Flying on chartered planes is a whole new and different
experience. I’ve lived in a small city that has a small airport where we
actually would walk out to the plane on the tarmac instead of through those
long arms in big commercial airports (though I think the local airport has done
some major upgrades recently). In these cases there are usually lines on the
asphalt indicating where to go and a few staff directing you to the plane. That
is totally not the case out here. We arrived at the airport and were checked
through security then we were off to the waiting area to await further
direction from our pilot. There was no 2-3 hour wait for international flights.
Instead what I thought was a ½ hr wait was actually about 10 minutes. Walking
to the plane was basically follow the pilot and don’t get too close to other
planes. There were about 20 or so planes on the tarmac in various stages of
being prepared for trips and there we were walking right next to them. Soon
we were off to our first destination. Out here you need to “check out” of a
country and “checkin” to the new country so that meant we had to land at 2
aistrips along the border. The first one checkpoint (still in Kenya) was pretty
big and pretty empty except for the planes parked beside the runway in
various states of disrepair or crash damage. If you are nervous to fly, landing
at places like this is not the most encouraging thing. Plane crashes do happen
but out here the planes are not shipped off to a plane graveyard and any form
of disassembly is much more difficult so many of them are just pulled out of
the way and left there.
the planes in the picture don't work
Our next stop was a dusty airstrip with cows, goats, and
people running around next to the landing area. Apparently the place we landed
doesn’t get many flights through here so we were somewhat of a novelty to the
local people. Many people were there to greet us. It took a while but some members
of the team were able to figure out what tribe they were even though none of us
spoke their language and they didn’t speak English. Cameras also were a novelty
and I had to take many pictures of them and then show them their pictures which
they thought was pretty cool. We were soon on our way again and off to our
final destination.
A few more hours of flying and we were soon circling the
final airfield. 2 years ago this area was a small community and now it’s a huge
refugee camp. The whole area was dotted with white UN tarps. Again there were
airplanes at the edge of the runway. One pulled waaay off to the side (and was
one of the planes that crashed with people from our team) and a larger one just
to the side. We landed safely and got
out. I had seen previous pictures of the landing strip prior to its expansion
and knew it had been expanded but I wasn’t prepared for how small I felt once I
was standing out there. Here I was, in some remote area, standing on a landing strip
that can land some pretty big planes. I
felt pretty small standing there looking out at the other huge planes that were
landing.
Out here we are able to get up close to and involved with
flight stuff. Loading, unloading, and walking around on the airstrips. Pretty
different from the commercial flights I have been on where access is very
controlled. Maybe one of these times I’ll be able to fly a plane (no worries I
wont be landing/taking off any time soon).
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