A Family Trip to Zakouma

Last weekend we (Matt & kids) joined Becki's flight which was taking a team of pastors to the South then picking up a group of doctors from America, who had been working at a hospital in Bere, and taking them to the East. It was more cost-effective for the aircraft to stay for the weekend rather than make two flights so we grasped the opportunity to come along too and spent 2 nights at Zakouma National Park. MAF do not often fly there and when they do, it is to drop off supplies or bring staff in/out so it was the first time Becki had ever been able to go out and see any wildlife there too. 

Heading out to the Caravan

                           

Landing at Bere

 Crowds gathered to watch the MAF plane come and go

            

Bethan and Luke both had turns in the right-hand seat. We kept our final destination a secret for as long as possible so they thought we were just going to Bere and back. Bethan's expression on the right was just after she discovered where we were heading! Below are some photos from the game drives we got to go on:                                              

An Olive Baboon

Defassa Waterbuck

We frequently came across small groups of giraffe

A saddle-billed stork

Unidentified bird that was eating a snail!

A yellow-billed stork

Another baboon with a baby on its back

Luke amused our fellow game drive passengers by describing this scene as "loads of puffins"

Luke using his camera to photograph a giraffe

We spent a lot of time sat in the vehicle by the water watching the abundant bird life

Becki called on the driver to stop driving and reverse so she could take a photo of this pretty blue bird...

...and while we were stopped, the driver spotted three lions recovering from a meal of waterbuck

Two lions panting heavily after their big meal

To Luke's great concern, the driver parked very close to the lions. When this one stood up he decided it was time to go!

                           

The giraffes were very interested in us

Becki's favourite bird, an Abyssinian Roller

Hyena hiding amongst the trees

The water buffalo were very shy and kept their distance from us.

Central African Savannah Buffalo 

At the end of our second drive, we came across these elephants enjoying a splash in a lake.

A fourth elephant joined the group and greeted it's friend with affection

                                    

A red-throated bee-eater landed right in front of us

Two West African Nile Crocodiles lazing by the water. Luke was concerned!

On our final drive we saw Hartebeest

An ostrich who got up as we approached to reveal 8 large eggs

Our driver, Ramadan, went off the beaten track after a call came through on the radio. After much driving around we spotted a cheetah. Sadly he/she didn't hang around long enough for a decent photo.

                                                

Piccadilly Circus

The last few weeks have felt like Piccadilly Circus on the compound, all four houses have been full and there has been a constant stream of airport runs. Three weeks ago our new program manager and his wife left for Morocco to learn French, a few days later the Henderson family left for a two week break to visit their eldest daughter in Kenya, leaving us as the only permanent MAF family in town.

Before the other families left an IT team arrived from Ashford and spent 10 days installing our new server and security cameras, and also bringing chocolate and TV shows so we could catch up on The Crown! While they were here a short term pilot Eivind arrived to help me out with the flying. He needed some refresher flying and a supervised flight on each aircraft before being released to fly solo so we took the IT guys up for a flight before they left.

Steve and Sam joining Eivind and I in the C182

Eivind and I flying in the C208 to collect passengers in the south

Since the end of January we have also had Hans, a Cameroonian communications contractor who is spending six weeks in the program writing stories about MAF in Chad for donors and the magazines. He was able to join me on a 2 night trip up to Bardai where we visited the hospital and took a walk out of town to see ancient rock carvings.

Rock formations in the Tibesti

By the beginning of February both our aircraft were due for scheduled maintenance inspections, so Geoff Linkleter from Uganda kindly squeezed a two week visit into his busy schedule and came to join us on the compound too. As well as completing the maintenance tasks due on the aircraft he was able to start training up our new apprentice.

Theo and Dieudonne working on the aircraft

Last but not least, we had two pilots from Uganda join us for a night as they flew one of MAF Uganda's aircraft 5X-SCO from Liberia to Uganda, meaning that our hangar was as full as our compound. 

TT-BRT, TT-BER and 5X-SCO parked in the hangar overnight

Sharing a meal with some of our visitors

Flying with Mum

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to take Bethan along on a flight. Since I started flying on the Caravan Bethan has been keen to come along but there hasn't been a flight with space on a day when she wasn't at school until now. The flight was to the north east of Chad, stopping in Guereda and Abeche, in total 6 hours of flying. She was super excited to come along, and packed a bag full of snacks and things to keep herself occupied. 

The flight out was to take a passenger to Gureda to spend time visiting her family there, the flight back was to pick up a family who are normally based in N'Djamena and so Bethan was also excited to pick her friends up. We also flew over the flooded parts of the city on the return, and saw a practice parachute drop just after landing.

en-route to Guereda

Here are her thoughts on the flight: "I didn't realise how bad the flooding really was until I saw it from the plane. The flight was quite long but I really enjoyed it. My favourite bit was picking up my friends and meeting their new kitten who came on the plane with us."

Flooding in the neighbourhoods by the river in N'Djamena 

The following weekend we had another flight, but this time to a much closer destination so Luke came along. On the flight down we didn't have any passengers so Luke had a quick flying lesson. The flight was to Pala, one of our bush airstrips, to pick up a team of pastors who had been visiting churches in the area. Luke was not very impressed to find out that there wasn't a tarmac runway. He also wasn't impressed with the children that kept running down and across the runway when we wanted to depart meaning we had a 10 minute wait at the end of the runway for it to be clear.

