Vision Valley Graduation

On Saturday, Bethan and I (Matt) went to Vision Valley School to see the seven grade 12 students graduate and receive their diplomas. The person we had gone to see was Vanah, who I have tutored in maths for most of the last 2 years. I saw how hard she worked to succeed in a subject that she did not find easy and it was a pleasure to see her joy at finally getting the reward for her work (and maybe it was also the joy at never having to study statistics again!).

Vanah receiving her diploma

Each student gave a heartfelt speech to the audience, thanking their teachers, parents and fellow classmates who had helped them along the way. There were lots of laughs and a few tears as they each shared memories of their time together. It was clear that the graduating students valued their education and were thankful for the opportunity that they were given to learn English, maths, science, sport and Biblical studies. 

All the graduating students 

Helping Vanah gave me the opportunity to do some teaching, which I have missed while we've been here and it was fun to tackle some maths questions that I haven't thought about for over 10 years. Bethan also enjoyed "teaching" Vanah about adding and take-aways at the end of our sessions and spent a happy afternoon playing with her once it was all over.

Vanah came over to play when her exams were over

In 2000, Gavin and Rhoda Jordaan moved to Tana from South Africa to start a church (Vision Valley church) and an English-speaking school (Vision Valley school), having previously visited the country and seen the lack of good quality education available here. The school started in their own home with just 3 (2 of their own) children but quickly moved into a rented building to accommodate another 5 including 3 Malagasy children. When they outgrew those premises, they built their own facility (in 2006) with 10 classrooms and then a hall, which was also used as a meeting place for the church. The site was expanded further in 2009 to what it looks like today and the church was renamed Tana City Church (TCC). For the last 6 years they have also provided secondary education and so now Vision Valley School has nearly 300 students from pre-school age all the way up to 18. At the end of this academic year the school is moving to a new site a few miles away.

Vision Valley school classroom

Playground at Vision Valley school

Data from 2009 shows that 15% of children in Madagascar have no formal education and another 43% have left school before reaching the end of Primary education. The 7 pupils that graduated from Vision Valley School are part of the approximately 3% that complete secondary school in Madagascar. With the skills and knowledge that they have learnt and being fluent in English and French as well as Malagasy, they should have exciting careers and futures ahead of them.

Data taken from this website: http://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC%20NEP_Madagascar.pdf

A Typical Day

One church asked us if I could outline 'an average day' at work. Unlike airline flying, our schedule is pretty unpredictable, with routes often changing at the last minute. The day that I described for them was in January and I had a flight which followed a similar routine to the majority of flights in the small aircraft. We thought we would share it with you too:

4.20 am – my alarm goes off, time to get up and get ready for the day

5.10 am – go by motorcycle to the main airport terminal to file my flight plans for the day. A flight plan is required for every leg of the flight and must be filed at least 1 hour before take-off. Today’s take-off is scheduled for 6.20am.

5.20 am – arrive at the flight planning office to drop off the flight plans. I give it to the finance department first and then to the flight scheduling department who sign and sta
mp it and give me a copy. I also collect the weather reports for the day.

5.35 am – arrive at the MAF hanger and start the flight preparation. This involves downloading the latest NOTAM’s (Notice to Air Men) to check if there are any restrictions affecting my flight that day, then checking that I have the correct paperwork for the flight (kindly prepared the day before by our Flight Ops department). I then give the aircraft a visual inspection, checking everything is where it should be and there are no nicks in the propeller, loose screws or flat tyres etc.

6.00 am – the passengers arrive. They are weighed together with their bags. For light aircraft, making sure you are within your maximum take-off and landing weights is critical, especially for a flight like today's, as it will be a 4 hour round trip and there is no fuel in Bemana. The maximimum allowed weight for the passengers and their luggage is 210kg.  The aircraft can take 3 passengers (70kg each) but today there are only two passengers, which is fortunate as they will need to take luggage for their 3-day stay. They also want to take supplies to the people in Bemana however and they exceed their weight allowance. Time is spent re-packing what is essential for this trip, and deciding what can be brought down on the next flight. The bags are weighed and re-weighed until they are within the limits.

