A long list..... not for Santa...

The Harmattan is in the air, light, but clearly on its way... with it, we will be restricted in our airborne operations until March. The wind is coming from the North, the day time temperatures are rising and the night time temperatures are dropping... Furthermore, with ten days to the Presidential Elections, and with Tony heading back to the states this week, plus the end of term for the AvTech girls, we have a long list of challenges to shake our collective sticks at.

1. Work on a new drop system (more details in the new year)
2. Preparations for a major drop schedule in March 2013
3. Ongoing work on the fuel system for our CH701 to ensure the long range capability that will be needed for the planned drop schedule in 2013.
4. Constant work towards our funding needs, and seeking alternative revenue streams.
5. Many meetings about collaboration around the Volta Lake for the coming year
6. Planning the training programme for the Clinic and air operations.

PLUS the ongoing, seemingly endless paperwork challenges that seem to be a growing burden in this part of the world.

In the next few weeks we will be sending out our newsletter, so if you are not yet registered - do so now

Thank you all for your support and reading about us, we value you all!

The Weather

We have the most incredible weather at Kpong Airfield, and our view of Mt. Krobo keeps changing………

Getting a load….

We urgently needed to get some stones from the local quarry to make some concrete. So, Jonathan and I went off for a few miles down the road in the Trusty Truck. As we came to the quarry, which lies at the end of a horribly rutted dirt road, it seemed like an almost surrealistic place with monstrous conveyor belts clanking away all day. They were joined in their cacophonous symphony by a pair of (rather nice-looking) hammer mills banging away on some poor rocks, which they turned into stones for our concrete.

We were told to park the Trusty Truck for loading, and it looked dreadfully puny when a huge bulldozer approached. The vast shovel was full of stones which threatened to (a) pulverize the truck and then (b) to bury it. We stood with bated breath, but fortunately the skilled operator was pretty careful, and didn’t give the truck that almighty whack that we were expecting, but we could see the truck bed groaning under the weight of the stones.

Off we went, at a slow crawl, hoping that the tiny tires would not burst in the heat on that rutted road, but they held out bravely, and we arrived back home on the airfield with the Trusty Truck more or less unscathed.

You’ll find out more about the concrete in a future blog – coming soon!

So what on earth do I do at Kpong Airfield?

Your humble scribe is working as a volunteer for seven weeks with Medicine on the Move and the Avtech Academy. Fundamentally, I’m a general dogsbody and will do whatever is needed.

I spend a good chunk of time in the classroom with the AvTech students, and we use Computer-based Training (CBT) courses as a basis for teaching. Currently, we’re going through the CBT sessions on Meteorology (for pilots), and so we have endless opportunities to delve into critical topics like fractions, graphs, metrics, and physics. When we were discussing the physics of pressure, we talked about the effect of carrying a bottle up to 10,000’ sealing it and seeing what happened after coming back to sea level. It so happens that we have a few airplanes close by, so it was easy to do a real live test (at least to see the effect of 2,500’ pressure difference)! It’s so wonderful to be able to bring the academic and the practical side of things into such close proximity.

The AvTech students are great fun to work with! A few days ago, we were discussing metrics and talked about estimating distances. The girls guessed the distance to the picnic tables when walking over for lunch, and then they paced off the distance marching forward silently as a very determined group! The estimates were amazingly close and you can imagine the loud whoops of delight when the estimates and the measurements came within a few metres of each other!

At an active and fast-paced operation like WAASPS / MoM / AvTech Academy, junk easily accumulates, and it’s tough to keep the place clean and tidy and de-junked. AvTech students are (almost!) always willing, enthusiastic and smiling when we call on them to help out!

There is much work to do around the airfield and things break a lot in the harsh conditions of strong sunlight, humidity, rainstorms, insects, plus general wear and tear. When the tractor used for mowing the runway recently ran out of fuel, I had to spend an hour bleeding the air out of the system before it ran properly. Plumbing is a constant problem, and I’ve blogged previously about the fun and games we have with imported fittings! The current bane of my life is getting some cellular modems to work in the data centre. Our internet access is reasonable reliable but somewhat slow, and so everything takes that much longer. Other related tasks include getting computers with odd operating systems to work on the network, and getting that wireless printer to work with all the student computers.

