One Last Hurrah

It’s down to one last week in Botswana now, but things haven’t gotten boring yet. Friday was my last official day of work with Flying Mission, and on Saturday I left Maun and came down to Gaborone to spend my last days in the country. I had thought I was finished with my flying here, but I turned out to be very wrong. On Monday, I was in at the Flying Mission office catching up with people and finalizing some things, when a call came up for a mercy flight. My dad happened to be on the flight schedule for the day, and one thing led to another, with the end result being that I was given the opportunity to fly one last medical flight in the King Air with, of all people, my father as the captain. It ended up being a long day, with two different medical flights and a total of nearly 8 hours of flying. But I’ll trade some words in for a few pictures...

One last African sunset

Medics made us wear facemasks (for a meningitis patient).

Kgale Hill overlooking Gaborone

The Next Transition

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been in Botswana for nearly two years now. For those of you who don’t know already, my time here is quickly drawing to a close. My last day of work with Flying Mission is the 15th of May and I will be flying home to Pennsylvania a week after that. It’s hard to believe that in a few short weeks I will be leaving this part of my life behind and moving on. For me, it’s as big a transition as finishing college to come to Botswana was, and I’m approaching it with a similar mix of sadness, trepidation, and excitement for what’s to come. So what is to come? Well, for the immediate future, I will be spending a few weeks visiting friends and family while travelling across the country, with the final destination of Alaska. There I will join the growing ranks of job-seekers and hope to find some sort of piloting job. Throughout this next period, I will also be exploring options for further education and hope to go back to school at some point in the next 3 years. Those are my plans in just about full detail…which is to say, I haven’t planned in very much detail…but I trust that the rest will fall into place. This entry isn’t meant to be my last blog from Botswana, but just to let folks know a bit of what is going on in the next few months. Thanks for all your support, and I look forward to seeing some of you very soon!