Up in the Air

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt

What a day! This past Saturday was not like any other day here. I didn’t go on my weekly run up to the waterfalls. Instead, I just ran off the side of a mountain with a French man named Bruno and flew up in the sky with birds. It. Was. AWESOME!

I don't consider myself to be someone who has an extreme personality. I’ve never wanted to go skydiving or bungee jumping. Taking those kinds of risks simply doesn’t interest me. However, I like to try new things and I welcome new adventures. For example, during my vacation to Turkey in May I went hot air ballooning in the Cappadocia region....that was incredible.

When I heard about the paragliding near here, I just knew I had to do it. So on Saturday my site mate Gracie and I, along with Andy, another volunteer, traveled up to a village on the Danyi Plateau called N’Digbe. (I think that's how you spell it). The trip to the village reminded me of the drive up to Sunrise Park on Mt. Rainier. It wasn't nearly as long, but the switchbacks were steep and allowed for beautiful views of the landscape below.

The paragliding was out of this world! The experts we flew with are a couple from France. They have been in the area for about six years and also run a paragliding school in the south of France that they've owned for 20 years. They are in Togo only about 3-4 months out of the year. So we were very fortunate to catch them on their final week here.

I was the last to leap, so I had to wait a while, but this turned out for the best. The wind picked up a lot and we were able to go REALLY high up. High enough so that we could actually land at the same site that we took off from instead of the site at the base of the mountain, where my friends landed.

When I was up in the air, the reality of everything didn't register immediately. Then suddenly, I couldn't believe what I was doing. I saw a bird flying about 30 feet below me. That’s when it hit me. Wow!! Bruno told me we were going about 33km an hour. I have no idea what that translates to in mph, but apparently it’s fast. The fastest they can go is 35km per hour. I’m not sure how high we were, but he guessed that we were about 1,000 meters up in the sky. I got a little queasy towards the end, but I didn't get sick. (You can check out my flight on the video tab)

I always knew from the beginning that being a Peace Corps Volunteer would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but this little adventure went beyond all my expectations, giving me a bird's-eye view of my new country, new life in Africa.