To get hold of the fuel guy

“But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.” 

So, flying in the Southern parts of Africa contains a few challenges. One is that a plane needs fuel every now and then and another is that when going between different countries one must clear customs and immigrations. And if this happens on a Sunday one better pre-arrange it, since these functions might not be available at the airfield. It becomes up to oneself to call the customs person, the immigration official and the fuel guy in advance. And usually they do show up as agreed and it all works out well. Other times they don't, which for sure makes everything a bit complicated.

At one occasion the fuel guys showed up after two hours, but couldn't receive any payment, why we had to come with them into town to pay at their office. That was the same airport where the immigration officer didn't show up and the one we eventually got hold of wasn't registered for receiving payments, why he called in five witnesses to approve the 20 USD transaction. At another occasion the airport manager opened up a whole airport just for us, asked if the children could just sit in the plane for a while and everything was well arranged and coordinated in the middle of the awkwardness of being the only plane and the only travellers at an international airport. 

When travelling through Africa one has to know who to call about what. And if one doesn't know, one must call anyone, to eventually find out who to talk to. But we eventually learned that there is always someone to call, if the first one doesn't pick up and we met so many people who helped us out. Of course it is difficult when you are used to an environment where there is an official system for everything. I think we got better at asking for help and we also had to rely on other people instead of a system, which I believe is a valuable, but every now and then also an incredibly stressful experience.

“Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…”

Quotes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
All the posts about Flying Souther Africa as the little prince.