 

Keeping up with e-mail, writing blogs and doing administrative work means that I spend a surprising amount of time on my computer. We’re building a bit more structure around the AvTech Academy programme with additional documentation of the academic and practical training – that means more typing!

Every night I do a quick check of the hangars and workshops when I turn off our trusty generator soon after 20:00. Since it’s located in the complex of buildings on the far side of the field, this entails a short walk across the runway in the dark, and I have a fond hope that I’ll spot the snakes with my flashlight before they decide that they don’t like me. If it’s been pouring rain (we’ve had a lot recently), I get a bit more exercise plus muddy shoes, and walk the long way around the end of the runway to avoid spoiling the soft runway surface..

You see, there is no rest for the wicked (or anyone else for that matter). There is always so much to – plus we have those almost weekly and not-so-much-fun trips to Accra which consume a whole day and which I’ll ignore in today’s blog. With all that goes on, I’m always thrilled if I manage to get in the odd bit of time in an airplane!

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink…..

Well, The Kpong Airfield Hilton is normally blessed with running water – yes real pure drinkable running water! Nevertheless, although we are right next to Lake Volta, the largest (in area) human-made lake in the world, and even though we had lots of rainstorms in the past few weeks, our poor water taps did no more than an occasional embarrassed dribble last week.

According to rumour, the main water pipe broke somewhere near the town of Kpong, and it took four days before it got fixed. The wise people (Jonathan + Patricia) who run Kpong Airfield had planned for this eventuality by installing a 3000 litre tank on our own private water tower. Unfortunately, seven AvTech girls, four facilities staff, two management staff, visitors plus your thirsty scribe mean that the tank lasts for three days of normal use. On the fourth day all taps again dribbled in that embarrassing way.

What next? Well, we’re all supposed to maintain a full bucket of water in our bathrooms and there are oodles of old mineral water or soda bottles with drinking water in the freezer. Those water bottles are kept nice and cold as long as there is diesel and the generator is working. When those bottles became dry, we had to go out and buy sachets of water. Sachets are little plastic bags of water that you can get all over Ghana, and if you buy a particular brand of sachet, you are likely to not get sick!

Fortunately, at the end of Day 4, the mains water got fixed. Having mains water running most of the time is actually rather nice and it allows us to have those deliciously cold showers each morning –brrr!!!

Airdrop of Educational Materials to Communities on Lake Volta (Part 2)

On Friday morning, the day after the AvTech students completed the packages for the airdrops, Jonathan (our intrepid pilot) and I set out to fly over seventeen villages close to the shores of Lake Volta. I squeezed into the cockpit along with the bag of packages, taking care not to let anything fall into the opening in the floor.

The procedure was to fly towards a designated drop zone – usually at a school – and descend as far as needed but consistent with safety. The flight had been announced to the national security authorities as well as to air traffic control, and we were authorized to descend to 200’ feet above ground level. This is easier said than done, as the pilot needs to aim the aircraft very carefully while keeping a watch for emergent trees and other obstacles. On a turbulent day, this can become all the more challenging!

As we got close to the drop zone, I would hold a bag with the rolled up document in the hole in the floor, and release it when Jonathan called out “3, 2, 1, drop”. Some of the drop zones were difficult to identify, and they would come up very rapidly, but the bag had to be dropped in exactly the right location. With practice, the ‘dropmaster’ can identify the edge of a drop zone through the opening in the aircraft and it should fall exactly in the right spot.

When nearby children heard the sound of the aircraft, they would run out into the clearing, knowing that an airdrop was imminent and they would run to catch the bag. Meanwhile, Jonathan, would bring the aircraft into a climbing turn that allowed us to verify that the children were looking for bag, and we could sometimes see that they had actually found it.

We dropped the literature at 17 villages, dropping two bags in one village to serve another nearby community. For this trip, we flew a total of 1.3 hours in a Zenith 701 aircraft with the new Rotax 912iS engine.

