The north country

I spent today wandering all over northern Kenya. First to Kurungu where I picked up 4 people to take to .... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

About 6 this morning one of the Gatab missionaries called and said T. Knowles in Ngurunit had called, looking for a flight to Nairobi. He'd gotten an infection in one leg that was getting worse, to the point where his leg was starting to go numb, and he needed to get to the hospital. John called me because he wasn't sure who else to call. Guess I'm a a bona-fide upcountry missionary pilot now if I'm the one they call.

Plot, plan, figure, replot, refigure. Yep, I can do this. Pick up JL and his 3 at Kurungu, drop them at Korr Catholic Mission airstrip, go to Ngurunit, get T. K. stop at Korr Main to fuel (it's 2 miles west of the Catholic mission airstrip, but we're weight limited because it's short, where the Catholic airstrip is a gross weight runway), then hop over to the Catholic airstrip to get the rest of the guys, go to Samburu South, drop them, continue on with T.K. to Nairobi. Piece of cake.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, that's why he's called the enemy. I taxied down to customs to clear paperwork, as normal. Started to taxi off...nope. Flat tire. Flat tire!?? Sigh. Call the hangar, the maintenance guys (God bless Ryan Williams, the piston fleet supervisor, he's great!) get everything together and come to my rescue. I'm on the way, 45 minutes late, but on the way. Great weather today. Unlike last week (see the last couple posts).

I get to Kurungu. Bookings had tried all morning to get hold of JL and tell him the flight was moved up. No luck. I sit for an hour before he finally gets there at the original meeting time. We get moving, and I drop them at Korr Catholic. One of his guys came with me to help fuel, since I had no idea what sort of condition T.K. would be in. T.K. is waiting for us at Ngurunit. Back to Korr Main to fuel (with a bucket! Pour from the 55 gallon fuel drum into the bucket, hoist to wing, pour through filter - funnel. Repeat. We put half a drum in the plane, loaded up and bounced over to the Catholic airstrip. Everyone loaded up, took off.

The rest of the flight was routine. Oh one more thing it was HOT in Korr. HOT I say. How hot you ask, HOT I say. It was about 40 C, about 104 F. HOT!

A few bonuses about the flight...I had a beautiful view of Mt Kenya today. It was clear as a bell up above the clouds in the morning. In the afternoon I flew between Mt. Kenya and the Aberdares (not a usual route, it's frequently clouded over, but today was great weather, so...) and got to look up at it from the west. Great views.

Another bonus was the nature of the flight to get T.K. That's the sort of thing that AIM Air is all about, providing a life line to missionaries out in hard to reach places. I'm not glad T.K. was ill, but I'm thrilled I was able to help him, and grateful that God let me in on the work.

A final bonus. Seems like we've been taken in by the northern missionaries as one of their own. I'm the one they called in an emergency. Really cool. Really humbling. A bit scary. It's a huge responsibility. Today everything worked out extremely well, despite the rocky start. Tomorrow, we'll see what God brings.