Travel Writing Blog #4 - Chapters 5 & 6

Griffin displays another example in chapter five of the kindness and selflessness of many African people. The story he relates deals with a young French pilot named Michel, and his decision to fly a mission at night, against Service policy, to rescue a girl hemorrhaging after birth. Flying to Sabarei, on Kenya's Northern border with Ethiopa, would take two hours, and that put their arrival time well after sunset. Michel is undeterred, however, and his thirst for approval from the other pilots lands him in a middle-of-nowhere mud-pit, at night, with a dying girl to be loaded, and a potentially disastrous take-off over water to look forward to. After Rose, the nurse, loads the girl, Michel makes an incredibly close take-off, risking more lives than his own to get them of the groud.

The patient ends up dying, as does Rose's son, but that vignette shows the devotion of some Africans to helping others and contributing to their country.

Chapter six, however, details Griffin's own experience with a crash, this time on South Island in Lake Turkana. His writing here very effectively conveys the intense embarrassment he felt after marooning himself, Krystyne, and Kipsoi, a Samburu warrior who sold his spear for a plane ride, on the deserted island. His fear for his plane and the lives of those he's brought with him is evident as he recalls the event, and their situation is little improved when Turkana fisherman arrive on the scene. Kipsoi freaks out (Turkana and Samburu tribesman don't play well together), while the Turkana end up sniffing gas from Griffin's plane and charging the castaways for food and assistance.

Putting on another display of his apparent luck/skill at making miraculous escapes from stressing situations, the group are rescued by a Kenyan Army helicopter. The Major in command and his men are killed shortly after leaving Griffin and Krystyne at Loiengalani, adding more emphasis to the already clear message this chapter sends about the fragility of life, especially in the African desert.