Death by Language Barrier

Jason (another pilot) came back from a flight to Manamaneng a few days ago with the news that the windsock pole had fallen to the ground. The windsock is mounted on a tall pole with two large bolts through the bottom. The upper bolt serves as a hinge for raising and lowering the pole, and the lower bolt serves to lock the pole in an upright position. Apparently, someone passing by decided they had more need of the lower bolt than we did.

 I had a flight to Manamaneng on Tuesday, so before leaving the hangar we found a replacement bolt for me to take. I have helped raise and lower a few of these poles. They are surprisingly heavy! Ideally, you have a minimum of five tall, strong people to lift the pole into place. More is better. The process looks a lot like Joe Rosenthal’s photo, “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” from World War II. Except those guys make it look easy.

 Unfortunately, when I arrived I could only find five short people. I’m pretty sure I was the only person who had done this before, but I was pretty sure we could make it work. Enter language barrier…I could not communicate well with any of the people helping. On our first attempt, we got the pole raised up about 7 feet off the ground. That was as high as my helpers could reach. On our second attempt, several people went around to the short end of the pole to push down on that end. That actually gave the long end of the pole a significant advantage and we could only lift the pole about 5 feet off the ground.

Time for a new idea. After much discussion in Sesotho that I did not understand, someone went and got an 8-foot step ladder. This time we lifted the pole about 10 feet off the ground. But it was still only halfway up.

Next idea. Lift the pole and rest it on top of the ladder. Lift a few more inches and slide the ladder. Lift, slide. Lift, slide. Lift, slide. We were making progress, but because the ground was uneven the ladder was starting to tip and the pole, now perched a few feet above our heads, was moving closer and closer to the edge of the ladder. Oh, no! Someone is going to die! One wrong move and half of our crew is going to end up under that falling pole!

Holding the ladder as still as possible, I started talking as strongly and calmly as I could, “Go to the other side of the ladder! The pole is going to fall! You have to move! You have to move!” No one could understand me. But thankfully someone else saw what was about to happen. We were able to take the pole slowly back to the ground without anyone getting hurt.

I’m not sure how the pole actually got up in the end. Some combination of the mechanics of before and a little extra effort and, after an hour of trial and error, the pole was up.