Not Every Flight Goes As Planned!

It has been a busy week now that the aircraft is back up and running. Although if Rob, the engineer thought he was in for a quieter week, the aircraft had other ideas as, every time I landed something else had broken. After the first passenger flight since December, I returned with a broken avionics switch, which was promptly replaced, ready for a flight the next day. 

On Wednesday morning I arrived at the airport to fly a team of 3 from FJKM (Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar) to Mananara where they would be carrying out a survey in preparation for a trip later in the year with doctors and medicines. The day got off to a bad start as the team got stuck in traffic in Tana and arrived 45 minutes late. After climbing above the clouds for an uneventful 2 hour flight we reached Mananara, only to find the weather was terrible! Rain showers were passing through and it took a while to find a gap in the clouds to descend through. The rain held off just long enough for us to land and then it poured down as we got out of the plane.

Mananara was rather wet when we arrived!

The rain caused a further delay as I waited for it to clear enough for us to take off again. I flew to Mandritsara to get fuel before a return flight to Tana. What should have been a half hour flight took twice as long as I tried to find a way through the towering cumulus clouds. By the time I reached Mandritsara it was too late to make it back to Tana before it got dark so I had an unscheduled overnight stop in Mandritsara. Apparently Bethan was not too impressed that I didn't come home that night.

HVM (Good News Hospital) in Mandritsara

Mandritsara is the home of the Good News Hospital, one of our partner organisations, therefore I was guaranteed a bed for the night! The team is mostly made up of Brits so I was welcomed with a hot cup of tea. There was a 40th birthday party that evening so having had cake and a good time listening to British accents again, I returned to the guest house to watch a film with some of the nurses. It was rather nice to have a girly night in!

Gyro failure - zero suction

My eventful return to MAF flying wasn't over yet however. Climbing out on my return to Tana, I noticed a red flag appear on the artificial horizon. Glancing down at the suction gauge confirmed a loss of suction so yet again I would return with a broken aircraft! The rest of the flight went smoothly but it was a bit unnerving to see the instrument telling me I was in a climbing turn.

For more information about HVM, visit their website: http://mandritsara.org.uk/

In the Skies Once More

We've have been blogging a lot recently, but sometimes news happens that's too good not to share!

11 days ago a shiny new engine arrived.

The engineers got to work, preparing everything for installation.

It was good to see an engine attached to the front of the plane again.

So good that passengers were excited enough to take photos of the new engine. The aircraft has been sorely missed by us and our partners during the last 5 months!

On Thursday we did some engine runs to make sure everything was working properly.

On Friday it was ready for a flight test...

Today (Saturday) I took to the skies and did some training, ready for our base checks next week (a six monthly assessment MAF require us to do). It was nice to be back in the left hand seat again.

Our Garden

We are often asked what Matt and Bethan do while Becki is flying (or in the office). Well they spend a lot of time in the garden, with Matt building things and Bethan playing with/on them. The garden looks a lot different now to when we first looked around the house. Matt and the gardeners have worked very hard!

Here are the "before and after" photos:

Before we agreed to move in, we wanted the front garden cleared...

There is a house in there somewhere!

Now it's much less overgrown

Removing the structure on the front of the house has made it a lot lighter inside!

The front garden had a large wooden structure overgrown with plants - apparently the previous tenant used it for karaoke nights.

The proprietor arranged for everything to be removed, including the ceramic tiled bar at the far end!

Now there is room to run around!

There used to be a building here, on the side of the house, which the previous tenant removed, just leaving a lot of mud and some steps..

Now the grass is slowly growing and at the end we left some mud for Bethan to play with and built Bethan a table for her "cooking"

The top end of the mud.

which is now a sandpit and balance beam

At the front was an overgrown hedged garden. It looked better after the gardeners had trimmed it but..

 we decided the space could be better used for a herb circle and key hole vegetable garden (which is square rather than round but hopefully it will still work)

 Ledadaky and the Dahalo

On Monday, a call came in asking for a medevac from Ankavandra. The details were a little hazy but we knew it was for a gunshot victim, with the bullet having travelled through the mouth. The man would be accompanied by some family members but we were unsure if any medical staff would be available to join the flight. Having a doctor on board means they can inform us if there are any complications that would stop us flying or restrict our altitude to maintain constant air pressure. God's timing is perfect and just as the Caravan was being prepared for the flight, in walked Dr Sylvain - a doctor who regularly joins us for our “Medical Safaris”. Thankfully he was willing to come along for the ride! This was a double blessing as he could also act as a translator in a region where little French is spoken.

The river between Ankavandra and the airfield

  Flying to Ankavandra, which is 144 miles from Tana, took 52 minutes. Located beside the river at the base of the high plateau, the area looked beautiful as we flew in. In the hot, dusty conditions on the ground it was a different story. Ankavandra is located in one of the 'zones rouges', where police and security are scarce and the Dahalo (cattle thieves) roam freely. The larger groups of Dahalo have assault rifles to protect their herds of stolen cattle. Ledadaky had fallen foul of the Dahalo that day. The bullet knocked out his bottom teeth and left a path of destruction from his cheek, down his neck. He had been carried to the village of Ankavandra, where his face was patched up and then a further 3 miles to the airstrip on the other side of the river.

