(½) “In tenth grade we were given an assignment to...

(½) “In tenth grade we were given an assignment to shadow a professional in the workplace.  I wanted to be a doctor at the time, so I emailed some hospitals but never got a response.  Luckily one of my aunts worked in the back office of South African Airlines, so she invited me to come with her to the airport.  I’d never flown on an airplane before.  I remember looking out the window at all those big ass planes coming in to land.  My aunt could see that I wasn’t interested in the paperwork, so she took me to the crew room.  I noticed all the pilots had incredible posture.  All their hats were lined up on a shelf.  Their jackets were all hanging in a row.  And that’s when the bug bit me.  I started spending all my holidays there.  The pilots were very nice to me.  I don’t think they’d ever seen an African female who was so enthusiastic about becoming a pilot.  They gave me advice and let me share their simulator time.  When I turned eighteen, I visited a flight school and picked up an application.  But the costs were too much.  My mom said we didn’t have the money, and told me to apply to normal universities.  She’d bring me applications, but I kept hiding them under my bed and telling her I got rejected.  I found an internship with a glider company, and used my stipend to buy my first pilot’s uniform.  I put one stripe on the sleeve—for students.  When I came home that night, I think she took me seriously for the first time.  She could see her daughter really wanted to fly.”              
(Johannesburg, South Africa)