Solos, Cell Phones, and an Orphanage

After we returned from the States, we both immediately began training at the airport.  Dave put on his mechanic “hat” and started putting the propeller back on the Cessna 206.  Shortly after, a 50 hour inspection was required and he went to work.  A flight instructor from our headquarters in Idaho came to Mozambique to do what they call “re-standardization” for pilots.  Because Dave is just beginning to fly here in Moz, the instructor was able to take him through his field orientation process.  After several training flights, Dave was ready to start making operational flights.

A view of a village from above

 The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.  You might have seen on the news where there has been flooding down in the southern part of Mozambique.  While we haven’t been affected here in Nampula, over 100,000 people in the south were displaced due to extreme flooding.  Because of this, our Program Manager went down to the southern part of the country to assess the situation and determine how MAF could assist in the relief efforts.  Fortunately, because Dave finished his field training, he was able to keep all of our scheduled flights here.  While Dave was busy making solo flights, I was attempting to finish up the book keeping for the month of January…perhaps I wasn’t quite ready to solo!

On Dave’s first operational day, he had two flights scheduled.  His first was about 2 hours round trip, however, due to weather, he was delayed about an hour.  After a late return, he immediately started preparing for his second flight that would be about 2.5 hours one-way.  As with any new job, he was busy navigating the newness of it all, learning to file flight plans and pay fees at our airport, locate passengers and tell them where to go, instruct hangar workers how much fuel the airplane needed, etc.  In the meantime, he stuck his phone on the charger so it would be fully charged before he left (you can see where this is going).  So off he went, successfully dropping the passengers at their location.  As he began to head back, Jonas, our office worker was following him on the radio, noting his position and giving him weather reports.  As a rule, MAF pilots don’t fly in clouds and they don’t fly after dark.  Unfortunately, the skies in Nampula were looking very dark, with low clouds and the promise of heavy rain on the way, and it didn’t look like he would be able to land here.  As the journey progressed, we could no longer hear him on the radio and didn’t know if he could hear us.  We asked the wife of our Program Manager to turn on her radio at home to see if she had a better signal.  Because Dave left his phone in the office (a mistake I bet he only makes once), we were unable to call or text him the latest info.  Meanwhile Dave is in the plane making decisions.  If he comes to Nampula and can’t land, his fuel reserve will be too low to make it to an alternate location.  As a result, he decided to land at a city called Pemba, to spend the night.  All in all, his first day consisted of 6 hours of flight time covering 770 miles.  After the first week of operational flying, he had over 24 hours of flight time covering more than 3,100 miles.  

Island landing strip

 Once he was on the ground, not having a phone made life more difficult.  He didn’t have the phone numbers he needed to sort out a place to stay and (without radio contact either) he couldn’t call to tell us where he was.  Fortunately, he was able to borrow a phone and he ended up staying with our flying doctor who lives in Pemba where her husband works.  The next morning, he had to wait for the fuel pump at the airport to be fixed before he could fly towards Nampula, but he beat the rain here and made it home!

Women watching from the edge of the landing strip

Earlier in the week, the family that runs the local orphanage in town asked me if I would consider doing a Taekwondo class for the kids at the orphanage, so we scheduled to come that following Saturday.  It was a large group of kids (over 30) and consisted mostly of teenagers.  It was quite humorous trying to teach in bad Portuguese while throwing in some English and Korean words.  At times I was trying to explain something so technical that I just had to demonstrate and point and hope they could copy me.  In the end, we all had a great time and they all said they wanted me to come back…hopefully it will become a regular class!

Taekwondo at the orphanage

Interesting appetizer at a restaurant