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Growing up in a developing country and seeing an aeroplane fly over your home was a big de. There was a song we would sing when one flew over, and we would run like we were running after it. The sound of the aircraft would fill the entire neighbhood as well as the voices of children singing a song about it in our local dialect (yoruba) then.
"Aeroplani odabo ,
bambi ki iya Telekom,
eko meiji oyomi, oyomi o ,
oyomi, bam bam jigi jigi.
(Bye bye aeroplane, my greetings to the pap seller)
The vigour and energy we used in singing those songs fueled my desire to one day fly an aircraft across the sky with pride and a huge grin on my face. I carried that desire in my heart for a long time until one day my dad asked me about what I wanted for the future. My dad wasn't the weekday dad but the weekend dad due to the nature of his job.
He came home one day and he came to my room to have a talk with me, when he asked what I wanted to become in future I was certain he was expecting the usual a doctor or a nurse as the dream of most young kids. When I replied "a pilot" , he was definitely shocked and starred at me for a while. "A pilot" he asked again "you want to leave dad" he further asked laughing.
"No, I just want to travel the world" I emphasized with a wide grin on my face.
Years later I realised my country didn't exactly have the facilities and for institutions that did, high cost of training and the huge connections to enrol were a thing. Coming from a middle class family, attending schools like that were mere fantasies.
Then I decided to make life my sky and a different career my aircraft and keep flying as high as i can because i know one day i will travel the world, not as a pilot but as a microbiologist collecting unique microorganisms across the globe.