting each other's dream chasing.  now they are having an adventure together.

everyone at the office this week has been really helpful with last-minute issues, making sure we are ready and offering tips.  and they have taken us out for lunch to nice restaurants every day, encouraging us to get appetizers, refreshing adult beverages, and desserts.  to fatten up, they say, before we lose 20 pounds in our new life.  today, after finishing my written test in ground school, the chief pilot took the 3 of us out to an irish pub for lunch and a few pints.  he told us he trusts us implicitly, to call him for any reason at any time of day or night, and that he will back us up on anything.  it's nice to have that kind of support back home.

tomorrow we will be flying to rome, italy; and continuing on to addis ababa, ethiopia.  then a change of planes to kigali, rwanda. hopefully, if all goes well, our ground crew, luggage, and the 3 of us will manage to arrive at more or less the same time.  then it's a 4 hour jeep ride through the jungle mountains full of silverback gorillas to the congolese border.

goma is just over that line; that line that someone, somewhere, thought was a good idea to draw on a map.  we have been paying for these people's ideas our entire lives.
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