Chimoio dental and medical

Paul spent last week in Moz again.

The plan was to take two separate teams (Rodger, a doctor, Rob, a paramedic and two Swiss dentists, Roland and Anna-Marie) to two different places and bring them all back at the end of the week - this almost worked perfectly.

The dentists were to run a dental outreach from the ASAM centre in Chimoio and the doctors would do a first aid course in Marromeu on the Zambezi.

The paramedic's flight from Jo'burg was canceled due to fog so the first aid course couldn't happen but we took Rob, a retired USAF pilot, instead, and met the dentists in Maputo. We then dropped the Dentists in Chimoio and continued on to Marromeu with the doctor the following day.

The trip from the airport started in typical African style. Five in the front and two and all our luggage in the back - for an hours drive.

We have worked with Roger and the YWAM guys in Marromeu for many years but they needed to renew relationships with the local health authorities and so most of the time was spent touring hospitals and having meetings. Whilst Roger did this, turns out Rob was quite the computer geek and so he set about 'fixing' some of the local missionaries computers.

Rob dissects the bowels of a laptop.

Then we flew back to Chimoio via the new ASAM airstrip. It isn't quite finished so we couldn't land, but when it is complete it will make trips to the ASAM/Mercy Air base far more convenient and cheaper.

The new ASAM strip, 1.2 km long and 30m wide.

One of the novelties of staying with Dwight and Lynn is their choice of pets. This is their five month old Klipspringer that I suggested they call Jerry.

Jerry the Klipspringer.

The following days were again spent visiting projects and having - or waiting to have meetings.

We visited the dentists who were hard at work in the local clinic. I think before they'd even had a chance to unpack their suitcases, Roland and Anna-Marie got down to business.

Roland and Anna-Marie saw an average of 30 people a day.

Dental care in the community is non-existent, so imagine what a blessing it was to have this top-notch service pitch up on the doorstep! And...they had the needed material to do fillings - white fillings at that!
They brought portable equipment for doing their work all the way from Switzerland. ASAM provided a small generator (red machine in foreground below), and thus started a very busy week for them of pulling, cleaning, drilling and filling teeth!

Above photo's Lynn Lagore).

While the dentists kept busy at the task of dental health, Dwight and Lynn Lagore introduced Rob and Dr. Roger Pacholka (In His Name Ministries) to the different mission projects.

We visited a school set up by ASAM where they also have a feeding programe for the pupils.

Some of the kids walk up to 10 km through the bush to get to school.

Left to right. Me, Rob and Roger (Photo Lynn Lagore).

Dr. Roger Pacholka is a medical doctor who, with his wife Katy, have been involved in health work in Mozambique and Swaziland for over 10 years, but they are interested in contributing even further. So part of the week was dedicated to showing him the health needs and facilities in the area. We set up a meeting with the District Director of Health in Manica to discuss plans that hold good potential, then off we went to said meeting. It's a good hour's drive one way, but it's a scenic drive, so that helps.

But when we got to Manica, we were informed that there had been an emergency and the director would be out for the entire day. We tentatively rescheduled a meeting for the next day.

On the way home, we decided to stop and pay the Vanduzi Hospital a visit and to meet the new director there.

He took us on a quick tour of the place.

The lab

The little house where expectant moms from remote areas

can come wait for the birth of their baby.

Inside the expectant mother's house.

'Health o meter'. I found this quite amusing and wondered whether big numbers or small numbers were a better indication of health.

The next day, we went to Manica again in hopes that we could meet with the district director.

Rob and I killed time by playing cell phone games...

We arrived in Manica to learn that the director had been delayed in a meeting. So, we had a wait on our hands. We decided to tour of the town's deserted Catholic church that stands proud on top of a hill.

Once we'd circled the outside, it was time to check the inside. Judging from the wall posters and bulletin boards full of simple English sentences, it seems the place is being used as a schoolroom of sorts.

Unique view of a beautiful part of the country.

We braved the rickety old staircase that led up to the bell tower. (Photo Lynn Lagore).

While we were interested in the church, neighborhood kids were interested in us.
I guess we did stand out a bit.

A visit to the above church, an hour or so in a cafe and several cokes, coffees and sandwiches later, we were finally able to see the director. He was still in meetings but was able to excuse himself for enough time to pop out and talk with us, and we were very grateful for that. And so, our trip was a success.

