Samaritan's Purse

Last week Mercy Air did a flight for Samaritan's Purse to Inhambane, Mozambique.

Samaritan's Purse are a large Christian relief and aid organisation who arrange and promote community self help projects around the world. Our flight was to take donors and staff to visit a number of their programs in the south east of Mozambique.

There were seven passengers so we took both planes.

The day after we arrived we accompanied the group on their visits. We drove almost 400km and were often greeted by singing, dancing and lots of happy faces.

At each place the group left a food package as an additional thank you gift.

Some of the projects include cattle and some form of trailer so the recipients can work the fields and transport the produce to market to help sustain their work. At one place they wanted to officially hand over the cow but she had other ideas and ran to the end of her tether almost taking a few of the villagers with her.

We felt it was safer to just  present the trailer instead.

And then complete the paperwork with the cow looking on.

Inhambane is a pleasant and typically tranquil African coastal town and we did get a bit of a rest while we were there.

Thank you,

Mercy Air team

International Helping Hands

The previous blogs activities were interrupted one day as Mercy Air got a call to help someone in Mozambique. It wasn't a medevac as such but they had to return to South Africa for urgent medical treatment and we had less than 24 hours to arrange the permits and clearances.

Fortunately at this time of year the weather is pretty stable and so the actual flight was fairly straightforward although we did need to return from Johannesburg in the dark.

The flight was actually for a Dutch lady working at an orphanage in Marromeu. Accompanying here was a co-worker and one of her adopted children.

The flight was for the lady in the back.

The most direct route took us about 50 nm offshore.

Blue sea and a blue sky and a few clouds to show where the join was.

A long day with over twice the length of the UK flown but only 5 landings.

Mercy Air team

Helping Hand

Recently Mercy Air helped another operator in Nelspruit with some local flying as one of their pilots was on three weeks leave.

It made a pleasant change to what we normally do as most of the flights were less that 30 min and involved transferring people from the nearby international airport to various game lodges. Some of the days involved being in the Kruger Park for 06:20 so that the passengers could make the early scheduled flight to Cape Town.

20 mins before sunrise on the way to Sir Richard Branson's private game lodge for a pickup.

One lodge we landed at had a 1200m long airstrip...

 which was just as well as at the time the other end was occupied by a Giraffe.

 

We flew about 20 hours in three weeks but did almost 50 landings including one at a large military airfield which required over 6km of taxiing.

Mercy Air team

Time for Tea

Late last year you might remember that we flew a load of malaria medicine up to Nacala in the north of Mozambique (http://pcm-mercyair.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-tea-vicar.html). Nacala is half way back to the equator from where we are and 200 km further east than a line with Moscow. Well, last week we flew another donated consignment up accompanied by Cathy (Paul's wife), Holger (Mercy Air's very own German mechanic) and Michael, a German TV news editor who was making a documentary about Mercy Air.

The Medicine arrived in our office from Durban..

and was loaded into just about every available space in our Cessna 310..

This time we could fly more directly to Nacala (through Beira and Nampula rather than having to route via Malawi) so the flying time was only 5h30. We still had a two hour drive on rough dirt roads after that so again, we arrived after dark.

Eight squares on the map above is about the length of the U.K.

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

The next day we delivered the medicine to the clinics..

 and had a large reception sing a welcome for us.

Later, and mainly for the benefit of the camera, Myriam and some of the Mozambican clinic staff explained their work to us and how it helps fight disease in the area.

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 not much seems to have improved since then.
This was the hospital which was left in ruins..

These are council houses, some of which are still occupied..

We didn't just go to deliver the medicine so during the days we were there we got busy with various jobs.
Paul helped fix some leaks in the roof..

Note our accommodation on the porch outside.

Paul and Holger also wired in some extra lights and plug sockets..

Good job Health and Safety in Moz has no direct rule on stacking tables and chairs.

Martin and Simone used to get water from a well 4 km away across town. Since we were last there things have improved and they now are able to collect rain water from the roof..

and have also finished the well in their garden..

We also got out to the market to buy some interesting colourful stuff..

and some bread..

 as well as to various parts of the coast..

 

This guy fancied himself as some kind of rapper as soon as he put my shades on.

One one day we drove to Nuarro Lodge which was only 9 miles away in a straight line, but took us 2 hours to get there by 'road'. Still we took the chance to relax a bit before the long flight home the following day.

Some of the scenery on the way up was quite impressive..

Some of these are over 1000 ft high

as indeed it was along the coast on the way down..

The appropriately named Paradise Island

It turned out that our departure airport in Moz had run out of fuel but fortunately we managed to locate some down the coast at Vilanculos and leave from there. A bit of a diversion and a very long day but good to get home in the end.

So, after 2200miles (3500km) and six days away, the 115 Kg of malarial medicine we flew up was enough to treat over 2100 people and was well timed as they had only a small amount left from our previous visit.

Mercy Air team

Interesting places to sleep

Last week we flew another education team out to Chimoio and Marromeu in Mozambique on a trip which included a few interesting accommodation options.

In Marromeu, while the team traveled by road to the YWAM centre, the pilot stayed at the new Mercy Air 'Shipping Container Base' (http://www.mercyair-sa.blogspot.com/2012/03/accommodation-in-mozambique.html) and helped Mikael, a Swiss volunteer, with a few jobs. First they put a roof on the departures lounge..

and then installed some security lighting..

which gave quite a cool effect at night..

They ,well Mikael, also installed a windsock..

The education team came down and spent two days flying into the Zambezi Delta..

On Thursday the team flew back to Chimoio where they were picked up and driven one hour north to ASAM where we saw the progress made on the Mercy Air house.

While there was just enough room for the team to stay in the house, the pilot got to stay in a tent..

Mind you, how many bush tents have a double bed?

The next day they spent some time with Rick Cogbill whom we had flown up the previous week (http://mercyair-sa.blogspot.com/2012/04/educational-medical.html). They saw the workshop he was building and watched him give a lecture to some of the Mozambican students.

The inspection pit

Lecture about suspension

Lastly, they visited the 1.2 km long airstrip and hanger that was shipped from the US in a container and erected earlier this year.

After that, all that was left to do was to fly back to SA just in time for the weekend and to prepare for next weeks flight to the north of Moz.


Mercy Air team

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 us 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. The pilot 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 us.

The next day they went to the hospital where they loaded Elias onto a 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.

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

Mercy Air team