As the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, I
pulled the MAF operations car into its parking spot at Kajjansi airfield. The reddish/orange colour of the sunlight
reflecting on the clouds at the horizon provided a breathtaking backdrop to the
equally stunning image that greeted my eyes in the foreground. Looking down from the MAF terminal building I
could see our aircraft all parked in a line down on our apron area. Looking further across the bay area of Lake
Victoria I could see the hills bathed in the morning light on the other side of
the bay. A thin layer of grey mist
floating across the middle of the hills added to the overall beauty of the
setting, and I had to work to pull my thoughts away from the beauty that
surrounded me and turn my attention to the task at hand.
Turning around and walking into the building, I greeted our
ground ops workers who were already there and preparing for the mornings
passengers to arrive. On this particular Friday
morning I would be flying one of our Grand Caravan aircraft around
northern Uganda on our “Karamoja Shuttle”.
The Karamoja region lies in the northeastern part of Uganda, and is
known for the extreme drought and primitive living conditions there. Because of these conditions there are many
different missions and agencies that are working hard to bring the news of the
gospel of Jesus to the people living there. At the same time they are also working to
enhance the standard of living for the people there. There are medical missions, clean drinking
water missions and many others, and MAF is the conduit that is often used to
bring these missions the people and supplies that they need to carry out their work
there.
On
this particular day, my planned routing was to fly from Kajjansi up to the town
of Gulu to drop off some workers there.
From Gulu I would head further northeast up to the remote village of
Kaabong, where someone would be waiting for me to pick them up for their flight
to Kampala. Leaving Kaabong, I was to
fly south to the village of Kotido, where I would drop off another passenger
and then fill the plane almost to capacity with workers who were heading back
down to Kampala. On a normal Karamoja
shuttle we usually send only one of our Caravan aircraft, but on this day there
were two of us heading up there due to the number of people that we were
transporting back to Kajjansi. Too many
people for one aircraft, too many for one Caravan and one 206 aircraft, the
only way to get everyone where they needed to be was to dispatch two of our
Cessna Caravans, the workhorses of our MAF Uganda fleet. I was a little relieved that there were two
of us headed up this morning, as it meant that my flight wouldn’t be too long
today. It was after all, Friday, and an
early start to a weekend is always pleasant.
After fueling up and completing a thorough pre-flight, I headed back up to our terminal building to collect my passengers
and take them down to board the airplane.
As we made the walk down to the airplane, I was able to converse with
one of my passengers for a few minutes.
He told me that he was here in Uganda representing the Christian
Counselling Fellowship. He, along with
two others in their group, was headed up to Gulu to visit one of the projects
there. The three of them, Karl, Brenda
and David, were to be there for 10 days.
The project that they were involved with was a girl’s school, where they
were doing their best to prepare village girls for the lives that they would
eventually lead in their home village.
In addition to the basic schooling that is available in most schools,
they were also trying to prepare the girls by training them in a Christian
environment to run a household. Many
girls are married at a very early age and are thrust into the role of wife and
mother while they are still very young.
This mission was trying their best to give these girls the skills that
they would need to be able to survive and hopefully prosper when they were
married.
In addition to visiting the project up near Gulu, the team
that I was flying was also headed out to various villages to get a glimpse of
what daily life is like for the women who were currently living in the
villages. They were going to be doing
their best to analyze the current curriculum in their school and find out if
the school is adequately preparing these young women for their future lives, or
if there were still areas of training that they could add to the schooling. As they looked at both the school and the
surrounding villages, they wanted to be sure that the training that they were
offering was applicable to what the lives of these girls would actually be like
when they left the school.
Gulu was our first stop.
It is one of only three tarmac runways in Uganda, and the government has
recently done a lot of work to it and made it a very nice place to land. As I removed the luggage from the cargo pod
underneath the airplane, the three passengers were very effusive with their
thanks. They were very clear to me that
it is the ministry of MAF and the airplanes that we fly which allow them to
spend as much time as possible in ministry while they are here in Uganda, rather than
spending much more time traveling on the roads. The work of MAF is making a
difference to their ministry in northern Uganda.
Only a few minutes later we were airborne again, winging our
way further northeast towards the small community of Kaabong. This is one of our more challenging airstrips
which we fly to here in Uganda, and today was no different. The winds were gusting strongly down the
ridge with a quartering crosswind as I lined myself up on final approach. I was very thankful for the turbine engine
spinning away only a few centimeters in front of me. This airstrip is located at a high elevation
and the extra power available to us because of that engine gives us a greater
margin of safety every time that we land there.