And that, pretty much wraps our health and patient focused week!

The team on the day of departure.

Paul

TWR Mocuba

I have often flown across the vast empty spaces of southern Mozambique and wondered how the people in the isolated villages below can have contact with the outside world. What do they know of our little white aircraft, or of the message that its occupants are bringing to the people further north.

Someone else obviously wondered this many years ago and the result was Trans World Radio an organisation who broadcast the Gospel to over 40 countries in Africa alone.

They had a group of seven donors from Canada who wanted to visit the studios in Mocuba, N Mozambique. As this is quite a remote inland location, taking three full days to drive from South Africa, we arranged to fly them there in two of our aircraft. It was still a six hour journey including stops for fuel, customs and immigration, but the weather was perfect and we got there in good time.

The 310 landing at Mocuba

Cathy and I had flown here a month ago to pick up a stroke patient (http://pcm-mercyair.blogspot.com/2011/01/another-long-day-in-saddle.html) so we knew what to expect with regard to the condition of the dirt strip. As usual the local children got all excited and greeted us on our arrival.

Paul

Limpopo flood survey

The UK organisation Oxfam had been concerned about the water levels on the lower Limpopo River.

The last few weeks have seen water rise above alert level and indications were that, if it continued, the flooding could be worse than that in 2000. Those floods were so bad they attracted world wide media attention, with one iconic image of a lady being rescued by helicopter after having given birth in a tree.

The only way to really find out how bad the flooding was, was to go and have a close look.

We flew over to Maputo to pick up representatives of various NGO’s . There was a mapping expert from World Food Programe and a climate change expert from CARE. The team leader was from Save The Children as well as a representative from Mozambique’s disaster management organisation INGC.

After a lengthy process of obtaining the necessary military clearance to allow for low level survey work, we set off.

We flew for a total of 350 miles and covered the whole of the Mozambique portion of the river from the border with South Africa to where it enters the Indian Ocean.

We flew from Maputo along the green line.

The upper reaches weren’t that bad but there was certainly a large amount of standing water in the lower portions.

The various aid organisations will now get together and work on a plan based on what we saw. Our helicopter is on standby in case the situation worsens but we are expecting to be asked to conduct another survey flight in a week or two’s time.

Paul

Dentists without borders - sort of

A Swiss dentist couple have flown with Mercy Air a number of times in recent years. They give up their holiday and fund their own trips in Mozambique into areas where Mercy Air already has mission contacts.

We were due to fly them into the Zambezi delta region but last minute changes in rules required to do medical work in that part of Mozambique meant that another plan had to be made. On top of that, on the day of the flight we found a problem with our Cessna 210 which would take a day to fix so we had to ‘borrow’ another smaller 4 seat aircraft.

Cessna 182

The plan was then, to fly them over Swaziland and back into South Africa and land at a very sandy strip just south of Mozambique, from where they would be picked up and driven across the border to work at a place called Mamoli.

They had a lot of equipment which was a tight fit.... but we squeezed everything in.

It might not look much but all the luggage and three people in that plane, diddn't leave much room for your packed lunch.

Our helicopter will be working in the same area during the next week, after which it will take them up to Maputo, where I will meet them and fly them further north to Chimoio together with a doctor team to do some more medical work.

Paul

Another long day in the saddle

Recently we got a call from some Dutch missionaries who work with Trans World Radio, an organisation who broadcast the Gospel to over 40 countries in Africa. One of their bases is in Mocuba, Mozambique but the missionaries themselves were in Pretoria.
They had just found that one of their local pastors, who also teaches at a bible school, had a mild stroke over the Christmas period resulting in some paralysis on the left side.

The hospital in Mocuba had not been able to bring his blood pressure under control and so the Dutch missionaries asked us to bring him back to South Africa for further medical treatment.

This, though, meant hurriedly arranging the flight permits, getting the plane ready and flying it to the nearby international airport to allow us as early start as possible the following morning.

As we didn't know what condition the patient would be in, we decided Cathy should come along also. So the next day, we were up at dawn for the four hour flight up to Mocuba.

Mocuba and the airstrip.

