Flying with Andrew

On Friday, I was able to join Andrew!

I flew with Andrew in the MAF plane and saw his work first-hand. I also got to meet some of the inspiring people that he flies within South Sudan. Thanks to kind friends on the MAF compound who took Esther, Ben and Joel for the day, I was able to leave my usual compound life and take to the skies of South Sudan!

Here is an account of  "My Day with a MAF Pilot"

At a bright and cool-ish 7am, I joined Andrew and the dispatch team to climb aboard the MAF mini-bus for the drive to the airport.

Once on the tarmac, I watched while Andre pre-flighted the plane and the dispatch team loaded the freight. There were very thorough discussions to do with weight and balance and where exactly the 18kg of eggs should be stored for the flight!
Andrew spent time going over check-lists and checking a multitude of screens in the cockpit. Clearly, these mean nothing to my nontechnical mind, but are of obvious importance to my pilot husband!

My attention was drawn to the other aircraft around us and to the general atmosphere of early morning busy-ness at the airport. It was fascinating. There is nowhere like Juba airport.

We were surrounded by aid-agency planes and vehicles. Huge helicopters marked "WFP" (World Food Program) stood side by side with Red Cross planes. MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) vehicles zipped past, carrying their staff to their own aircraft. An IGAD helicopter rolled past us down the taxi-way, its noisy engines drowning out any other sound. Its rotors were only slowly turning, but it would soon reach the runway and its rotor blades would swing into life and lift the heavy frame of the helicopter into the air.

Across from where I was standing, a large UN cargo plane with powerful engines sprang into life, filling the air with mighty roaring. Clouds of red dust billowed out of the back of the plane. It slowly began to lumber in our direction, preparing to taxi towards the runway. Its vast white body had few windows, accentuating the 12 small windows of the cockpit, making them appear like dark eyes set against the white of the plane. Its pointed nose below the cockpit and the appearance of these "eyes" made the plane seem like a huge beast, intent on its mission as it forcefully took up its place on the taxi-way.

The noise and bustle of the planes, helicopters and vehicles on the apron was in sharp contrast to the natural beauty behind the MAF plane. The rear of our plane was parked with its tail over a wide patch of long grass, between the runway and apron. This grass was taller than I am! As the MAF team prepared the plane, the early morning sun still sat low in the sky, a red ball suspended in the East. The light it threw out made the grass glow golden- a lovely reminder of nature in this harsh, man-made environment of metal, engine noise and tarmac!

By 08:30, the plane was prepared, the fuel truck had driven over and refuelled, the freight was safely stowed, the passengers were seated and belted in: we were ready to depart!

There was a bit of an aircraft traffic jam! We joined the queue 9th in line, taking our place behind this great helicopter:

By 9:15am, we were airborne! I had a great view, sitting next to the pilot ;-) !!

The passengers included Bishop Taban, in the back right seat (seated in front of  the 18kg of eggs!!):

Beautiful South Sudan:

I took a photo of our plane's shadow as it crossed the amazingly green, swampy ground beneath us:

We flew to KURON: this is the airstrip Andrew landed on:

At KURON, the  freight was unloaded and the Bishop and his team alighted. The bishop invited me to join them for a photo by the MAF plane:

The Bishop was greeted by a group of locals, one of whom gave a wonderful "welcome dance"- the lady in the orange blanket:

Her beads, jewelry and tribal marking were fascinating. She was happy to pose for a photo, which she enjoyed looking at from the screen on my digital camera:

Lots of very cute children came running over to greet the bishop and meet the plane. They were enthusiastic and friendly, but took posing for a photo very seriously indeed:

 These delightful children also enjoyed seeing photos of themselves on the digital camera screen, but when I showed them photos of my (white) children, they screamed with amusement! They burst into excited chatter, pointing and staring in fascination at white-haired, pale-faced children of a similar size to themselves! 

Sadly, I could not communicate much with them, as I have no Toposa language and they have no English. However, I think we established that I liked their beads and that they liked my ear-rings and would quite like to keep my silver-plated necklace (which didn't happen!).

KURON is where the Bishop and his team will spend Christmas, at the inspiring "Holy Trinity Peace Village" which he has established out here in the bush of South Sudan. The bishop has a highly commendable vision: to continue developing this peace village as a practical centre of health care, education, vocational skills training and spiritual care for the people of his area. 

I read this quote from the bishop: "I have been dreaming of a community where people with different ethnicity and different religious backgrounds can live side by side with confidence in harmony and fellowship."

To read more on this work, you can look at these links: 

www.combonisouthsudan.org ›

www.kuronvillage.net/

It was good to see a little of the impact this dream is having, as it becomes reality in this war-torn land.

It was good to to see how the MAF plane can assist in this work, bringing the bishop and team safely and quickly to KURON from Juba and carrying their necessary freight.

We were invited up to the actual village for lunch, but sadly had to decline. The dirt roads were so bad after recent rain, meaning that it could take us up to 45 minutes to drive to the lunch place and 45 minutes back to the plane. This would delay our flight time back to Juba. So we prepared to climb back aboard and to leave KURON.

We were soon back in the air again. A passenger took this rare shot of me with Andrew in his work-place:

There was enough flight time to make a cup of tea... Since there are no flight attendants on board MAF, I had brought my flask along!

(I didn't dare try to balance a full cuppa on my knee mid-flight, while using a camera, hence a photo of the dry cup!)

One hour and 20 minutes later, Andrew was beginning his descent over the Nile and preparing to land at Juba airport:

Back to earth at Juba again! What a great insight into a day's work for a MAF pilot. A wonderful privilege.