6.20 am – The passengers are enjoying a coffee while the ground crew fuel the aircraft. We need enough fuel for the flight plus at least a 1.5 hours reserve, but as it is rainy season we will take extra if we can. As extra fuel means less weight available to the passengers, we can’t work out how much fuel we will take until the passengers have arrived and have been weighed. The bags are loaded into the aircraft and strapped in.

Aircraft prepared for flight

6.35am – the passengers are loaded and I give them a safety briefing, covering what to do in an emergency, how to use the air vents, and where we store the sick bags!

6.40am – we are ready to go. We pull the aircraft out of the hanger and I do one final walk around the aircraft to check the fuel caps are closed, chocks are removed and everything is as it should be. Before starting the engine we pray for the flight and the work the team will do while in Bemana.

6.42am - ‘’Clear Prop’’ – I start the engine, it needs to warm for at least a minute before we can taxi, so the time is used to set up the GPS, then we taxi up to the ramp and perform some engine run up checks.

6.54am – Call Air Traffic Control on the radio ‘’5 Romeo Alpha Alpha Delta, 3 on board, fuel endurance 6 hours, request taxi for flight to Bemana’’. We are cleared to taxi to the holding point, where the final pre-take off checks are completed. I check the passengers still have their seat belts on, run through my head what to do if there is a problem during take-off, then call ATC again for departure.

7.05am – we are airborne from Ivato Aeroport (Antananarivo) and heading to Bemana, which is 219 nautical miles south west of Tana. Every 30 minutes during the flight I check the fuel levels, monitor the engine gauges and report my position to the MAF flight ops team. We will climb from 4200 feet (Antananarivo’s altitude) to 8500 feet and cruise at 110 knots. The passenger next to me is excitedly taking photos of his home city and the countryside as it passes us by, until we are above a cloud layer and the opportunity is lost.

Approaching Bemana

9.18am – we land at Bemana. There are some people waiting to help the team to the village. It is a 2 hour walk, and you need to cross the river. It’s not yet rainy season this far south so today it will be shallow. The local people also proudly show me the airstrip as they have been cutting the grass by hand and knocking down termite hills for the last 3 days in preparation for this trip. We walk along and I assure them that the grass is short enough and they did a good job with the termite hills.

Bemana Airstrip

The passengers will be visiting various smaller villages around Bemana during their stay, sharing the gospel and some provisions that are not available in the area, such as soap. There are 2 passengers waiting to come on the return flight, a mother and her young son. From what I understand, they have never been to Antananarivo before and have never travelled on a plane. They are looking very nervous! I load them and their luggage (which includes bedding and rice) into the aircraft. The boy, who must be around 5, looks terrified as I buckle him in. By the time we are ready to go, he is in tears.

0949am – We take off from Bemana, heading back to Antananarivo, climbing this time to 9,500 feet. The young boy in the back soon drifts off to sleep. The Cessna 182 tends to send most of my passengers to sleep with it’s vibrations and constant white noise! The mum is just staring out of the window at her country. When we are about 60 miles from Ivato she spots a larger village and excitedly asks if that is Antananarivo. "Tsy Tana, Tana tena lehibe" (that’s not Tana, Tana is much bigger) I reply!

Coming into Antananarivo

11.53am – we land at Tana and the passengers make their way into town. I then spend an hour in the office doing the final paperwork for the flight and talking to the engineers about the maintenance that was scheduled for the following 2 days.

A Busy Day, and an Unexpected Stay

Mercy Ships aims to leave a legacy in the countries they visit, not only through changing individual peoples' lives through free surgery, but also through providing basic equipment and training in hospitals throughout the country. The ship's Medical Capacity Team have been using MAF's Cessna 182 to visit hospitals in 16 different regions. They will visit each one twice while the ship is here in Madagascar. Having finished their initial training in all 16 regions, I am now flying them around the country to have follow up visits and do some training with the staff and equip them with Lifeboxes.

