Educational, Medical, Mechanical

In some respects we felt a bit like a Swiss Army Knife during the last trip, doing a bit of everything in one small, neat and efficient package.

The initial call was to take Rick, a Canadian motor mechanic, up to Mozambique so that he could continue to develop an auto workshop training facility at a mission base that Mercy Air is connected with.

To help him fund this there were also people connected with Mercy Air/YWAM's education ministry who contributed and traveled up for meetings. We had also received a call a week earlier asking us to transport a missionary who had been involved in a car accident and who had head and spinal injuries.

For Paul this meant a lot of parallel planning and initially spending two days in Nelspruit helping the car mender man shop for all manner of tools - boy shopping in the extreme.

The result was not only a shed load of tools, but a huge tool box for them all to live in. Rick's penance was that he had to dismantle the tool box so it could fit in the plane.

The following day people and cargo were inserted into the plane like a 3D jigsaw and delivered to Chimoio in Mozambique. Paul then flew on another 1h45 up to Quelimane on the coast where some missionaries took him to the local hospital to meet Elias. Elias was part of a team that had been driving up to Nampula in the north of Moz three weeks earlier when he had had an bad accident resulting in injuries to his head and spine. After stabilizing he was now faced with a two day drive on dirt roads in the back of a minibus, or a 1h45 flight with Paul.

The next day they went to the hospital where they transferred Elias onto our stretcher and wheeled him outside...

where he was loaded into the back of a pick up truck...

and driven at 5kph, due to the heavily pot-holed roads, all the way to the airport.

After loading him on the plane they flew the 1h45 back to Chimoio...

Any passenger with his thumbs up is a good sign!

where he was met by friends and family.

Paul then picked up his original passengers and returned to South Africa via Beira where they landed after heavy rain, resulting in an interesting picture of the plane 'floating' on the apron.

Paul and Cathy

Bling Bling 210

We used to have a Cessna 210 which for many years looked like this..
Then for a while last year we had a 210 that looked like this..
Now we have a nice bling Cessna 210 that looks like this..
This is a good thing.

Just like with any home decorating, things had to get quite messy before they start looking any better, and such is the case with our 210.

It spent eight months in the shop for a refurb that included new paint, interior, carpets, upholstery, and an avionics upgrade. It's first work outing is due for the middle of this month.

Paul and Cathy

Accommodation in Mozambique

In a recent post I was working on a container that the helicopter uses for fuel storage in Mozambique.

Obviously the places Mercy Air go are often are pretty far away from the flight base in South Africa and it's not possible to return every day. Therefore a trips can sometimes last up to 14 days. Now four containers have been positioned in Marromeu for the crews and mission teams.

For the past five years, Mercy Air has operated in the small town of Marromeu in Mozambique, on a regular basis. From there the Zambezi Delta stretches out over 10,000 m² to the Indian Ocean in the east. The area is very remote and doesn't have any infrastructure. That’s the reason the people who live there are dependent on support from the air.

With temperatures soaring to over 40 deg during the day and barely dipping below 25 deg at night, it is necessary to have comfortable accommodation for the crew. As there is no hotel or guest house in the whole area the Mercy Air staff were able to stay with a YWAM couple in their own house. But the couple have now moved away. We didn't want to give up our flight programe in the area and therefore we decided to position three living quarter containers along with another storage container in Marromeu.

Mercy Air has obtained and re-fitted these containers in South Africa.

One is for accommodation
one a kitchen...
and the other has laundry and ablution facilities.

Last week two flat bed trucks arrived at the farm
together with a huge crane whose use was kindly donated by Lowveld Mobile Crane Hire.
It took the best part of a morning to load the containers
before they started their long journey across the border and up to Marromeu.

Paul and Cathy

Quest Kodiak joins Mercy Air fleet

Thanks to generous donors from the United States, the Mercy Air fleet has expanded by one more aircraft.

The Quest 'Kodiak' is currently being refitted in the USA and prepared for service in Africa.