This was my first time to participate in an airdrop run to the ‘client’ villages of Medicine on the Move, and I was thrilled not only by the opportunity see the villages, but also by the beautiful landscape and cloud formations. At the same time, I was very conscious of the living conditions of the people living in the villages, and saw many areas (including dwelling houses and fields) that had been flooded. This flooding came about because all the rains had raised the level of Lake Volta, and of course people like to live close to the water so that they can get to their fishing grounds, their drinking water and their washing water.

These conditions are a key reason why there is a need for education around health and hygiene. Water-borne diseases such as bilharzia (Schistosomiasis) are a key cause of poor health, while diarrhoea resulting from poor hygiene practices is widespread and debilitating.

Medicine on the Move first established contact with this batch of villages in early 2012 by making an initial invitational air drop. Almost all the villages responded positively to participating in the airdrop program by calling a special phone number (this batch of villages do have reasonable cellphone access, even if they have to walk to a location to get a call out! This may not be the case in future drop areas). There were some requirements placed on this group of villages such as participation in a preparatory meeting, but the key is that the community leaders are engaged and that some of these leaders – especially school teachers – are willing to use the airdrop materials to help raise the level of health and hygiene awareness in their communities. We’re certainly making an impact on the children – you can see their excitement from a couple of hundred feet up in the air when they run to pick up the airdrop bag!

Cooperative Driving – Risk Minimization

When Hella and I are driving somewhere, the person not driving also keeps an eye on the road and makes the odd comment like ‘check speed’, ‘slow traffic ahead’, or ‘dog on the right’. This becomes particularly important when driving on a narrow mountain road on a rainy night in California, when the extra pair of eyes pointing out ‘road veering left in 100 yards’ can be really helpful. Patricia and Jonathan have perfected this kind of cooperative driving to a fine art on the highly dangerous roads that we have in Ghana.

Cooperative driving is an example of CRM (Crew Resource Management), a practice which comes from the world of aviation and which has been developed in the past few decades to help minimize the risk of aircraft accidents. Part of the idea is to make use of all available crew resources to help gather data, and bring critical information to the attention of the pilot flying. Communication among crew members is vital, and crew comments are seen as being helpful to the pilot / driver - as opposed to being critical and undermining the sensitive ego of the driver!

Driving on Ghanaian roads at night is a high-risk activity, and the driving ‘crew’ has to factor in deep potholes, ragged road edges, unlit vehicles, obstacles in the driving lane, and oncoming and overtaking vehicles where it’s not clear that they will move back into their lane on time. Other hazards include pedestrians wearing dark clothes crossing the road without warning, unlit bicyclists riding in the wrong direction, and animals on the road. When Patricia and Jonathan form the driving crew, the person not driving keeps up an almost running commentary in congested areas about the upcoming hazards. This is particularly helpful at night, when it can take the driver’s brain a few seconds to analyse the vague shadows coming up ahead, and so the help of the co-driver in digesting the complex array of sensory inputs is highly appreciated.

As the passenger in the back seat on a couple of the 2-3 hour drives back to Kpong from Accra after a long day in the city, I feel a lot safer with Patricia and Jonathan’s CRM - especially when I think of Jonathan’s son who was hit by an oncoming vehicle while driving in his lane on this very road. It was a miracle that he survived, and I hope that with CRM, the likelihood of getting into this kind of accident is a lot lower.

The best laid plans…….

Of course we plan our activities ahead of time, but so often, something unexpected happens.

A few days ago, the water tap in kitchen started spraying water: I had to cancel plans for office work, writing blogs etc. We cannibalized a water tap from a bathroom that had no water yet, and after removing the entire sink, were able to get it fixed. 2 hours.

Today, the grass areas needed to be mowed before the expected rain, but in time for the three-day holiday weekend which would be an important revenue-producing weekend for WAASPS.

Unfortunately, with the big storm two days ago, the soil was still too wet to support the weight of tractor mower, so we needed to use the push mower. Now we discovered that the motor mounts were completely broken, plus the rocker cover had a hole. We spent almost 3 hours fixing this, and now Lelle was able to get the apron area mowed before today’s rain came.