Two of the team (in blue) with a local doctor

Wait a minute, what is a lifebox? A lifebox is a pulse oximeter, which is provided by an NGO called Lifebox (It's amazing how many charities and NGOs actually work together on so many projects. The flight is a partnership between MAF and another organisation, but there are usually between one and three other organisations involved in supporting the work being done). Anyway I digress, a lifebox pulse oximeter clips onto your finger during surgery and raises an alarm if the oxygen level in your blood drops, warning the doctors that they need to take action before it is too late. In many hospitals, you are more likely to die from unsafe surgery than the condition or disease that you've got!

On Monday 8th February, I flew the team of three to Maintirano, on the west coast of Madagascar, to conduct a follow up visit at the hospital there. The flight over was uneventful, but after landing it became apparent that a thunderstorm would soon be upon us. The rain arrived more quickly than I hoped and mid-way through refuelling we had to scurry into the nearby hanger and wait it out. Heavy rain during refuelling can cause the fuel to get contaminated with water and it also means the pilot who is sat on the wing, gets very wet! The local people went back to herding their cattle along the runway as it was clear that the aircraft wasn't leaving.

Waiting out the rain in Maintirano

leaving Maintirano

en-route to Mandritsara

An hour and a half later than expected, I managed to depart from Maintirano and we flew for nearly 3 hours North East to Mandritsara, dodging the cumulonimbus clouds en route. The aim was to refuel and collect a passenger, then continue on to Sambava, where I would stay the night. Well I ticked the first two boxes, but having got 20 miles into the final flight it became apparent that the thunderstorms between Mandritsara and Sambava were too big, I couldn't go over them, under then or around them so we opted to return to Mandritsara and try again in the morning.

After spending the night listening to the heavy rain and wondering how wet the mud/grass airstrip in Mandritsara was going to be, I woke in the morning to low cloud and rain. I pulled up the satellite picture on my phone and it looked like there was a tropical depression sitting over us but I was still optimistic that it would move away later in the day. That optimism faded as the afternoon continued to be just as cloudy and wet as the morning! Another night was to be spent in Mandritsara. The unexpected time on the ground did give us time to do a little shopping for local specialities, including some delicious lychee honey. The expat staff working at the hospital in Mandritsara are mostly from the UK so with it being Shrove Tuesday, pancakes and a variety of condiments were on the menu that evening.

Not great weather for flying, there is a mountain ahead under all that cloud!

Buying honey in Mandritsara

Pancake preparation

Thankfully, after another night of heavy rain and some concerns about whether or not the river would be high enough to flood the bridge, we managed to continue our flight to Sambava on Wednesday morning for another hospital visit with another NGO.

Life at Home

“What do Matt and Bethan get up to?” is a question that we get asked fairly often in the much-appreciated emails and letters that we receive. So far I've avoided blogging about it too much because I figured you'd much rather read about life-saving flights or examples of how MAF is helping to share the Gospel. But last week I decided to carry a camera around with me and take some photos of the things that we get up to in a “typical” week while Becki is at work. Most pictures are of Bethan as I'm taking the photo but hopefully it will give an insight into our lives in a more interesting way than me waffling on about life as a stay-at-home dad!

Our very flexible timetable for the week

Riding her bike on the compound

Bethan loves kicking a ball

Trip out in the car to get the milk from the dairy – looks like rain is coming..

Using her “strong muscles” to carry the milk back to the car

Suncream applied, ready to go swimming 

After a morning playdate with three of her friends, we go on an expedition to find a snake that's been seen on our compound... 

We didn't see the snake but when we got home we found two chameleons fighting over the food in the compost heap 

Fanja does a lot more playing and a lot less housework than she used to!

But Bethan has watched Fanja enough times to know what to do (polishing the floor)

And keeps the grass short when the gardener isn't here to do it

Keeping cool in the paddling pool

Painting a rainbow 

Bethan spends a lot of time drawing and colouring at her craft table

Making bread

Lesson planning is easy for a girl who has so many questions – today we learned about the body

Weekly trip to the market for fruit and veg followed by a trip to Shoprite for everything else   

Doing the cooking

Christmas in Madagascar - Same, same but different

Many people have asked us about what our Christmas is like in Madagascar, so here is a brief summary of the last few days.

all ready for Christmas morning

 Many aspects are the same as in the UK, just with a twist! Father Christmas arrived down the chimney, but as we are in the hottest period of the year, he didn't need to worry about his toes getting burnt! Bethan enjoyed opening presents and playing with them. Thanks to a recent visit from Matt's parents, presents came via their luggage allowance from friends and family in the UK without the risk of them being lost in the post.

