I left my house at 4.00pm on Tuesday met up with my colleague Richard. We both travelled by train arrived onwards to Heathrow. We both waited for our plane headed straight off to Dubai Nairobi, Kenya. We both arrived at 3.00pm Wednesday afternoon.
My first experience was trying to fill out 5 different forms for a visa, the experience for me was tough. As a Dyslexic this was my worst nightmare! Once working out what other people were doing around me I just copied what they were doing it was fine.
Kenya is three hours ahead so we actually met our taxi at 3.30pm Nairobi time. With not knowing much of what to expect and having never been to Kenya or even Africa before! Exciting times!
I didn’t know what to expect before the airport opened, once I walked out of the airport, I was totally immersed in a new world.
I was immediately overwhelmed firstly by the noise; the traffic is lots of road signs, advertising billboards indicating and the noise. Cars, bikes and buses just moving forward into any available space that was available, at first it was gridlock once everyone worked out where to go – everything feel into place the traffic was moving quickly.
On the drive across the city, there were many people walking along the side of the roads, many were in suits and colourful rich clothes heading home from work and school. You could feel the hustle and bustle of a city but one like none I had ever experienced before.
All the people in the city were walking in and out of the fast moving traffic not looking where they were going. No one seemed to notice this chaos. Once I settled into the journey I could see there were many vacant and derelict buildings littering the landscape many unfinished. The buildings had many Chinese billboards and advertising; I was told later on the MAF staff that many nationalised Chinese companies are investing heavily into the Kenyan economy which marked changing times in the new globalised economy. This seems to give the Kenyan capital energy which you felt all around you.
Fighting through the traffic and people-watching made the time fly and the taxi arrived at MAF's hangar at Wilson Airport. I spent the day meeting with all the staff who works in a variety of positions. The aircraft in Hangar looked amazing! Much bigger in size than I have expected! I will be uploading photos to the MAF website and Facebook when I have arrived back from the UK. Amazing stuff!
I spent a couple hours with the MAF engineers taking apart a whole aircraft. Incredible seeing the engineers taking aprt each piece of the engine putting it back together shortly afterwards!
Wow what a epic day. We landed at the Hotel totally exhausted... Its many hours on the plane with no sleep, GREAT! We will be heading back to the MAF hangar at Wilson Airport in the morning to find out more about the Kenyan programme. I’m really excited to finally see MAF’s work in the field seeing difference that the planes and MAF staff make in Kenya. I will be keeping you posted with future updates when we have internet! Take care. Marcus J