Mocuba's dirt and grass airstrip is in the middle of town and is used as a bit of a thoroughfare by people and animals. We had to circle the town a few times on arrival to announce our intention to land as well as to assess the strip ourselves. Even then there were many children who came, attracted by the relativley rare sight of an aircraft.

A welcoming committee that's actually not that welcome.

The patient was waiting for us when we landed and so we were on the ground for less than 10 minutes before making the journey back. The weather was not brilliant but well within our capabilities and so we could make it back to South Africa in good time.The Pastor reading his bible on the way back.

In total just over eight hours flying and 2400 km (1500 miles). Fortunately for us, other Mercy Air staff were able to take care of the hospital admissions procedure which lasted well into the evening.

Thanks

Paul and Cathy

2010 and all that!

It's hard to look back on this year and pick individual highlights as we have been busy in so many different ways.

Paul did regular flights throughout the year taking many mission teams to Mozambique as well as to Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and within South Africa.
Cathy continued to work at Africa School of Missions (ASM) and delivered loads of babies.
Matthew announced his engagement and the countdown has now begun to 21st May 2011. He still takes an inordinate number of photographs.

Next year looks like being even more frenzied. We will likely have more flying and we we are planning to visit the UK again for a few months towards the end of the year.

We would like to thank those of you who pray for us and help financially - we hope you know what a difference it makes.

Please keep checking up on us on Face Book as well as this blog.

Thanks gain.

Paul, Cathy and Matthew

Tis the season to... go bike racing.

94.7 - and the rest... (98 km - 3h 30)

Cathy and I recently did our first ever road bike race in Johannesburg. It's known as the 94.7 after the frequency of the radio station that organizes it, and is supposed to be the same length in kilometers as the radio stations frequency is in kilohertz - except it never is. This year it was just under 98 km.

It is the second biggest timed bike race in the world (the biggest is in Cape Town) with 25-30000 entrants. As it was our first race we got a late start group and the temperature was in the 30's for most of the ride. Despite this we were still pretty chuffed with 3h30 and 4h54. This put us 4,262 nd and 12,012 th overall!

I don't have a photo of Cathy (that she would let me use), but to give you an idea here's a general picture of the start area with start groups going back as far as the eye can see.


Noon 2 Moon (63 km - 3h 42)

The next weekend we did the fantastically brilliant Noon 2 Moon 10 hour mountain bike race, which starts at noon (strangely enough) and finishes at 10 at night. It is a relay race with teams of three completing as many 7 km laps as possible around a course of jeep and single track twistier than a politicians excuse, including three hours of scary night riding.

All went well until two hours into the race when we got pounced on by a huge thunderstorm, leaving everyone to swim round the course with their bikes.

Paul's team came 10th and Cathy's all girl team came 3rd in their category and won a prize.

Paul having a dirty weekend.

Pilgrim's Rest (51 km - 4h 30)

I would have thought with the relative success of the previous races, that this race wouldn't have been too much of an issue, How wrong can you be?

It hoofed down with rain all the night before but dawned bright and sunny on race day. Only an hour after the start we heard the first thunder but this stayed far enough away to give us some cloud cover but only light drizzle. This was more than welcome as it was stupid hot in the sun. The course was excellent, very diverse but mostly manageable with hidden valleys and sneaky single tracks. The only thing that was missing was some oomph for the legs and I think I came about 7th last.

Sabie Experience (121km (75 miles), 2450 m (8038 ft) ascent, 7h 31.10

What a blast. Four days of dirty fun in mountain bike heaven. Me and my mate Barry combined to form Team Fred Zeppelin and, being a bit whimpish, opted to do the 'lite' version which was half the main race distance that the big boys were doing. Baz has a fancy bike which had been in for a service the week before. Only prob was, they hadn't done anything to it and his forks, were still in Jo'burg supposedly being fixed. His only feasible option was to put his wife's old rusty forks, which were like pogo sticks, on his bike and hope it all held together.

Let the games begin.

Day 1: 21 km, 350m ascent, 1h 13.34, 3rd in category, 6th overall.
Day one was a prologue to get us warmed up and to sort out starting times for the next days race. It didn't rain during the race but the course was as muddy as a muddy thing from the previous weeks storms. Fast and furious fun which took less time to ride than it did to clean everything up afterwards.

