Planes, Flames, and Hadedas

I'm sorry, in the chaos that is this semester and life in Africa, I have been completely neglecting my blog. It's not that I don't want to write on it, it's just trying to find the time. My life is going in ten different directions at once. What have I been doing you ask? Well, school (so papers, projects, reports, and the like); field trips (I saw a bush baby!!), climbing; running; baking (finally); and all other shinanigans that are associated with Africa. This afternoon, I am going up to Underburg in the Drakensburgs with a few friends, Iain, Jeninne, Tracy, Haden, and Matt. If the weather holds up, which it doesn't look like it's going to, I'm supposed to fly up with Iain and Jeninne in Iain's father's tri-pacer. If not I'll drive up but I really hope the weather holds up.

Iain took me flying last week as well. It was so much fun to get back into the air! The plane is so cool too because it was made in the 1950s and is as basic as they come. I think it cruises around 100 knots and it flies very similarily to a Cessna 152. However, the cool thing about the tri-pacer is that it is canvas. I sat co-pilot and its a bench seat so in order for me to fly, I had to prop myself up off  the back of the seat. The only problem with the day we flew was that it was really smokey. Because winter is the dry season here, they burn fire breaks during the fall in order to control the fires in the winter. Therefore, the last couple weeks have been super smokey. But C'est le vie! I still was able to fly so I'm happy!

The friends I have made from South Africa, aforementioned above, are all really outdoorsy and into sports such as white water kayaking, climbing, hiking, dirt biking, etc. Plus this is Africa, so everyone seems to own a gun (my favorite right). Anyway, there are these really annoying birds, Hadedas, that used to be protected but are now as common as pigeons and seagulls in the US. But these things are soo annoying! They have the most horrendous call you can imagine! So I'm not a fan. Anyway, the guys were joking around about how I had to shoot a Hadeda before I left. No I didn't shoot one. But Matt brought over his pellet guns and shot empty soda bottles with those for a while. They thought they were really funny too and made me pose with the guns in order to show my dad. I think it's quite ridiculous but  o well.

Anyway, I'm off. Time to start being productive with this day!!