Mercy Air's old Beech 18

After the sale of Mercy Air's 50 year old Beech 18 aircraft a few years ago, we started approaching foundations, companies and private individuals for donations for a replacement turboprop aircraft. Those efforts have been rewarded as a Kodiak has now been added to the Mercy Air fleet.

It is currently being refitted in the US to bring it up to the specifications required to serve in Africa and to prepare it for the long ferry flight across the Atlantic.

Designed especially for the demanding environment of third world countries, the Kodiak has exceptional flight characteristics and load carrying capabilities and a modern Garmin 1000 avionics suite.

Kodiak cockpit

The Kodiak was produced by Quest Aircraft in Idaho (USA) and is a very robust and multifunctional aircraft. It is especially designed for rough, unimproved remote airstrips. The three tone plane is equipped with a powerful Pratt & Whitney turbine engine which runs on Jet Fuel, which is cheaper and more readily available in Africa. It has excellent short take of and landing characteristics but also good cruise speed and load carrying capabilities, being able to seat 10 people.

With this aircraft come new possibilities for Mercy Air. An operating distance of 2000 km will allow Mercy Air to provide cost effective services and relief on a regular basis to more mission stations. Very soon we will have the opportunity to fly larger teams to help people in need.

Paul and Cathy

Marromeu Education and Health

This years cyclone season seems to be in full swing and we have had to rearrange and even cancel a few flights. It was with some relief, then, that that Paul went back up to Marromeu in Mozambique recently with an Education Ministry Team.
The team then drove up to the new YWAM base in Nensa whilst Paul stayed in Marromeu to help restore a 20 ft container currently being used as a fuel store by the helicopter.

The helicopter went up on the same day and whilst it was flying health and education teams in and out of the Delta, Paul and Philip, a Swiss volunteer, set about sanding and priming the container.

It was 36 deg. on top of the container and 45 deg. inside!

Mercy Air has obtained and fitted out four other containers in South Africa and they will be transported up to Marromeu in the coming weeks. There will be accommodation, kitchen, laundry and ablution facilities for work and mission teams that go up to the area.

Whilst there Paul was able to fly out to the Delta in the helicopter with the education team.

It took us 20 mins to get to this place called Luwawe but it would of taken three days by dug out canoe! You can not drive or walk there.

On the ground at Luwawe.

The end of another hot and tiring day.

Paul and Cathy

Weather

There is only one cyclone/hurricane/typhoon active on the whole globe at the moment. Unfortunately it's in our back yard.

Occasionally we have to delay a trip for a few hours due to early morning fog. Once or twice we've had to divert to another airport due to bad weather. It's not often, though, that we postpone a whole flight altogether.

Right now I was expecting to be in the village of Nensa on the banks of the Zambezi with an education development team, but instead I am sat at home in South Africa typing this update.

The last entry below detailed some weather that we had about a week ago that affected us in the east of South Africa. It seems that when that dissipated some of the moisture got sucked into another depression that was developing off the coast to the north of Mozambique and the result was another more powerful cyclone, misleadingly called Funso.

To give you an idea, two of the boxes on the map above are a little further than the length of the UK.

Currently Funso is a Category 3 cyclone but is forecast to develop into a Category 4 tomorrow (Katrina in the US a few years ago was a Category 5). Here's a map that shows rain intensity. Basically as you can see from the key, all the pinks and purples are as about as heavy rain as you can get.
The next two maps shows how quick it developed and are two days apart from each other.

All is not entirely lost though.

Mercy Air has a working relationship with a number of aid organisations (CARE, OXFAM etc) based in Maputo and we are on call to assist with natural disasters of varying magnitudes. The rain we had last week has now made it's way into the river systems and the levels are currently peaking in the lower Limpopo River Basin. They have asked us to do some survey flights to assess the situation and Paul will likely fly over early on Wednesday morning to take various NGO representatives to have a closer look.

My guess is that will be the subject of the next blog.