Luke "It's not really a runway, it's just ground"

Luke's thoughts on the flight "it was fun and exciting, I liked steering it when it wasn't on autopilot"

Recent Events in Chad

  

         

The last month has been difficult for many Chadians living in N'Djamena, including a number of our national staff and our house-help, Sarah. People who live in Walia (shown in the above photo taken from the air) and Kousseri have been displaced from their homes. There has been a lot of rain during the wet season, which recently ended, and it has caused the river to flood areas such as Walia, which lies on the flood plain between two rivers. It is likely remain uninhabitable for 2 months so our colleagues and their families need to find temporary accommodation. A tented village has been set up but without any sanitation or clean water. For the first time since we have been here, the road next to our compound has also flooded. A couple of weeks ago, the water was rising by the day and approaching our walls so we laid sandbags and made a barrier to protect our compound and our neighbours from the water/sewage. Thankfully it hasn't yet got as far as our barrier and has remained at around the same level for about a week now. We can get in and out of our compound in our 4x4 but people living further down the road are badly affected. 

We have renamed the compound 'our lakeside property ' as we drive through some of this water to get in and out daily.

Thursday October 20th was a dark day in N'Djamena and other cities around Chad as many people were killed while protesting. This was the day that marked 18 months since the death of long-serving president Idriss Deby Itno in 2021, which was the time scale given for when elections would be held. In recent talks these elections were postponed by 2 years. Opposition groups called on the people to protest on the streets, so school was cancelled and everyone stayed at home. We awoke to sounds of gunfire and the smell of tear gas. Later we heard shocking stories of what took place on the streets of the city. At times like this we appreciate the democracy and right to protest that exists in our home country. Since that day, life has seemingly gone back to normal but we will have to wait and see what happens next. For more information the Guardian published this article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/20/chaos-chad-police-protests-journalist-prime-minister-democracy 

Home schooling during the protests

We welcomed Sundar and his wife Pushpa, who arrived in Chad earlier this week. Sundar will be the country director for MAF Chad in the new year, taking over from Leon who has been here on a temporary basis since March. We will have plenty of people visiting the program over the next month so our compound will be a busy place once again. 

I (Matt) have been helping out at Bethan and Luke's school, which has been very enjoyable. I have been helping the students (grade 6,7 & 8) with maths and last week I taught science to Bethan's class. While still busy with compound maintenance, I have also started a distance-learning carpentry course with a view to making furniture in the future. 

We are making the most of our compound pool at the moment as the temperatures are in the mid-30s. The kids have been learning some British history at home with Becki in the last few weeks. We have a time line in our living room and each weekend, they chose a person or event from history to study, do a related craft activity and make a sticker for the timeline. So far we've learnt about King Henry VIII, the Great Fire of London and Stevenson's Rocket, this weekend they made crowns and learnt about the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Next week...Guy Fawkes!

A Week of Flying and Birthdays

Two weeks ago was hectic! I had originally planned to take a couple of days of annual leave but as Phil's licence had not come through, I needed to postpone it and fly. First up was a flight to Bardai in the far North of Chad, this involves a detour to Faya to be able to refuel and means staying overnight amongst the Tibesti Mountains as there isn't enough time to get there and back in a day. 

Sahara Desert on the way to Faya

Rock formations as the desert turns to mountains

Sunset in Bardai

Accomodation for the night

We made an early start on Tuesday morning, partly to mitigate against any delays in Faya (we had been stuck the day before, for two and a half hours, waiting for fuel) and partly because there was an excited just turned 6 year old boy waiting to open some presents. Luke took a tub of cupcakes to school to celebrate with his classmates and other school children and was super excited when they gave him three big balloons! When I got back Matt had set up a treasure hunt for him to be able to find his cards (a tradition acquired from friends in Bath) and then he opened presents and had a call with his grandparents.

On Wednesday I flew across to Am Timan in the South East to return a missionary family to their home after their furlough and some time in the city. The road to Am Timan is currently impassable as the river has flooded out several sections.

Road to Am Timan

Thursday brought another flight and another birthday, this time the flight was up to Iriba in the North East, to bring a family and their belongings, and their dog Tex, back to the city from where they will move back to their passport country. The flight up was under clear blue skies, but several large storms developed on the way back and calls were made to missionaries and NGO's at airstrips en-route to request accommodation in case we had to divert. Thankfully we made it back to N'Djamena ahead of the storm and in time for me to join in with the second birthday treasure hunt (this time created by the children) to celebrate Matt's birthday.

Weather building en-route

Busy making cards for Daddy

On Saturday we then had simultaneous birthday parties, in the morning Matt headed out with some friends to play 5-a-side football against a team of Chadians (they were thrashed 3-6) while Luke had a party with his friends on the compound. Luke and his friends played tug of war, sardines and 'rescue the sea creature' which involved digging creatures out of the sand and carefully getting them back to the sea. Matt and the rest of his team were back in time for cake number one, then some more families joined us for a BBQ, second birthday cake and a quiz. We had a very busy, but very fun day :-)

Rescue the sea creature

Quiz