14 March 2016

A month of challenges

School children running to greet the plane and collect food in Dabia village

I’ve been back in Tanzania for more than a month already and this first month back was challenging in the case of each of the four outreach trips I did. The short rainy season, which usually finishes at the end of the year, has kept on going into 2016. This has created some unpredictable and difficult weather to fly in, as well as causing issues for farmers who are waiting for a chance to plant their next crop.
 
All three of us arrived back home from South Africa just before midnight on 17 January, and two days later I went on the South Maasai outreach. Things were difficult from the beginning; more than one third of the first runway I landed in was overgrown with grass with hidden termite mounts in between. The usable part of the runway, with the slope and tailwind, meant that I could carry less than 200kg, making it impossible to take a full medical team for the outreach. The strips I was planning to use for the next day were in good condition as usual and we were able to serve the villages. After that, I had to take the plane to Dodoma for maintenance, catch a flight to Dar es Salaam and fly our other plane back to Arusha. Home for the weekend just before Amelia and Johann left for their month in the UK on 24 January…

The following week was the North Maasai evangelism outreach, and there the mountain winds were all over the place and mostly from the wrong direction, which made landing and take offs from the already challenging mountain strips even more challenging. Thankfully all went well there and we were able to complete all the trips.

The third week back was the Kilimatinde Medical & Evangelism outreach which takes place around Dodoma in central Tanzania. On Tuesday I flew the 1.5 hour flight down from Arusha, I did a Certificate of Airworthiness test flight for another plane, and minutes after we landed the heavens opened! There was a torrential downpour for more than an hour and once we managed to establish communication with the nearby villages, we found out that the storm had caused major damage on the airstrips which would not be usable the next day. It did not rain the following day and we remained hopeful that the airstrips would have dried up enough to be usable. We received a positive report on the Thursday morning so I set out to start preparing the plane. Just as I was getting ready to go however, we received another report from the medical team that the rain two days earlier had indeed caused major damage on their airstrip which they would not be able to repair on time. That meant the Thursday and Friday outreach had to be cancelled as well! Frustrating, but all that was left for me to do was to fly back to Arusha. At least I was able to drop off a bag of food for the school children of the village with the only usable airstrip. It was a good thing I did not take a medical team out, since the runway was very soft at the take-off end and there was a another big storm approaching.

The forth week back was the busy Haydom medical outreach and things started off pretty normal. The fourth day was a complete washout, however, with low clouds and rain all day making it impossible to take the two teams out or to go and collect the team that normally stays a night at one of the busy mountain villages. By noon we had to send a car to go and collect them and they arrived back at the hospital 12 hours later! The final day of the outreach also had to be cancelled due to heavy rain and all that was left was for me to return to Arusha again.

On the way home I stopped for some fuel, and whilst I wasn’t paying close attention, the attendant put diesel instead of petrol into my car! So, I spent the next 4 hours waiting for the fuel tank to be drained, with a live chicken in the back of the car that I had bought in one of the villages. When I finally got home that evening, I was greeted with the smell of burnt plastic as I stepped into the house. As I opened the study door, I discovered that everything was covered in black ash! Thankfully, the fire only burnt the bottom edges of the curtains, melted a plastic paper tray and scorched the top of the wooden desk. It was a big mess that took weeks to clean, but we are thankful that all the wood, paper and books in the room did not catch fire which could have caused major damage.

After that I did one more outreach day to South Maasai, where again one of the two airstrips was still unserviceable from the failed trip last month. Then I had some time to catch up on some office work and finish small jobs at home (including operation fire clean-up) before Amelia and Johann returned. The rain storms still continue, including one almost directly over our house last night. We are praying for enough breaks in the weather to continue flying as many clinics as possible.

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