Paul and Cathy

Rain Rain Everywhere

We've been to help in other areas a number of times when they have been hit by flooding, but now we have our very own storm come to visit us.
It is called Cyclone Dando and developed last week between Madagascar and Mozambique. It is only a category one storm but it has been raining hard continuously here for three days now and we've had the same amount of rain in three days as we usually get in the whole of January - which in itself is one of the wettest months.

Here's a pic of one of the rivers in the nearby Kruger Park.
Mercy Air has had it's issues with the weather as two large trees on the farm fell down last night, one narrowly missing the Ziessler's house.
At least we'll be alright for fire wood this winter!

I think we're due to get one more day of rain before things start to clear up. It's just like Britain!

However, one article suggests that moisture from Dando could get sucked into another depression that is forming off the coast to the north of Mozambique and create a new cyclone. This would be particularly worrying as Paul is flying a team up there this coming Monday.

Paul and Cathy

More Tea Vicar?

Recently Mercy Air was given 130 Kg of Artemisia Tea and asked to take it up to a mission station in the north of Mozambique that specializes in natural medicine.

Go and weigh a tea bag - never mind, I have one here (that I prepared earlier) and it weighs 4 grams.

This isn't any old tea though and a course of 14 of these particular tea bags (56 g) taken over a week can cure Malaria. So 130 Kg of the stuff is enough to treat over 2300 people and well worth the effort of raising the money to cover the cost of flying it there.

Getting it from Durban wasn't too hard - it just arrived on a truck. Getting it to Nacala, on the other hand, was a different story. Nacala is half way back to the equator from where we are and 200 km further east than a line with Moscow.
We had a plane and a pilot, all we needed was money and fuel. People in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and the USA responded brilliantly to a request for funds, raising about half the costs. A week before our intended departure some guys from Hope for Africa (www.hopeforafricamission.co.za), rang with a request for help in getting three of them to Blantyre, Malawi. As it happened Blantyre was one of the few places that had avgas, so by having them cover most of the cost of that part of the flight, we could refuel there and still get to Nacala.

So, the packing began.
The nose, wing lockers and back of the plane full to the brim.

The total flying time from SA, via Blantyre, to the military airstrip in Nacala where we loaded the tea into a pickup truck, was 7 hours.
Then there was a 2 hour drive mostly on dirt roads to Memba where they are based. I wouldn't say the road was bad but on the way we passed a grader that usually shapes the roads in Africa. I guess this one lost.
We arrived after dark and so delivered the Artemisia to various clinics the following day.
Artemisia was discovered in China and has been used for thousands of years as an effective cure for various diseases including Malaria. Martin and Simone Schumann along with Myriam Wahr, the missionaries working in Memba, have set up many rural clinics and use natural medicines, many of which they grow themselves. Unfortunately the Artemisia plant will not grow properly where they live due to bad soil and irregular rain.

Memba itself is a real back of the beyond type of place. It was attacked three times during the war (which ended 20 years ago), but nothing seems to have been fixed since then.
This was the hospital which was left in ruins...
and this is one of the main streets where trees in blossom provide a temporary relief from the usual dusty monotone appearance.
Martin and Simone have built a small three roomed house (where Mercy Air helped install the electricity a year ago - http://pcm-mercyair.blogspot.com/2010/11/woken-up-by-whales-but-not-whilst.html).
They get water from a public well on the other side of town...
but in the mean time are digging (chiseling) their own well.
The night before I left, we got a call asking us to pick up a lady who had been ill for a couple of weeks and needed to return to SA for further tests. So on the way back I routed via Lichinga to collect her and her kids as well as the guys I had dropped in Blantyre earlier.
The flight across to Lichinga took me past some very impressive scenery that gives an idea of the ruggedness and remoteness of some of the parts of the world we fly into.
So, after 4300km (2700 miles) and 16 hours of flying, this is primarily written to thank those people who gave so freely towards the cost of this flight. Because of your generosity many other people will benefit and many of those will probably live longer than they would have done if we'd of all stood back and done nothing.

Paul and Cathy