Thursday, February 19, 2009

First impressions.....

I have been allocated a room at the “pilot house” which I share with 2 other pilots (Dan from Kentucky and Sven from Germany). It’s very basic, with no hot water, no washing machine and frequent power cuts. Suppose this is Africa though! I’ve been very surprised so far; in my opinion Tanzania (or at least Dar) is way more backward and ugly than Lilongwe where I was before. The company is in the growth phase, going from 2 to 6 planes in less than a year so things are typically chaotic. Hopefully things will be more orderly come June when the season starts. Peter and Sarah (the owners) are very nice and invited us all for dinner and rugby on the TV my first night. We all live in the same neighbourhood, 3kms from the airport. Because there rarely is a car available to take us there, we usually walk.

I have been using these first 2 weeks to study for the TZ air law exam. Finally sat it yesterday and it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Results come Monday, so fingers crossed. Otherwise I have been sitting in on as many flights in the Cessna 206 (with Sven) as possible. The main routes he flies are Dar, Mikumi, Mtemere (Rufiji river camp) and Ruaha. The company has safari camps in all these parks. It’s quite different than flying in Malawi, more organised and less room for fooling around! It’s been exciting and I have tried to upload pictures but the connectivity is the worst I have ever experienced. I’ll let you know on my upload progress soon.

Last weekend I was invited to Rob’s place for a braai. I flew with Rob in Malawi, so it was a nice reunion to see him again. It was a great evening, which also gave me the opportunity to meet some of the other guys from the other companies operating out of Dar. Nice people just don’t see them so much. I need to get more involved so I can start enjoying some of my hobbies; running, tennis and football. We’ll see what happens.

Okay that it for this time around, I start flying myself next week so I’ll write some more then. Until then, take it easy and safari njema!!

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