1. Adventure.
I am an adventure freak. Any opportunity that arises for me to travel is one that I enjoy. Road trips are probably top on the list of the best things that ever happened to travel. I don’t understand how people pay a fortune to go sit, sleep, swim and eat at an expensive hotel for a weekend. One place! All that money? They actually call it two nights and two days… Right? I would rather spend that money traversing the country. Kenya for instance has a lot of things to see in some places that don’t even get the privilege to appear in local dailies. I am the kind of person who will take any possible opportunity to make it a traveling adventure. Luckily, I have friends who subscribe to the same school of thought. I am the kind who will save up on boarding fees to extend my mileage. Recently I have been in Nandi & Uasin Gishu counties. We used the Eldama Ravine, Kaptagat route to get to Eldoret , before reaching out to the outskirts of Eldoret like Longisar, Chepsiret, Keses and the like. This was an amazing experience. I haven’t gotten enough of it. I will still use it again. The route is amazing because of the sceneries and the cultural and language differences that exist along the route. Including how some of the areas are not too well exposed and you end up buying farm produce for prices that even the law of the land would refuse. This is a land plenty of milk, plenty of maize, plenty of wheat and the like. Talking of food, there are these brown chapatis I usually eat when in Eldoret, a certain café/ restaurant called Sundrops. My friend! Those chapatis are to live for! You can actually see the wheat grains of those chapatis, just like the floor of United’s brown bread. The food – preparation & pricing tells of how blessed the area is and by extension the country itself. Where there climate is not favourable for farming, the area is conducive for tourism and other economic activities. When you later sit and meditate on the travel experiences from the various destinations within and outside you remain forever grateful of life and the amazingness of God’s creation. I am however hurt when I see large chunks of forest land being cleared for whatever reason that is without making an effort to replace them. Traveling puts me in a state of ease and relaxation. It has exposed me to new cultures, new ideas, new environments… The list is endless. Slot me in a road trip plot or share a route/ destination I should try… & we will be friends😊.
2. Books.
This is too obvious. I loved reading from an early age. I thank my Dad for this because this is probably the reason why I am the way I am in terms of knowing bits and pieces of information and always being inquisitive for solutions for various situations. My relationship with books has therefore been one of the greatest relationships ever. They provide knowledge; they provide solace and above all, facilitate wisdom. Lady Bird Series marked my early days, (I feel like I have discussed this before) – these are the likes of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (I wanted to be a dwarf), Tom Thumb… the list is endless. This upgraded to the likes of Moses Series – Moses in a Mess, Moses in a Muddle etc. The primary school I attended was so nice that they introduced us to set books early in life. One particular set book I won’t forget was Two in One. It is from this book where I derived my infamous tagline and comparison of behaving like “Karatina Market Women”. You will now start wondering how Karatina Market Women behave. It is right there; unfortunately, this joke rubs any light reader the wrong way. Trying to explain it makes it even worse. Which is why everyone should read a little bit more. I later upgraded to Reader’s Digest. This made an entertaining read for a young boy. The jokes were hilarious and I learnt about the likes of Al Gore long before I knew about America and its Politics. By this time, we were still learning about our district – Kirinyaga. I was wondering who these people always being quoted here were. By now, reading has developed my confidence and the liberty to develop my own philosophies, my own theories, and numerous ideas that leave most concluding that I cannot be 100% sane. But it’s a good life. My adult life, was influenced by the urge to be as educated as my friends who had the chance to go to university and so I was trying to compensate to allow me to handle conversations with them. As I grew older, I focused on motivational books, then again to biographies and at some point I realised I am not becoming as wise as I would want to be & fast enough for that matter, so I went back to the basics. The Bible – Watch this space. Discuss/ share a book… & we will be friends😊.
3. Chapati & …
Beans, green grams, njahi, lentils… I love chapati!!! I don’t know how I would describe this relationship. Sometimes we may disagree once in a while like every other relationship and I might cheat on Ndengu a little, with beans. But the basic unit of this meal is Chapati. I remember on one assignment I had chapati and ndengu, every day for lunch and colleagues thought I was crazy. Another time recently at the coast, a three-month assignment where weekday breakfast was Chapati and Ndengu daily! Yes breakfast; it was a heavy-duty assignment so… chai na mahamri ni nyinyi…
Back at my parent’s house, we used to have chapatis every Sunday and this was a culture we really enjoyed. We anticipated Sundays, as if the rest of the days of the week did not matter. As life went by, they have transformed from being a comfort meal, to being a laziness meal, an emergency meal and to now a special meal. Comfort/ laziness applied to those times when I was not in the mood for using two sufurias to prepare a meal – (Add Githeri to this category as well). This means, I was buying the chapatis and I only had to prepare the pre-cooked cereals. Now, I rarely buy chapati for home use. They are now homemade. It therefore counts as a special meal plus the fact that we share that as a favourite meal with the 2IC. Saturdays when the program allows or if I am not crawling in a bush somewhere, it is usually chapati days.
If I start to write my encounters in the struggle towards cooking multi layered chapatis… I will end up crowding this article. & will be selfish. ☝️those are actually today’s courtesy of my friend. I did beans today. I will run a chapati story soon. But part of the reason why I will be fined for being late on this article is I got home late and I was like ‘chapati vs #30DayBlogChallenge’ clearly you can tell who got shot in the thighs. Cook me a 3+ page chapati… & we will be friends😊.
4. Guns.
This is classified. You actually need clearance to discuss this.
5. Planes.
Second week into flying school and I troop into Wilson Airport’s control tower and after some 15 minutes, one of the controllers noticed my arm band.
“Are you in CPL or PPL?”
“SPL still…”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“How many hours so far?”
“Zero Hours.”
*Laughter* *The entire room turns towards me*
“And why do you have a band written pilot on you yet, you have not flown a single hour yet?”
*More laughter*
I bet I would have been more humiliated had I tried to explain myself to them in more words than “Law of attraction.” I did not remove the binoculars from my face as I focused on the Cessna 172 struggling to make a landing on that gusty afternoon on runway 07. I wanted to preach in this control tower but I would have been banned for life. I mean! Who doesn’t know Habakkuk 2:2-3? “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still, the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end – it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” Seriously, that day in that tower, Kriscalf landed some feelings. However, to this day, the control tower remains the best hangouts for a budding pilot followed by the airside. Not many pilots will give you this much airtime & on job training.
My love for planes started in the year 2000 and here we are, working towards it in waves and seasons. Engage me in aviation talk and we will be good friends, tag me on aviation memes, videos, conversation and like. Including the teasing kind by one Janet who is always making fun of me and “crash landings” – especially the kind that misses the runway, we will still be friends. There is something about discussing what you are passionate about. I know many an Avgeek out there who love this even more than aviators themselves and their lives are incredible. They have their 8-5 but somewhere in there, they slot their 5+ hour flights on their home made simulators and the like – talk about passion, and still he or she will watch an episode of Air Crash Investigations before bed! This is the life! Flying is life. There is so much about aviation on this blog and so much more coming that I feel there is no need of attempting intelligent play on point No. 5. Mention something about planes… & we will be friends😊.
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