Scott's African Adventure

Day 3

This day started early. Our driver showed up really late. The Ethiopian Operations is a huge complex on the airport. It seems that everything is like a compound. Armed guards with gates are at the entry of almost all “proper” establishments. Lots of guys carrying AK47's.

We got to the operations center and the 8 students were waiting outside. The classroom is small and not what I would call a classroom. It is more like a meeting room. It would do the trick though.

These 8 guys are all really good guys and make me feel comfortable. I am working on getting the names figured out. Porters bring snacks and fresh coffee every couple of hours.

Lunch was interesting. It marked the low point of the trip so far. Jonathan was a little behind working with the next set of guys. So he stayed at the operations center while I was taken to the “club”. Another heavily guarded compound. The “club” is a resort kind of place owned by Ethiopian Airlines and is for the soul use of the pilots of the airline. The cafeteria style food was spicy. I got into a conversation with some off duty pilots so I didn't get to order for myself. I really felt out of place. I didn't feel threatened, it was more like everyone knew I was not part of the crowd. The chief pilot took good care of me and everything fell into place. This is, however, when I started to feel like crap! I am not sure what it was but I was not in a good place. I think it was a combination of The strange food, high altitude, very strong coffee, and being really tired. I managed to get through the last part of the day, and as soon as we got back to the hotel I went to sleep. Slowly my stomach settled and I slept good. I woke up around 0430 but felt much better and decided to use the time to catch up on my blog entry and do some other work that needed to be done. It looks like I will be working on my day off. I am going to be teaching the International IFR course. Jonathan has to fly to Kenya for some FlightPath buisness.