We enjoyed a Christmas lunch of cheese fritters (December being the only time of the year you can buy Cheddar here), accompanied by the usual trimmings of stuffing and roast potatoes etc (minus sprouts, we have yet to see sprouts in Mada). I'm sure our househelp thought I was mad as I started storing up toilet rolls tubes in the run up to Christmas, but along with some tissue paper and jokes found online we made some crackers to enjoy.

Bethan wasn't impressed that Matt got the bigger half of her cracker

On boxing day we invited our new friends from Germany to join us. Bethan and Amelie spent the afternoon playing and chasing each other around the garden. In the evening they settled down to watch 'The Snowman' while we enjoyed some tea and Christmas cake.

Sunday 27th was our Church's Christmas service. Back in the UK we would expect a Christingle service, a carol service, midnight mass and a service on Christmas day, all covering the passages of the bible referring to Jesus' birth. Here there are none of those things! On the Sunday before Christmas the service was on Jesus' entrance to Jerusalem and his death on the cross! This Sunday, the theme was on the nativity and among the worship music, 'Oh come all ye faithfully' was sung. After the service, which was held in the house of one of the worship team, we had a shared lunch together as a church family, then played some games. It struck me that our 'staff party' was more like what I would expect from a church event, and our church 'celebration' was more typical of a staff party! Still it was a fun Christmas celebration and we got to know people from our church a lot better.

team game, to disguise someone from your team

Christmas in Madagascar - The Work Do

In the UK our experience of a work Christmas celebration was that one evening in the weeks leading up to Christmas you would go out for a meal somewhere with your colleagues. Maybe then moving onto a pub or going out for a round of 10 pin bowling, Here things are a little different!

For a start, the work do started at 8.30am, yes AM! We all gathered on the 23rd at Tana Beach (which is a venue with a pool by a lake but in no way resembles a beach). The day started with singing worship songs in Malagasy, some unfamiliar, some with well known tunes such as 'Joy to the World'

Tana Beach

The worship was followed by a fantastic sermon by one of our pilots Patrick about the importance of not only knowing that Jesus existed but about the importance of also trusting and obeying, for without trusting and obeying the knowledge is worthless.

In Madagascar, staff are awarded medals and certificates for 10 and 15 years of service so after the sermon and some more worship the 'decoration of staff' was performed. Although our program manager took it a bit too literally to start with and decorated them all with bunting! On a serious note it is impressive how many of the national staff have already served for MAF for 10+ years.

'Decorating' the staff with bunting

Actually giving out the awards

Before lunch there was just enough time to make the most of the venue and have a quick swim (mostly the children swam while the adults socialised). This year all the staff families were invited and this free time gave us chance to meet the spouses and children of our colleagues.

Around 12.30 lunch started to be served, the venue was a little over whelmed by so many people meaning that despite it being a set menu, the last desserts were not served until around 4pm! During the lunch we were invited to come up and speak about Christmas from our own country, so over the next few ours we enjoyed presentations about Canada, Switzerland, Holland, Madagascar and England as well as recitals and singing from the children who were brave enough to come to the front. We enjoyed this opportunity to learn more about the places MAF Madagascar staff come from. For part of our presentation we brought along some oranges, candles, ribbon etc and made Christingles - it made it feel like Christmas to see the room lit with candles.

Performances from the children

A few extras were added to the Christingles

Enjoying the performances

Some of the staff giving a presentation about the regions of Madagascar

After lunch had finished, gifts were given to all the staff and their families. There were some very excited children in the room as they unwrapped their presents! Then the day was closed by a final blessing and a quick swim before the rain came down!

Everyone who came

All the staff

The staff who had earned medals