Day 2: 35 km, 839m ascent, 2h 30.34, 3rd in category, 6th overall.
Day two involved a long awkward slippery single track decent followed by a killer hot climb to the water point at half way. Then it was 20k's of rocky brake squealing down with some interesting single track to finish. Baz's girly forks didn't collapse like the English batting had done earlier that morning and we retained our ranking. By this time I had realised the cleverness of doing the lite race and I informed Baz that if he had any intentions of doing the big boy's race next year he would likely have to recruit a new team mate.

Day 3: 27 km, 517m ascent, 1h 34.36, 3rd in category, 6th overall.
By now were becoming aware of where and who our main rivals were. We were in 3rd, 2 minutes behind 2nd but only 1min 28 secs in front of 4th, who were less than a minute in front of 5th. Game plans started to get hatched and keeping an eye on the others was a must. We (I) was slow on the uphills which meant we got passed by the guys behind us and we had to push on the downs to make up for it. Day three saw another slow uphill drag with us catching the 4th place overall guys just before the top. We pushed hard all the way down and through the single track to the finish and beat them by 6 seconds. We now had 1min 34 secs to play with for the last day.

Not too muddy at the end of day three.

Day 4: 38 km, 723m ascent, 2h 12.20, 4th in category, 7th overall.
All we needed to do today was stick with the guys behind us to ensure they didn't beat us and keep an eye out for the guys behind them. We started at the front of the chute and all was going well until the 3km mark when a marshal sent us the wrong way. It was only a few hundred metres, but by the time we were back on track the whole pack had caught, and passed us. Now we had to motor, and pass most of the field in the mud. Today's profile looked like a camel's hump with ever increasing gradients to a tricky bit of muddy single track at the highest point. Baz is a machine and had got to the top in front of our main rivals, but then had to wait for me.

When I arrived the news was that they were about 2 mins ahead. Again it was big ring, pedal to the metal and brakes used only when essential. We must have done the last 15 k's in under half an hour and only caught our 4th place friends up when one of them fell at a stream crossing 2 km from the end. We couldn't believe our luck but still pushed to the finish line. After the melee of the 3 km route confusion we weren't aware that the 5th place guys had snook in front and beaten us by 2 min 20 sec - but that was alright as we had 2 min 26 sec in the bag on them. We had done it - or so we thought.

Later that evening we checked the final results on the web to find that the 6th place guys who had started the day 5 mins and more behind, had had an exceptionally strong last day and steamed in front of us all to claim joint second place. We were relegated to 4th in category and 7th overall (out of 79). Still not bad for back markers who usually come about 3/4 of the way down the field. We're still quite chuffed. Roll on next year!

Total 121km (75 miles), 2450 m (8038 ft) ascent, 7h 31.10

The difference between girl forks and man forks, or if you're American with a British heritage, the difference between Gal forks and Guy Fawkes.

Team Fred Zeppelin

Lastly...

I wonder how many other sad people there are out there, like me, who record practically every pedal stroke and mindlessly spew it all onto a spread sheet. I have one page for each ride then another page to compare similar rides.

Anyway, now we’re at the end of the year I am the proud owner of endless information on how far and fast and high I went in 2010.

Each of the last two years were around the 4500 km mark but this year went well with more training and more races. I had 5000 km in mind but it soon became evident that 6000 km might be attainable. I devised another spreadsheet page to tell me what percentage of 6000 I was on and what total I would reach if I continued at the current average rate. The 94.7 in Jhb, Noon2Moon, Pilgrims, and Sabie Experience races helped boost the figures in December and this last Tuesday saw the 6000 milestone. Cathy and I actually stopped and took a picture with a cell phone!


How bad are they?

Then, whilst entering the data that evening I noticed that 6205 would be a nice round figure to achieve as that would equate to an average of 17 km per day. So, today I was hard at it in 30+ temps making sure that even with the most major of mechanicals I could even push my bike the last few km to reach the target. A surprising stat is that during all this my ascent was in excess of 91000 metres (57 miles).

The boring facts are as follows.
Total 6250 km (3885 miles). Roughly half Mountain and half Road bike.
Height gain 92161 m (57.3 miles or over 10 times up Everest).
327 hours in the saddle - ouch.
242000 calories burned - how many cream buns can I eat now then?

Paul