My shoes are brown. They are nice, leather, fake, but actually quite rugged and comfortable. They are by no means fancy or high quality, yet every flight I take, they trudge with me through dirt, mud, and animal-laden runways. They don’t seem to mind the things I’ve stepped on, walked through or seen.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of story my shoes would tell if they could and what heart-wrenching memories they would rather not speak of.
Would they recount, with wonder, the rugged deserts of Northern Kenya? Could they mention the vast jungle of the Central African Republic or the blood-stained land of South Sudan? Would they describe the people who have boarded the 6-seater airplane that I fly with a mixture of desperation and gratitude? A simple pair of shoes, yet in contrast to the barefooted warrior who often meets me at the airstrip, they are a luxury.
If only you could be where my shoes have been, see what they have seen—but you haven’t so I’ll tell you their story:
"Walking into the hangar, strolling along the cold tile floors, I noticed my owner being ushered into the bookings office.
'Prepare for a medical evacuation,' they told him, 'a girl in northern Kenya has been shot.'
He puts on his flight shirt and we rush down the spiral staircase to quickly prepare the airplane. I am excited and yet burdened because we’re dealing with someone’s life. The Cessna 206 is pulled out of the hangar door, just in time for us to step into the airplane, and for me to take my place in the familiar position on the rudder pedals. The airplane rolls down the runway, it rotates, and I am kicked hard to the right as my owner counteracts the forces of flight causing the airplane to veer left. I can't see anything from down here, but I know it must be a sight to behold when my owner sighs at its beauty.
I start to hear the preparations for landing. Although at times I am being jostled back and forth, I know his precise movements are to align us with the runway. Then I hear the thunk, and know we have done it again. I am pressed forward hard as he pushes the brakes to bring the aircraft to a stop before the end of the runway. 'Base, Base, on the ground,' my owner calls out over the radios just as he does every time we fly.
Now we are out on the fresh familiar dirt of Northern Kenya. The girl who was shot is brought in on a truck. At first there was a lot of commotion, other shoes and feet moving about furiously, but then there she was, so small, only one and half years old. She had been shot twice, once in the chest and again in the leg. Her whole family had been shot in a tribal raid; she was the only one to survive.
My soles sank, would this little girl even make it? She was so small, so helpless.
We made sure she was secure in the airplane, and then were off as quickly as we had come, going back to Nairobi to take her to the hospital.
If only you could be where I have been, see what I have seen! Would you be the same? Would your soles be burdened like mine?”
*Shortly after this flight, we received the joyful news that this sweet little girl recovered fully, and she is now doing well and living with her aunt in Nairobi.
Credits:
Elisha Stock