Friday August 19th
Just had a wonderful dinner of tee-bone steak chips and beans and have decided to make an early night of it. There’s a Solo party in the bar, the tradition is that after their solo flight, each student gets thrown into the swimming pool! Once everyone in the group has flown solo they throw a party. It looked like a good one – lots of coloured balloons flashing lights and streamers and of course copious amounts of alcohol to liven things up a bit.
There are two groups of students, the largest contingent are very mainly young men, some from Kenya, the Seychelles, a few from South Africa Airways studying for their pilots licence and us. There are four FSD students, Martine lost her legs in the July bombings last year, Kate has a back problem , they are much younger than me. Paul is a road traffic accident victim and has a broken back he has some flying experience and is helping us cope with the complexities of ground school. Kate and I are lucky because we can walk, although Kate walks much more than me. Martine and Paul are confined to their wheelchairs. They need hand controls on their planes but we manage on regular ones. It must be an odd sight seeing the four of us making our way across the air field to our flying lessons.
The rest seem to be a bit older, some from Ireland and others from South Africa, they have their licences and are working towards more substantial licences for the bigger airlines. We have counted three girls, (other that us three) out of the 150 or so men. The commercial pilots have to have a huge amount of flying hours, and if they can’t get sponsored they live on campus for up to three years and become instructors. Each hour they teach goes towards their ultimate goals. Everyone is so pleasant and friendly and only to happy to help in anyway they can. Although I don’t think they know quite what to make of us. I sat on by the command centre this morning waiting for my lesson and I think every of the 150 students passed me by and said ‘good morning’ It was exhausting keeping a friendly smile on my face
As you can imagine feeding such a large group of men consists of large quantities of carbohydrates – three meals a day of what could be described as 1950’s British cooking, meat, over cooked vegetables and huge amounts of rice and potatoes. . I don’t think healthy eating is an issue here – with the clientele that frequent our canteen, calories are of paramount importance. High fat, sugar and salt is the order of the day, which of course makes everything tastes so good but is not very good four our waistlines! Curiously we don’t get any puddings. There is fruit available at lunchtime but nothing in the evenings. Except on Sundays when we will have roast dinner, followed by ice-cream with chocolate sauce.
The rooms are basic but very nice – there is one bathroom for every two bedrooms, we have long working desks with overhead lights, wardrobes and very comfortable beds. The bathrooms have good showers and plentiful very hot water. My room is very near the bar where the solo party will erupt any time now. The noise level doesn’t seem so bad, yet, I can hear speeches and the occasional laughter and clapping, I expect the music to start soon.
I caused a bit of a stir yesterday, we went into the local town (Port Alfred). Previous FSD students us that the video shop has a broadband internet connection and there is a local supermarket. I wanted to find some liquid hand soap for the bathroom, a smelly fresh air thing in the loo and some decent coffee. It’s funny what I miss already……….
Just heard a splash – several people have been thrown in the swimming pool. It must be freezing – the nights are still quite cold and the pool is outside and unheated!
……………..They gave us bar of Lux we arrived , but it is terrible stuff, dries up anything it touches and I’m not sure how hygienic it is, and I would kill for a decent cup of coffee. We can buy some in the canteen that’s quite good but it’s over the other side of the campus, and I’d love to be able to make some in my room. Martine another FSD student, has bought a travel kettle – so all we need is coffee.
I don’t think anyone had ever seen an electric wheelchair before – the parking attendants in their yellow waistcoats didn’t know whether to find me a place to park or guide me into the shops! I had lots of calls about how cool the chair was, the parking guys all called out ‘hello momma’ seems to be the term for big fat old lady. I think they were good natured, but I did begin to feel a bit uneasy by the end of the trip, and was very glad to see the cadets appear with the bus to collect us. I was pleased to find that the supermarket had everything we needed. It’s called ‘Pick and Pay’ and has blue striped bags just like Tescos.
The Cadets are another bunch of very young lads, the lowest in the pecking order of this patriarchal society, they work at anything they can to earn flying lessons. They sleep in a bunk house which seems to be just a thatched room divided into cubicles by wardrobes, they have to pay for their food – so they always look hungry.
Flight school isn’t run on Saturdays and Sundays- but we still fly. So we are hoping to catch up on some book work and perhaps on Sunday try to go out for lunch. We will have to persuade a couple of the cadets to take us, there are no taxis, or for that matter public transport of any kind, and the school do not have wheelchair ramps. So I need two strong young men to lift my 70kg electric chair in and out of the school mini bus, every time I go anywhere. I have a feeling that if we offer to pay for their lunch we won’t get much resistance.
