Last week we took a team up to the ASAM mission base just north of Chimoio, Mozambique. As we went in our Kodiak aircrat we were also able to offer a couple of seats to Hands@Work to enable some of their guys to visit their own projects.
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| The standard 'here's us on the way up' photo. |
I do forget just how big Africa is at times - till I look out of the window on flights like these.
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| Landing at ASAM in the bush in the middle of almost nowhere. |
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| Unpacking the aircraft. Its load carrying capacity is pretty impressive. |
Sharp teeth, lethal sting, lightening reflexes and the appetite of a
raging carnivore are all things the African Killer Snail does not have.
Still flippin' big though.
There were various aspects to our visit but the main one was for some of
our group to help with the twice yearly intensive pastor training that
ASAM has been running for many years. There are only so many interesting 'action' photos one can take of a meeting so I will leave it at the introduction shot at the beginning of the course. Safe to say that Nigel and Erin delivered twelve talks during the week and were well received by the pastors, some who had travelled up to three days to attend.
Meanwhile, it was litchi harvest time! That meant for the rest of us picking and sorting about 10 tons of the fruit into various categories for sale. ASAM inherited a small litchi orchard when they moved onto the farm ten years ago and now harvest the fruit to raise some capital to fund their education and medical projects.
Cathy and I walked to the airstrip in the 'cool' of the morning one day and came upon this dung beetle with it's - well, dung I suppose! Fortunatley this wasn't the African Killer variety - just a normal one!
So, we were all happily beavering on with various jobs when one morning we got a call to say that a 70 year old Brazilian missionary, Josiah, had been taken ill and needed urgent transport to the capital Maputo for surgery. They knew ASAM had a small Cessna 182 and wondered if they could possibly help. As the patient needed to lie down and would also be accompanied by his wife and a translator this was obviously not an option.
But, it just so happened that we were there at just the right time in the Kodiak and had enough fuel to easily do the flight. When the patient arrived we had the aircraft ready and were able to get going almost straight away.
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| Loading Josiah at ASAM |
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| Josiah holding his wife's hand during the flight. |
We got to fly down the border of Zimbabwe on the day that political history was made.
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| Zimbabwe about 10 miles away. |
Less than three hours later we were in the capital Maputo, a journey that would have taken up to three days by road.
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| Downtown Maputo and the harbour. |
Cathy and I helping to unload Josiah on the apron at Maputo.
We were too late to fly back to ASAM the same day so we had to overnight in Maputo with a friend we hadn't seen since our Lesotho days - it was good to catch up.
The next day it was quite toasty on the ground in Maputo...
... but it soon cooled to a more manageable 10 deg C at 13000 ft.
While we are singing the praises of our Kodiak aircraft it might be worth mentioning its range. We tanked it up out of Maputo and this pic was taken just under an hour into the flight and shows its range and endurance - the dotted green circe with 45 mins fuel left and the solid green circle when it becomes a glider.
Back at ASAM, normal bush life continued. If you want internet, go and sit outside the office during the hours the generator is running.
Help feed the pets in the evening. I believe this is a Duiker - or something similar!
The week ended and we headed back in what ended up being rather inclement weather. This was the first we saw of the ground and the airport four miles away (about two minutes from landing) after over an hour of flying in a cloud.
Thank you.
Paul and Cathy.