We landed safely and picked up another passenger and were soon flying
southwards toward the village of Kotido.
Upon landing in Kotido, I disembarked my last passenger and then turned
to deal with the nine passengers who were waiting there for me to pick them up
for their flight to Kajjansi. Everything went smoothly and in seemingly no time at all we were all
airborne again, leaving the small dirt airstrip behind us and climbing up into
the smooth air above the clouds, making our way south back towards Kajjansi
airfield.
As we neared our home base, I began my descent and started
to allow my thoughts to move towards the weekend that lay ahead for my family
and I. I had only one more landing on
this day and then I would “put the plane to bed” for the weekend and head
home. Then I received a call over the HF
radio. I was asked if I would call the
office on my phone when I was on the ground, as they needed to talk to me. I had the gut feeling that my day may not be
over quite yet. After landing and shutting down the engine, my passengers
once again expressed their thankfulness to me for the work of MAF and the
difference that flying makes to them and their missions. As they left the airplane and walked up to
the terminal, I pulled out my phone and called the office. My gut instinct was correct. My day was far from finished. There were two patients who had been injured
in a car accident, and they needed an emergency medical evacuation flight out of
the town of Bunia, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. As I hung up the phone I looked over and got
the attention of the fuel guys and about 40 minutes later I was airborne again,
fuelled up and heading for Entebbe International Airport.
Clearing customs and immigration is a very fast process when
there are no passengers on board, and before long I was once again up at 10,000
feet, bumping my way westward towards the boarder of Uganda and the DR
Congo. By this time in the day the
convective air had made its way higher into the flight levels and there was no chance
for me to climb into smooth air. This
was no problem for me now, but as I flew onwards I hoped that the day would
begin to cool down in the next few hours before I had to fly with patients in
the airplane. Cooling air means a much
smoother flight, which always makes a medivac flight more pleasant.
Landing in Bunia, I taxied up to the parking area and shut
down the engine. As I climbed out of the
airplane I was greeted by several Congolese employees of the MAF Congo program
(MAF Congo is based in Bunia). They
informed me that the patients were on their way to the airport, but were traveling quite slowly, so they didn’t know exactly when they would arrive. I thanked them for the information and
prepared my airplane for their arrival. Back
in Kajjansi I had already removed two bench style seats and two single style
seats from the airplane, as we had been informed that the patients both
required stretchers. I opened the large
rear cargo door and prepared my tie down straps and fasteners so that when the
patients arrived I would be able to load them, secure them, and then depart as
quickly as possible. That large cargo
door is a blessing when it comes to transporting patients on stretchers. It is much easier for both the people who are
doing the carrying and for the patients as well, as they can be lifted directly
into the back of the plane without having to be carried up the stairs and
through the smaller passenger door.
After a short wait, the patients arrived at the
airport. Both were men who had been
involved in a car accident and both had the same type of chest injury. Neither man could breathe without
experiencing pain, and the location of their wounds also made it more difficult
to secure the stretchers safely to the floor of the aircraft. With some help from our MAF Congo friends and
a little bit of creativity, we soon had the passengers secured in the aircraft
and were ready to head back to Entebbe. Because
none of my passengers spoke English, I had one of the MAF Congo team translate
my pre-flight briefing for the passengers.
I would be carrying the two patients, as well as three other ladies who
were coming along to act as caregivers for the patients while they were in hospital. I described the impact that altitude can have
on people who are having trouble breathing, as well as a few other medical
issues that can arise as a result of flying.
We agreed on a signal that the ladies could give me if there were any
complications that arose during the flight, and with no further delay we were
on our way back to Entebbe.


What a day. Thanks to
this gravity defying machine that I was privileged to pilot for the day, I had
flown people from several different missions to and from several remote
locations, and had then been able to provide a much needed medical flight from
another country. Even though I was tired
to the bone, it was the very satisfying tiredness of a day well spent and a job
well done.
The story above is only one day in the life of one pilot at
MAF. Days like this could not happen
without the prayers and support that we receive from people all over the
world. You are a vital
part of the ministry of MAF here in Uganda, and we could not be here serving
the people of east Africa without your generosity and support. From this pilot, thank you so very much.
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