Medevac and Maintenance

I was not scheduled to fly last Monday. However, mid-morning our scheduler received a phone call from a village about 90 miles from us. A lady who works there and is well-loved by all of our MAF team was having some sort of medical problem. Initially they thought it might be a heart attack, but in the end it was actually a pretty bad case of pneumonia. When I departed from Nyankunde to pick her up, the last we had heard was that she was unconscious. However, when the plane landed, she was one of the first people I saw, standing up and walking. That was a relief! We brought her to the hospital here in Nyankunde for treatment and recovery.

Besides flying, I had several other projects this week. One of those was some maintenance on our Cessna 206. Our airplanes undergo regularly scheduled maintenance in Uganda. However, when things break on the airplane, they are not always considerate enough to break when the airplane is sitting in the hangar in Uganda. Sometimes they break in Congo and need to be fixed here. It is often pretty simple stuff, but things that are good to have in working order.

This time it was the spring that helps hold the pilot’s window open. It had broken, which is annoying because when the airplane is on the ground in the hot sun, you REALLY want that window open. So I replaced the spring. The fuse for the clock had also burnt out, so I replaced the fuse. Then there was the fan that is supposed to blow air to keep the radios from overheating. It had stopped working and had to be replaced. The new fan had to be sent in from Uganda, which took some logistics to work out. But in the end, the new fan arrived, it worked well, and we got the plane back up and flying.

Projects like the fan are my favorite. The results are very measurable—either it works or it doesn’t. And when it is done, it’s done.

The other great thing about the fan project was my assistants. Hannah was still down for her nap, so Dorothy came and sat in the airplane with me while I worked on the fan. After Hannah woke up, she and Dorothy traded places and Hannah sat in the airplane with me. They provided a constant stream of entertaining conversation and questions. Way better than working alone!

Speaking of Dorothy and Hannah, Kathleen did Dorothy’s hair in pigtails yesterday and Hannah decided she wanted them as well. Her hair is now just long enough for pigtails, and they are super cute!