November 30, 1997

Subject: Mozambique newsletter: November
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 97 09:11:03 UTC
From: MPilert@yahoo.com


Happy Thanksgiving!

This month has ripped by, we have been busy again.

We have had a couple of medivac flights this month. A lady in Quelimane needed an emergency appendectomy, and we had to take her to Harare, Zimbabwe at night in our Cessna 206 for the surgery. We were able to respond quickly with our Quelimane based aircraft. A man had a bad car crash out in the bush, and was brought to Quelimane for treatment, severe paralysis, etc. Quelimane does have a hospital, but it is very limited. We were able to fly this man out in our King Air.

We had a real tragedy at our program up in Entebbe, Uganda. Our director of maintenance had his house broken into. He was sleeping at the time, and when he heard noise, and went to investigate, he was shot in the leg, severely shattering his femur. His family was then terrorized an beaten. Tony was medivaced to Johannesburg, where he had surgery to rebuild his leg. He is doing better than expected. He will have to spend a few more weeks in the hospital in Jo'burg before he'll be able to be flown back to the States. It will be a long time before he'll be able to work again.

There is a bad Cholera outbreak in Maputo. There are so many people living on the streets there, that sanitation is a big problem. The epidemic has infected thousands of people. I have been very careful with food and drink in Maputo.

Up here in the north country there is an outbreak of plague. It seems to be mostly in the Morrumbala area(about 100 miles west of Quelimane. Something must be done to control the rats that are spreading this disease. There has been talk of aerial spraying. They want to spray rat poisen over some of the badly infected areas. This sounds crazy to me. How can you keep rat poisen out of water and food supplies? How can you keep children and unsuspecting adults from contact with it?

This week, I have our new International Chief Pilot visiting from the home office in Redlands, CA. Rob and I have been covering a lot of the country in the King Air, and also the Cessnas. We're taking a good hard look at as many or the operations in this program as we can in a two week period. Mozambique is the largest of all the AirServ programs. I like Rob a lot, and we're working well together.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I made it back into Quelimane just in time for Thanksgiving dinner. from up north in Nampula, where Rob and I had flown the King Air, and spent a day and a half. We stopped on the way down at a little dirt strip, Maganja. ADRA has an agriculture program there.

On the previous Tuesday I had flown in three large frozen turkeys that I was able to get in Maputo. They were imported from Japan, of all places (very expensive}. Our friends at World Vision arranged the party, which included all the Americans we could find in the Quelimane area. We had people from several NGOs and a couple of missionary families. Everyone brought a dish. What a feed it was. I especially liked the Apple and pumpkin pies baked by Peggy, our pilot Bill's wife. It was a real trakitional Thanksgiving gathering. I wonder where I'll be for Christmas.

This Month of November brought me my 50th birthday! Yes I know, I can't believe it either! Thanks to all of you that sent cards, and e mails. I just happened to be up here in Quelimane, and the good folks here threw me a nice party. Our cook Martins made a really good fish dinner.

We have a new atalite TV system here in Quelimane, so now people look forward to their duty up here. I don't have TV at my home in Maputo. I saw some of the Davis cup tennis today, but haven't found any football yet. American football that is. There is lots of soccer, and rugby. Cricket matches are plentiful. CNN news has been very good to have.

I'm off to Chimoio today an a trip for World Vision. I'll fly back to Maputo on Wednesday and spend a day in the ofice catching up on paper work, then I'll be northbound in the King Air again.

Cheers,

Mike