Whilst I was reaching in the overhead bins above me I spilt water all over the empty seat beside me which was holding my book, passport and MP3 player. I reckon this could be nature/ genetic clumsiness making a comment about me attempting to write a blog. I'm only 10 years behind the curve and apparently 139 characters is enough to fully explain each and every thought - cheers Twitter. I stuck with cassette's for long after they were unfashionable so at least I'm consistent.
I've been employed in a pretty amazing and often insane job for over 3 years now. Met some champion folks, been to places I never even knew existed and seen plenty of amazing sights whilst I've been at it. It appears to be pretty risky at the best of times as well. I've stayed in hotels that no longer exist or have been rebuilt since being blown up by suicide bombers, flown with airlines that have crashed before and after I flew with them, felt the greatest fear of all in North West Pakistan in a city that is now essentially a hotbed for the Taliban but probably the most dangerous things of all are roads. Taxi drivers are generally insane outside of Europe and the roads are mostly terrible. And you never have a seatbelt. Once when in Ekaterinburg in Russia I saw 3 separate crashes in the city within the space of 15 minutes and then the car I was in got stopped by the police and had to pay an on the spot fine/bung as we went over some tram tracks in order to miss the crash. My faculties just weren't able to keep up.
But I've never written anything down. I've good a few cool photos, some interesting souvenirs and made a few good friends along the way, most of my memories are intact (except for 1 night in Hong Kong and one in Tokyo) but I've never written anything down. Obviously, I can't do this job forever, it's certainly got a shelf life and it would be good to have some written evidence of what happened, who I met etc etc etc. I can't be having my Microsoft Outlook archive folders telling me who I had a meeting with on what day as my main recollection of what I did during this time of my life. As a thinner, more drug addled & elastic man than me once sang " I write to remember".
So:
I'm currently 20,000 feet it the sky on a morning flight on an ATP propeller plane half way between Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. It's a damn cloudy day and this little plane really doesn't like thick cloud, thought it was coming to bits at one point. (If I continue to write this blog, you'll see I talk about flying a lot. It excites and frightens me in equal proportions. Fascinated by it I try to learn a little about each plane I'm on) but we're thoroughly on our way now. First the clouds looked like a mountain range, then white sausages. I'll get some pics on here as I hopefully get into the swing of things.
Today's a great day to be going back to Nairobi, it's the introduction of a new constitution that received a landslide victory at the start of the month in a referendum. Of course, it's going to take a long time for it to be fully implemented but one of the important points is to bring in measures that will ensure, as much as possible anyway, that the tribal violence that took place after the 2007 elections is not repeated. I was due to visit Kenya at that time and my visit was cancelled due to safety concerns. Pretty horrific stuff went down - you can check it out here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–2008_Kenyan_crisis
(Just as I'm writing this we're told to look out the left hand window by the pilot. We're flying right past Mt. Kilimanjaro, you can see it just keeking out through the clouds. Phenomenal. 19,000 feet and the highest mountain in Africa according to the pilot. I need to start taking pics for this page)
We'll see what happens with this blog, I hope to continue it regularly when I'm overseas. Purely for selfish reasons I reckon. If anyone else fancies reading they are welcome. I definitely don't plan to talk about myself as much as I have in this first one but felt it warranted a small introduction. It will be about the people I meet, the places I'm at and if possible the silly situations that I wind up in. All blogs are about the ego to some extent but I'll try to make it about the things I encounter but not about myself. We'll see if I can pull that off...I pure love masel.
However, I will write a personal thing at the end of each one:
- Food - Last night in a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Dar. Sausage roll at the airport this morning, and a 4 cheese pizza at the hotel when I arrived in Nairobi this afternoon which I ate just before I wrote this. It was horrific hence the title of this blog. I'm 50% sure I'm about to ralfie
- Drink - Bottled water and lots of it. With a malaria tablet once every 24 hours
- Tunes - Why? with their album Alopecia.
- Taxi driver - Edward. from a village on the Tanzanian side of Lake Nairobi. George, from airport to hotel in Nairobi. I've never seen someone so happy about a constitution. Its a great day for Kenya and everyone is going to part all weekend apparently. Imagine anyone being so politicised in the UK? I bet even the Tories didn't party later than 11pm on the night they won the last election never mind the whole weekend. Pussies.
- Book - Undercover Economist - Tim Harford. I don't like him.
- Currently getting hotel and Airmiles for - Priority Club (about to hit Elite Status, BEEZER!) and Flying Blue (KLM, Airfrance partner Kenya Airways).
Give me a shout if you think I should anything to the above list - it could get funny.
Since landing and typing this up you can see info about the constitution and some great pics on the links below.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/27/kenya-constitution-law
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11109846
I'm off to see my 4 cheese pizza again in the bathroom.