Armed men, protection for carrying money

Ledadaky being assisted to walk to the plane

Ledadaky, his family members and some armed men (protection as they were carrying money for the flight and hospital fees) arrived at the airfield. Ledadaky's family then boarded the aircraft with some cooking pots and bags of rice that they had brought with them, and Josh strapped Ledadaky into the on-board stretcher. Your family must provide food for you while you stay in hospital and rice is more expensive here than where they live in the bush, so they came prepared! We flew back to Tana, arriving shortly before sunset and the patient was soon strapped into the waiting ambulance and taken to hospital.

Strapped into the Cessna 208 ready for the flight to Antananarivo

On the ground at Ivato Airport, Antananarivo

The journey to the ambulance was nice and short 

To Ranomafana (and back)

5R-AAD, the Cessna 182 that I fly is still without an engine. A new engine is currently being built in France and hopefully it will be ready to ship to us in May. In the meantime we decided to use up some holiday and explore some of Madagascar.

Traveller's Palm 

Bethan was not impressed with a 4 hour car journey to Antsirabe on the first day. She fell asleep not long after leaving Tana but woke up 45 minutes later and spent the rest of the journey telling us, in no uncertain terms, that she did not want to go on holiday. Two and a half hours of listening to "I don't want to go to Antsirabe, turn the car around and go back home" felt a whole lot longer! Thankfully things improved after that.

Thoroughly enjoying her holiday after the initial protest!

Easter weekend is somewhat of a party in Madagascar, especially 'Picnic Monday' when everyone has the day off and makes the most of the sunshine. In Antsirabe most of the population head to Lake Andraikiba (described in the guide book as picturesque and peaceful) so we chose to give it a miss and comtinue on to Lake Tritriva, which was as stunningly beautiful as we had been told. We drove back to find that the road had turned into a sea of people. Fortunately, a policeman decided to help us and gave directions to avoid the worst of the crowds. It made a nice change to have dealings with the police that didn't involve a long wait and phone calls by the side of the road as they try to extract money from us!

Lake Tritriva, which from this viewpoint looks like a map of Africa

We were not looking forward to trying to make our way through the crowds on the road

Around lunchtime we headed south to Ranomafana. A combination of potholes and revellers meant the journey was very slow and we got there in time to put a sleeping Bethan into bed and eat dinner in our hotel room.

A smaller scale picnic at the side of the RN7 

While in Ranomafana we visited the National park, firstly for a night walk, where we saw some chameleons and the nocturnal Greater Dwarf Lemur.

Sleeping Chameleon

Short-horned Chameleon

The next day we visited the park again and this time we saw Red-Fronted Brown Lemurs, a Red Bellied Lemur and the endangered Golden Brown Lemur. We also saw a very cool Leaf-tailed Gecko and many interesting insects.

                                    

                                                  Red Bellied Lemur

Leaf-tailed Gecko

Golden Bamboo Lemur

While in Ranomafana we wanted to visit the thermal baths, which the town was originally built around. The bridge across the river was in disrepair so we waded through the river only to find the baths were closed for cleaning. We did manage to put our feet in a shallow pool of thermal water though and, at 38 degrees Celsius, we thought maybe swimming would have been too hot anyway! Instead we explored the town and walked through the rainforest again,

We opted to wade through the river rather than balance on the log carrying Bethan

The thermal pool looked like a lovely place to spend the day if it had been open!

Game of Pooh Sticks in Ranomafana National Park

Finding Frogs in the rainforest

After Ranomafana we stopped at a private nature reserve (Ialatsara Lemur Camp) for the night. The owner, Daniel, has set up his own camp and protected an area of the forest. He has done an amazing job of it and we all enjoyed staying there. In the evening he showed us the Brown Mouse Lemurs living just next to the camp and during a 3 hour hike the next morning, we found Eastern Lesser Bamboo Lemurs, Red bellied Lemurs, Milne-Edwards' Sifakas and Small Tooth Sportive Lemurs. The guides were clearly not used to Vazahas (foreigners!) with toddlers and treated us as they do everyone who comes to visit the forest. If the lemurs are somewhere unreachable they hack a path through the undergrowth and clamber up the side of the mountain - not so easy whilst carrying a 3 year old!

Matt trying to get Bethan through the gaps Marcel had created with his hacking device!

Milne-Edwards' Sifaka

Sportive Lemur 

Milne-Edwards' Sifaka and Sportive Lemur

Bethan loved it at Daniel's place because there are 3 dogs and 7 cats living there. She spent most of dinner and breakfast tormenting the poor cats. This was one of the highlights of the holiday for her.

Tormenting 'Tap Le Porte' the cat

Spotted this park on the way home so broke up the journey for an hours playing

On our way home, we broke up the journey with an overnight stay at Madalief, just south of Antsirabe. It is a hotel that has been set up to raise funding for the orphanage run by the owners and provide work for single mothers in the area. It is a very beautiful place, with a play area which Bethan thoroughly enjoyed and the best food we have eaten in Madagascar.
http://www.madalief.nl

Madalief Guest House