Mamoli Mission Trip

As part of Mercy Air’ outreach to isolated communities, there have been regular mission trips to Mamoli Mission, in Mozambique, for a number of years now. 

A warm welcome

The journey began as we left Mercy Air to exit South Africa at Kruger and enter Mozambique at Beira.

We stay at the Mamoli Mission base where we have two rooms, a secure place to park the helicopter, and storage for the  A1 jet fuel (always important).

The day begins with a shower at 6, knowing you will be soggy with sweat by 10, then breakfast and prayers.  Joel makes a series of phone calls to check people are in place for the day ahead and does the helicopter preflight checks. The aim of the week is to take medical staff from the hospital and health care centers to communities only accessible by air.

Each day we take a different medical team to a different community. This might be a school, with a building, with class rooms, but no electricity, but it could also be a community with a school meeting under a tree. We visited a medical center with the roof blown off and no resources to fit a new one, another medical center was a beautiful tree in a field of long grass - just a tree and grass. At the first place we visited there was a puff adder in the waiting room (a log in the dust). I pointed it out to our first patient and let’s say the snake is now with Jesus (ouch) and not biting anyone in the bush.

The medical team is made up of health care workers, dentists (more later), someone to check patients for HIV, a baby immunization coordinator. I do not know why some babies scream, and some go quietly, to be suspended in a tree to be weighed (Picture…..). There were talks to the community on health issues like the importance of sleeping under a mosquito net, the issue of TB and drinking clean water.

Doctors waiting room 

One day we had the privilege of taking the medical director, a doctor, out with us for the day and he was able to see the work that goes on.  Joel and he were able to discuss how they can plan to use our helicopter best in the future. Relationships are so important to get things done in Mozambique!

A thirsty bird 

To give and idea of how busy it is - on one day we made 17 landing and take offs. When Joel could see I understood what and how we do things, I was promoted from ballast to packing and unpacking the cargo, dentist chair etc.  At one stop we had a 2 hour wait and I just sat in the waiting room, a log set in the dust, and I watched and listened. There were mainly women and children gathered, the Gogos (Grannies) would sit on the floor with the red dust blowing onto their beautiful capalanas and they chatted away in a local language I will never understand. On another log the younger women with their very obedient children gathered like any other playgroup in England. Chatter, laughter, gossip I can only guess. 

Some of the more privileged children have their own sack!

Some of the children, when taken to the weighing scales, hang by there tiny fists gripping the hook. I can almost feel the metal support making a pressure line in the child’s small black hopeful hands. Mothers watch the finger of the scale rotate slowly around the clock face, just a bit more please. Eventually the finger of the scales points towards healthy development and the promise of a future. Across the dusty playground a lady begins the school dinner. As I investigate, they tell me the food, maize I believe, is supplied by USA so that each school child gets a free meal each day.