Mercy Air

05 October 2016

Flying For Life - September 2016

Time for another week in Northern Limpopo with Flying for Life and the preschool teacher training program. The trip started with the pickup of two trainers at Wonderboom Airport in Pretoria.

Margie, one of the field workers, was my cheerful 'co-pilot'.

This time of the year, the flying weather can be quite challenging. Impending overcast conditions forced us to fly up a day early, and thunderstorms almost kept us from coming home as planned.

This, however, was a peaceful moment above the clouds at 11,000 ft.(200kts/370kph ground speed!).

Mr. Nekhumbe was awaiting our arrival in his 'bakkie'. We unloaded the aircraft and locked it up for the week.

Time to visit a preschool. While the field workers gave practical tips on developing gross motor skills.

I spent my time painting the outside of the preschool.

Limpopo is hot and dry. Burnt Horizon was the colour of the paint, and had it not been for religious application of my sun block, my skin would have burnt to the same colour.

Each day field workers visit another preschool to perform evaluations...

In addition to building and playground maintenance I sometimes just play with the kids. They love the attention.

In Africa, something as simple as hanging up a poster can be a big challenge. It’s hard to imagine life without Duct tape, but it does exist. Thankfully I carry a roll in my tool bag.

Aside from the practical help we can bless people with, we are building relationships in the community. I was chatting to Mpho, a man who came to drop off his girl at the Zwigodini preschool. He soon explained that he works as gatekeeper and tour guide at 'The Big Tree', a huge Baobab which I had visited a few months ago (see August blog). When Mpho saw I was helping his daughter's preschool, he invited me to come by anytime to visit him at his job. He was so thankful for the way we were helping the community.

It is a privilege to serve people in need through Mercy Air. Here’s a big 'thumbs up' from these preschool kids in Northern Limpopo.

Thank You.

Azarja, for the Mercy Air Team.

03 October 2016

Update 3rd October 2016

During our last outreach in the Zambezi delta, Nita came to the medical clinic with severe burns to her right hand. During an epileptic seizure, she had fallen in a fire. Her hand was burned so badly that the flesh was gone from her 'pinky' and bare bone was exposed. It’s amazing the pain and misery that people live with just because they have no other option. Joel flew her back to Marromeu hospital. She has been referred to Beira hospital for surgery.

Kaylene often spends days before outreaches driving around Nelspruit (a bigger town about 25 minutes drive from here) buying up electrical, plumbing, medical supplies or car parts for the teams we partner with in Mozambique.

Joel’s dad Kurt, who is an electrician, putting his skills to work at Mamoli mission.

Salomao – dental technician, teaching kids about dental hygiene.

Joel and his Dad packing up this morning ready for departure to Moz. His dad Kurt had been here visiting him from Switzerland, but instead of holidaying together, spent their time flying together in Moz.

Dean & Kaylene.

For the Mercy Air team.

18 September 2016

Update 18th September 2016

One of the frustrations of life in Africa is the frequently changing 'rules', interpretation or random application of them and the constantly moving goalposts. One of the things I like about this system however, is when you seem to be on the wrong side of the rule, you can usually negotiate a reasonable outcome . . . at least until next time!

Some of the disappointments we experienced in our first few days back in the Zambezi delta were a bit like this. We sat with the various groups (failed agricultural projects, lack of self-motivation with education and struggling churches), heard their perspective on their problems and where the goalposts had moved to and 'negotiated' some understanding with those involved which turned into some good outcomes.

One of the pleasant surprises of this trip (moving goalposts again) was the amazing friendly, cooperative, trouble-free journey through all the airports (fuel, flight panning, customs, immigration etc). We came home encouraged - and in record time!
Joel coming to pick us up at Nhamacara – our first clinics in the delta for 11 months.

Boys trying to be men. No option to wince in front of everyone else!

Chaderaque carefully cuts away the dead skin from Chiraz’s infected hand.

Conflict resolution at Luawe. Everyone had the opportunity to say their bit. The women accused the men (justifiably) of not working hard enough. Unfortunately in this culture, position of responsibility seems to bring with it a sense of entitlement . . . Mario – the leader, had 'borrowed' the money that they had all worked to generate. In the end, he handed it all back, they all had a bit of a laugh and agreed to work together again and make the ag project succeed.

We then had an official hand-over of the repaired irrigation pump and the extra length of hose they had purchased with some of the money they had generated. They agreed they need to divide their group and start a second ag project. So, a good outcome eventually.

While Joel gets to do most of the flying, I get to catch up with maintenance around our Marromeu base (Quite a deal!). We found most of the screws holding our roof on had rusted through! A very corrosive environment here.