Lesotho - 27 years on

Last week Paul got the chance to fly to Lesotho - 27 years after we first arrived there in 1994.

We went in our Cessna 310

The purpose of the trip was to talk to Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), the Lesotho Flying Doctor Service and the Ministry of Health about using one of our helicopters there in the future.

Parked outside the MAF hangar

 

The talks went very well and everyone is very keen to involve us as soon as possible. The first step will be to do a trial week early next year. After that we hope to do regular visits and long term this might lead to us basing a helicopter there permanently.

While there, Paul met up with a couple of the guys he trained when we first came to help start the youth work project all those years ago. It was great to see them again and catch up.

Paul, Max and Martin

Martin sitting in Paul's new office

Max bought along a few photos from the past including this one taken at the end of a canoeing session. Paul had forgotten that he even once had dark hair!

As part of the visit we went out with MAF to show Joel, our heli pilot, some of the areas he would be operating in. It might only take less than an hour to fly right across the whole of Lesotho by plane, but access by road is still very restricted. Most of the airstrips in the mountains serve clinics, but there are still plenty of areas and even entire valleys that do not have access to healthcare. In these places a 5km journey to a health post could take a whole day.

Joel in the front of the MAF C206

We landed at Thlahyaku, a strip only 550m long and 8000' elevation.

On the ground at Thlahyaku

We flew past southern Africa's highest waterfall just south of Semonkong in the center of the country.

Semonkong waterfall - 600' high

There's actually an airstrip in this photo - Kuebunyane

Lesotho gets more than its fair share of weather - and even plenty of snow in the winter.

So, a very successful trip for Mercy Air but for Paul it was like completing a 30 year circle. So many nostalgic good memories but also a little emotional, remembering some of the struggles and uncertainty of what was ahead. A bit like going back to your old primary school, except you now knew how things would work out eventually.

We wait to see how much we will be involved in the future.

Flying past the Drakensburg on the way back

Thank you

Paul and Cathy

Hot and Humid in Beira, Mozambique

We recently spent a very, very... very hot and humid week with a team in Beira, Mozambique where we continued helping with the development of a training centre at a bush location that Clerisnan, a Brazilian missionary is setting up.

Clerisnan with 'Buddy', a rescue donkey he had saved recently.

Our main focus for the week was completing the roof and installing solar power, but of course there were many other things to be busy with.

After our 3hr flight in the Kodiak we met Mercy Air's helicopter which ferried us and our supplies out to the site.

The blue roofed training centre as we arrived

We fixed the solar panels onto the existing roof whilst the other roof sheets were being installed.

Sounds simple, but this took a couple of days. The roof basically sits on the walls which isn't great protection against cyclones - so the next job was to wire the roof to the bricks.

One of the guys who came up with us was an agriculturalist with Foundations For Farming www.foundationsforfarming.org

He gave talks and set up demonstrations of a number of farming techniques for the local families in the area.

Giving the initial talk on farming techniques

Planting without ploughing

A demonstration of composting

Preparing for an irrigation demonstration

Water can be an issue (either too much or too little) and is often sourced from hand dug boreholes. To help with the irrigation we had bought a treadle pump and, in the photo below we were using it to transfer water from the well to a plastic tank placed on a termite mound.

But earlier in the week we had to first fix the plastic tank after it was damaged in a storm.

After we installed the solar power, the villagers could now use a machine to grind cassava, which is a root used as a staple diet in many meals.

The team were also able to use rechargeable clippers to cut the children's hair.

Another bonus was that they were also able to take and power a small projector and show the Jesus Film one night under the stars.

There were many other jobs we accomplished during the week. Some of the more notable were sling loading hard to transport items from nearby locations.

Preparing to sling load a log from a river

We spent the week 'camping', although that amounted to sleeping in a mosquito net tent in the entrance to the building.

My view when I woke up each morning.

As I said at the beginning, this turned out to be a very hot (35 deg+) and humid week. The highlight of each day was going down to the river just before sunset for a 15 min wash and cool off.

There have been a lot of bush fires in Mozambique recently and each night there was one that swept past very closely.

Even on the day we left, the visibility was particularly poor due to the lingering smoke.

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy

Ingwavuma KZN - Relief

After the recent unrest in South Africa which left 350 people dead and shops and malls looted and burned across the country, Mercy Air received over forty requesting for transport of food and supplies to the area of Ingwavuma in KZN.

 

The town was badly affected during the riots. The only supermarket was destroyed along with all the other smaller shops and the petrol station. Street vendors were afraid to work and even if they were brave enough, they could no longer get supplies.

You can see by the blue line in the top right corner of the map above that, compared to where we normally fly, the distance wasn't that great - 225 km in fact, and in the end the flight took less than an hour. But Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) had borne the brunt of the unrest, with even the provincial capital Durban struggling for food and fuel. In the end 60 pharmacies, 1400 ATM's, 300 banks as well as 1000's of other stores were destroyed.

 

Ingwavuma was a long way from any help and if the only road serving the town was blocked by further trouble, there would be no hope of bringing supplies in.

Interested parties were quick to act with funds being raised in Cape Town for both the food and flight costs. 900 kg of supplies were bought near to where Mercy Air is based in White River and delivered by a cheerful Pick n' Pay driver shortly after dawn.

We were soon on our way across the mountainous country of Swaziland...

.. and back across the border into northern KZN where we had been given permission to land at the Zulu King's airstrip, where we immediately began unloading.

Apart from the local communities and churches being affected, there is a hospital and the Butterfly Home, the only infant palliative care home in KZN. They were both running out of food and supplies.

The palliative care home offers care for up to six infants between the age of birth and six years.

 Butterfly Home is in the process of building to enable them to offer care to another ten infants.

 It was beautiful to see these precious children being so well cared for and happy!

The father of one of the little girls was the local snake bite expert, and of course she has some snakes as pets.

The day after we did the relief flight, we got this message from the care workers:

"We are all a bit on edge as we are receiving so many rumours from community members of instigators planning to start the riots again tomorrow and barricade the road. We’ve even been warned by some Zulu friends to pack bags in case. We don’t want to submit to fear, but we want to be prepared and wise when it comes to protecting our friends and family.

If push comes to shove, can we arrange for you to evacuate us by plane? I trust it won’t be necessary"

We are waiting to see what happens next.

 

Thank you

 

Paul and Cathy

Just before departure out of Ingwavuma

Limpopo Dental and Womem's Health

The week after we got back from Mozambique, we were off again to the Vhembe district in the Limpopo province for a few days with a larger than normal Flying for Life medical team.

Vhembe (red) in Limpopo (yellow)

 

On this outreach we also took one of our helicopters to enable the team to get to more clinics in the time available.

The team included Cathy and Corianne who dealt with women’s health issues...

..as well as a couple of dentists, a GP and a number of other support personnel - such as a fixed wing and helicopter pilot!

In total they saw 63 dental patients, 72 screened for women's health and 45 general medical consultations by the GP.

 

Paul went with the dental team.

Flying in to Tshipise...

..where we landed on the local football pitch...

From where the clinic was only a short walk away.

Quite a number of patients were already waiting for us.

 

 

The dental assistant gave some practical tooth-brushing advice to a crowd of locals.

 

 

At another clinic a 17-year-old girl’s life was saved. She came in for medical care complaining of fatigue. The GP, who was actually a cardiac specialist, diagnosed her with rheumatic heart disease and heart failure and she was referred to the hospital for an urgent heart-valve replacement. 

 

Thank you

 

Paul and Cathy