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Fast Flight

Today Jonathan and I went for a ride with Theuns, one of the Air Serv pilots in his Bell 407. Theuns stops by a couple times a week, dropping off or picking up passengers here at the UN base camp. While he waits for passengers, we host him at the Internet café and give him a cold drink. Jonathan and I wanted to get a look at the land between the field and town where some of the NGO houses are, because we're wondering what the possibility is for putting a wireless link into town. We also invited a couple of the SRSA staff along for the ride. What a great view we had, not just of the area we'd like to shoot a wireless link, but also of the city. We ended up flying all the way down to the ocean and back. As I am when I drive through town, I was depressed by the tsunami devastation as we flew over. But on the way back to camp, you should have see the grin on my face as we buzzed the camp and then pulled up into a steep bank! The ride was over in ten minutes, but that certainly was enough time to enjoy it. As usual, the local children enjoyed watching the helicopter take off.

At the end of the day, Jonathan and I left for a couple hours, going down to the airport with Hajar (who was sporting his new Pactec ball cap) so we could swim in the ocean. That was refreshing and relaxing, and I enjoyed both the sand and the surf for a short while. I have to say though, I found myself wondering what I would do if a tsunami happened. An eerie thought. There are so many people here who are still leery of the ocean, finding they don't trust what they once thought they knew so well.