Things constantly break down here with the harsh environment – the heat, the vibrations from bad roads, the insect nests, the harmattan dust, the UV radiation from the sun that breaks down plastics much more quickly than in temperate climates. It doesn’t help that imported products (especially plumbing fixtures) are often of such low quality, that might as well be guaranteed to break within a short period!

All this means that while planning is a fun exercise in Kpong, the best laid plans may never happen!

Tony, a volunteer making a difference

One of the nice parts of having a volunteer at the site here in Kpong, is that they provide a different view and blog perspective. Having Tony around this month is such a boon, he accepts any task thrown at him, and then goes on to find five more (remember he has been here before, used to live in Ghana, and knows the ropes!).

We enjoy all the volunteers who come here and grasp the concepts, seeking the things that stimulate them and, of course, 'hanging with the gang' - spending time with the girls listening to their questions, sharing culture and concepts - especially in relation to flying and health; as well as with Patricia and I in regards to the management of the place and how we can improve on our systems (and giving us a needed break from the 'constant pressures'). Clearly, in the discussions there are areas that we agree on, and others that we discuss - and that is wonderful - it provides insight and the outcomes can be varied. Sometimes there is opportunity for change here, other times a change in understanding on the part of the visitor - open minds on both sides is key to success! The main thing that we love about having volunteers is the chance to share - share ideas, share challenges, share workload, share ice-cream (the biggest treat on the site!) and share a smile on movie night in the Data Centre!

The girls movie night this week was 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines', and just as the film started, a visitor arrived on the site. Patricia and I had to leave the room, knowing that Tony would able to explain the idosyncrocies of the movie (it is not easy to just show a film, without some explanations, or misunderstandings and confusion can and do occur).

From flying to engineering, helping with computer training and CBT, preparing materials, accounts entries, office work, presentations, working with the girls as they do their SDS (Self Directed Study) or just chatting to the visitors - 'the volunteer' opportunity is a great two way exchange that helps to grow our operations as well as to grow the experiences of the volunteer! We will have fresh volunteer opportunities next year - and if it interests you, drop us a line - let us start exploring and making sure that this is the best place for you - so that it is a positive two way experience...

Tony arrives in Ghana Oct 11,2012

What a delight to be back in Ghana after five years absence. Last night, after an uneventful flight from Amsterdam, but with some stunning views of the Sahara, I arrived in Accra. 1.5 hours after landing, I was thrilled to see Patricia, Matthew and Jonathan again. Coming to the airfield in Kpong was amazing – the place is almost unrecognizable with all the new buildings. I stayed in what I have to call the Kpong Hilton which is a new bungalow complete with fan, flush toilet, shower, and lights powered either by the generator or for a couple of hours by rechargeable batteries when the generator is off.

The netting on the windows was so good that not a single mosquito managed to come and visit me during the night – despite all their good intentions! My big mistake, however, was to not wear earplugs, so my night’s sleep was far too short: after a long evening with Patricia and Jonathan, I got about 4.5 hours of sleep before being woken by a melodious concert from some highly talented birds and insects.

My first morning started with a delicious egg breakfast prepared by Mavis. The day proceeded with all the usual fun and games that I would expect, for example the starter motor of the truck refused to operate, so once we got it working (with a quick ground-assist), the poor driver would be harangued with repeated cries of ‘don’t turn off the engine’ as we ran our errands in the local area! This included getting more diesel for the truck, generator and tractor, but we couldn’t fuel the truck directly because we did not dare remove the key from the ignition in order to open the tank cap! Then it was back to pumping fuel from the oil drum in to the truck using a hand pump once we got back to the airfield.

Another job: a medical bed which had kindly been donated, required cleaning, some changes plus a new cover, so we took it to a roadside upholstery shop. We left the bed at the shop in the care of Emanuella, and she did a stellar job supervising the work. It got done within a few hours, and now we have a nicely re-covered bed ready for the opening of the mini-clinic on Saturday.

During the day, the whole team worked on cleaning up the engineering training center in time for the events on Saturday – after a few hours, a magical conversion took place under the expert guidance of Patricia. She even choreographed a team of the Avtech girls as the turned over a wing so that it would be displayed properly.

One more day before the mini-clinic opening on Saturday, so we have a lot to do tomorrow!