My Grandma just passed away this weekend. Quite a big loss, I’ll miss her a lot, she was cool, really cool, cooler than many young people in fact. She was a bit of a nutcase in a good sense, she was too modern for the times she was born in, she was interesting in many ways and I never got bored when visiting her. She loved reading books and sometimes we shared them. She stayed switched on by watching smart programs on telly as well.
Above all I could hardly do wrong in her eyes, she approved my wish to come in Africa and live up my dreams. She became my fan Nr 1 (well sharing the podium with Mom), was an avid reader of my road books, and wouldn’t miss any of my photos. Sharing my African experience with her was a pure joy.
when I say I could hardly do no wrong, I managed briefly once or twice. I was explaining my joy at ”strafing” local people, Maasai usually. That is to fly really low, a few meters above the ground and using imaginary machine guns from my wings, mumbling “thud thud thud” ( who said Immature? and yes I know, guns on a C206, that’s far stretched). Of course that means people had sometimes to dive in the dust, that cows and goats were dispersing like hell and that moody warriors threw spears or arrows at me. Then I noticed she had raised an eye brow. Hmmm not good for my sorry ass…she said she thought I was a good kid (I always stayed a kid in her eyes), asked why I was enjoying scaring people away. Before I could answer she started a story…
she vividly talked about a bloody bastard of a German fighter pilot doing the same to her and other girls working in some field in 1940 while the men were busy on some front or prisoners of war. No gunning luckily but she clearly remembered the aircraft a few meters above the ground, the huge engine roar, the pilot’s face, his leather helmet and goggles, the yellow nose of the aircraft (then that must have been a Messerschmitt 109) and the pilot grinning and waving! She showed him the fist of course, the finger was not fashionable yet.
I could see she was back in time, living again that moment. Then she ‘landed’ and asked me again. I gave a few reasons, fun being the main one for any self respected bush pilot, slight revenge being another one as Maasai people drove me nuts sometimes while I was performing for Flying Medical Service and a last but good one: to give people something to talk about. Puzzled look from Grandma. I went on to explain that there is no television out there, as in 1940 by the way, and a bit of distraction must have been welcome. Imagine now an old wrinkled Maasai dude sitting in the shade under the main tree telling the story to an avid audience. I bet he’d embellish the facts and add that he managed to stick a spear in my butt or that he had to run for one week to collect all his scared animals.... Seriously I’d like to hear the Maasai version of the story.
And I looked at Grandma, and pointed that she kind of proved my point as she still remembered clearly the German bastard 60 years later, he’d be proud… she tried to keep on some blame stare on me but I saw a refrained smile. And I was forgiven of course, as always anyway.
I’m sad I didn’t go home and visit her last year because of that new job…
this is just reasonable low flying. But shooting and flying at the same time is not that easy. So if I go lower I stop shooting. Even more if there are people in the way. Imagine a smart ass playing chicken with me, I’d better be focus on him and not on my camera. The blue thing is the aircraft nose.
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