Tanzania 2011 Journal

The next few entries on the blog are from the journal I have been keeping while on the 2011 Tanzania trip with work.

Outbound

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p id=“yui_3_10_1_1_1392417056957_14641”>We are on our way. After a half day at work, I make my way to the other campus to get some donations into my extra bag, and help pack up the emergency medical kits. Each staff member will have one on them at all times, should anything hit the fan while we’re out with the students. Four of us, twenty-nine of them, and soon we’ve loaded bags on to the coach and are off to Terminal 4, but not before a student has to run back to the other campus for his passport. Oh well, there’s always one.

It’s a rush as soon as we hit the airport. The gate has already been called, and another student has left a bag behind at the school because he expected someone else had put it on the coach for him (oh well, there’s always two…). Some of us are sent to check in at Premiere Class (freaking out some of the more discerning passengers), and it seems that I don’t have a boarding pass that will let me all the way through to Kilimanjaro. I’m told that I can sort it out during the layover in Nairobi.

Through security, I’m diligent enough to take out the MacBook Air, and iPad, but sure enough,  I am disassembling my backpack and removing the Sanyo Xacti, the 350D and PowerShot, extra lenses and power supplies. There’s a small chance that our bags may not make it all the way to Kilimanjaro with us, and because we’ll be out and about and on safari within a few days of arriving, I’m not taking any chances in case our bags go missing. I politely explain to the security lady (who is friendly, and has been singing Sir Mix-A-Lot under her breath) that everything is for a school trip and she nods sagely. I am left to go about my business, she goes back to singing about liking big butts.

R has reserved a camera at the airport Dixons. I catch up with him after getting some money changed. He’s got a Canon EOS 7D waiting for him, but no CF card, and supposes he can get one in Nairobi. It’s a beauty of a camera, though. We’re all heading for the gate when I run into two students who are waiting for a takeaway order from Garfunkels (there’s always 4…). Time to board the plane.

There’s that bit when your plane is taxi-ing from the gate to the runway. It’s the part where you start to really look forward to the adventure ahead. You get some time to look out the window, see all the other planes, look at the rest of the airport, get bored, lose interest, ignore the safety demonstration and start to wonder why the hell you’re not in the air already. Then things turn dark. Your mind runs through a hundred vignettes on what could possibly be preventing you from partaking in the miracle of flight. Well, you think to yourself, that safety video I ignored had an old-style Gameboy, Sony Discman and giant Nokia phone as examples of what you couldn’t have switched on during takeoff. Perhaps, this being the 21st century, nobody watching the video recognised those particular devices and just kept on using their PSPs, iPhones and Blackberrys instead.

And then thoughts turn darker and more obscure. If I was sucked out of the cabin at 30,000 feet, how fast could I get my phone put of my pocket, power it on, enter the passcode, enter the PIN number, turn on Location Services, fire up Twitter and hope it gets my GPS coordinates right? Never mind that I had better think of something clever to say about my impending doom in 140 characters or…ah, I see we’re taking off.

Turbulence A few hours in, we experience the worst, and continuous turbulence I have ever known. I cannot sleep for the rest of the flight. I start reflecting on my past, and thinking about how, if I get out of this, I will spend my future. I will keep these thoughts with me for the rest of the trip. It is the scariest, most life-affirming flight I have ever experienced, and hope that I never have to experience it again.

I try and watch some films while waiting for the time to pass. I’ve put more than a few on the iPad, and decide on a documentary. Unfortunately for the student sleeping in the seat next to me, even on it’s lowest brightness setting, turning on the iPad in the darkness is like OPENING THE ARK OF THE COVENANT, RIGHT BEFORE ALL THE GHOSTS FLY OUT AND MELT THE NAZI’S FACES. The idea is quickly nixed so passengers near me can sleep. I alternate between reading comics on the iPad (at least one of the apps I use has an additional brightness setting) and listening to Nerdcast on my old iPod. I can’t sleep. I stay awake for the remainder of the flight, choosing to breathe deeply every time we hit a pocket of air. Every nudge pushing me closer to my impending death.

And then we land. The next few hours are a blur. I put off drinking any more coffee for a while.

to be continued…