Just had a wonderful dinner of tee-bone steak chips and beans and have decided to make an early night of it. There’s a Solo party in the bar, the tradition is that after their solo flight, each student gets thrown into the swimming pool! Once everyone in the group has flown solo they throw a party. It looked like a good one – lots of coloured balloons flashing lights and streamers and of course copious amounts of alcohol to liven things up a bit.
There are two groups of students, the largest contingent are very mainly young men, some from Kenya, the Seychelles, a few from South Africa Airways studying for their pilots licence and us. There are four FSD students, Martine lost her legs in the July bombings last year, Kate has a back problem , they are much younger than me. Paul is a road traffic accident victim and has a broken back he has some flying experience and is helping us cope with the complexities of ground school. Kate and I are lucky because we can walk, although Kate walks much more than me. Martine and Paul are confined to their wheelchairs. They need hand controls on their planes but we manage on regular ones. It must be an odd sight seeing the four of us making our way across the air field to our flying lessons.
The rest seem to be a bit older, some from Ireland and others from South Africa, they have their licences and are working towards more substantial licences for the bigger airlines. We have counted three girls, (other that us three) out of the 150 or so men. The commercial pilots have to have a huge amount of flying hours, and if they can’t get sponsored they live on campus for up to three years and become instructors. Each hour they teach goes towards their ultimate goals. Everyone is so pleasant and friendly and only to happy to help in anyway they can. Although I don’t think they know quite what to make of us. I sat on by the command centre this morning waiting for my lesson and I think every of the 150 students passed me by and said ‘good morning’ It was exhausting keeping a friendly smile on my face
As you can imagine feeding such a large group of men consists of large quantities of carbohydrates – three meals a day of what could be described as 1950’s British cooking, meat, over cooked vegetables and huge amounts of rice and potatoes. . I don’t think healthy eating is an issue here – with the clientele that frequent our canteen, calories are of paramount importance. High fat, sugar and salt is the order of the day, which of course makes everything tastes so good but is not very good four our waistlines! Curiously we don’t get any puddings. There is fruit available at lunchtime but nothing in the evenings. Except on Sundays when we will have roast dinner, followed by ice-cream with chocolate sauce.
The rooms are basic but very nice – there is one bathroom for every two bedrooms, we have long working desks with overhead lights, wardrobes and very comfortable beds. The bathrooms have good showers and plentiful very hot water. My room is very near the bar where the solo party will erupt any time now. The noise level doesn’t seem so bad, yet, I can hear speeches and the occasional laughter and clapping, I expect the music to start soon.
I caused a bit of a stir yesterday, we went into the local town (Port Alfred). Previous FSD students us that the video shop has a broadband internet connection and there is a local supermarket. I wanted to find some liquid hand soap for the bathroom, a smelly fresh air thing in the loo and some decent coffee. It’s funny what I miss already……….
Just heard a splash – several people have been thrown in the swimming pool. It must be freezing – the nights are still quite cold and the pool is outside and unheated!
……………..They gave us bar of Lux we arrived , but it is terrible stuff, dries up anything it touches and I’m not sure how hygienic it is, and I would kill for a decent cup of coffee. We can buy some in the canteen that’s quite good but it’s over the other side of the campus, and I’d love to be able to make some in my room. Martine another FSD student, has bought a travel kettle – so all we need is coffee.
I don’t think anyone had ever seen an electric wheelchair before – the parking attendants in their yellow waistcoats didn’t know whether to find me a place to park or guide me into the shops! I had lots of calls about how cool the chair was, the parking guys all called out ‘hello momma’ seems to be the term for big fat old lady. I think they were good natured, but I did begin to feel a bit uneasy by the end of the trip, and was very glad to see the cadets appear with the bus to collect us. I was pleased to find that the supermarket had everything we needed. It’s called ‘Pick and Pay’ and has blue striped bags just like Tescos.
The Cadets are another bunch of very young lads, the lowest in the pecking order of this patriarchal society, they work at anything they can to earn flying lessons. They sleep in a bunk house which seems to be just a thatched room divided into cubicles by wardrobes, they have to pay for their food – so they always look hungry.
Flight school isn’t run on Saturdays and Sundays- but we still fly. So we are hoping to catch up on some book work and perhaps on Sunday try to go out for lunch. We will have to persuade a couple of the cadets to take us, there are no taxis, or for that matter public transport of any kind, and the school do not have wheelchair ramps. So I need two strong young men to lift my 70kg electric chair in and out of the school mini bus, every time I go anywhere. I have a feeling that if we offer to pay for their lunch we won’t get much resistance.
posted by judith | 8:13 PM
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