I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and support during the three months I've been in Mozambique. The e-mails, skype chats, pictures...everything. It really helped keep my head on straight. I must say that I really miss my family and friends and I feel a sense of ease knowing I'll see them soon. From an Aviation viewpoint this trip has been very interesting. I have learned many things while flying in a country that has had little knowledge or exposure to how the process of aviation has evolved. Technology...computers....you know, stuff like that. And more importantly how this technology can radically simplify an already complex business. The funny thing is that they already have everything they need to make this transition but are held in a bizarre holding pattern of past paperwork practices of a communist country. That is how it's done. On paper in triplicate times three. All that paper will be filed into huge warehouses, stacked to the ceiling in boxes that no one will ever see. (Like the end of Indiana Jones #1). The other side of the story is that in spite of all the "interesting" situations, lack of technology, process and planning, the airplanes flew and eventually people found their destinations. There's a lesson in there somewhere I think. And it's probably a good one. Although I will need to quit drooling and sleep for a week before I can contemplate what it might be.
Well I suppose that's a wrap! I finished the last flight this morning. This evening all the pilots and flight attendants enjoyed a farewell dinner at a local fish market. They catch the fish, you pick the fish, they cook the fish, and you eat the fish. Kind of like Skippers. The evening was filled with many kind words and I am very grateful for such a warm and generous end to many hours of work. Pictured top is most of the group at dinner. (Some are texting. Everyone texts all the time no matter where or when. An issue during aircraft ops). Bottom two pictures are this morning at Chimoio. The Beech 18 has a modified nose for cargo. It was used in a recent Amelia Earhart movie. (Who was she?).
I have spent a lot of time here at 25000’.There have been days when I have enjoyed a warm meal and a wonderful view of SE Africa.Most of the population I have hovered over will never have that opportunity.There is a lot of insulation between the cockpit of a Q400 and the realities of life in one of the poorest countries in the world.It’s my job.It’s what I came to do…fly airplanes, but there have been times where I’ve resented that insulation.A visit to Casa de Maria Clara Orphanage today helped push some of those feelings aside.
A large part of the current African story is that of HIV/AIDS.In South Africa alone there are 1,400,000 AIDS orphans.Their parents have died from AIDS.In Mozambique, the number is over 400,000. These are the ones they know about. According to a CARE executive, there’s probably a lot more.Current data collection doesn’t reach certain remote areas or account for children that might be living with family or friends.(Though equally affected by loss of both parents).People I’ve spoken with in health care/HIV related fields all seem to say it is hard to see progress in the fight against the epidemic.Millions die…its unbelievable!
Casa de Maria Clara is an Orphanage for girls.There are 115 girls from age 3 to 18 currently housed there.It is run by five Nuns. Many of the girls are HIV positive.They are receiving Ant-retroviral treatment.Others have been abandoned.As orphanages go, this is a good one.It’s clean, it’s organized, and there seems to be stable financial support, although they could always use more.(We brought 20gal of milk).Information about and donations for Casa de Maria Clara can be found at:
It seems that my stay in Mozambique is coming to an end.Although I’m not sure what day I’ll leave, I know it is coming soon.
Someone asked me the other day if it has been worth it coming here.The question started my mind searching for some perspective, or closure to all that has happened here.“I don’t know”, was all I could say.What I meant to say was that it doesn’t really matter.It has been an incredible experience.And like most experiences, they come as they come, good and bad, never wrapped like neat packages with perfectly tied bows. In some respects, it has been like visiting Aviation Hell.But then there are people who I’ve come to know and stories I’ve heard that will never leave my heart.And so it goes.
I would like to thank everyone for their incredible support, friends, family, and people at work.Your words and messages have made a huge difference in keeping a positive outlook.
To Catherine and Gabby:
You both have been tremendous!Thank you for doing everything.I miss you to pieces.
The color green represents agriculture, red stands for the great effort for independence and white symbolizes peace. The color black on the flag of Mozambiquerepresents the African continent. On the raise is located a red triangle and within it is a yellow five-pointed star. On top of the yellow pentagram is an open white book with a hoe and an AK-47 in black. The Mozambique Flag is the first national flag of its kind to have an image of an AK-47 on it.
AK-47 on national flag. What else do I need to say.
Depicted above is the current Q400 route structure in Mozambique. The country's size is similar to two California's. (Maybe Arnold should come here). From Tete to Maputo is a two hour flight. All other flights are under two hours. It's unclear what the plans are for future utilization of the aircraft. Compared to LAM's 4 other 737 200's, the Q400 fuel burns are about 1/4 of the 737 200. That should get someone's attention. Flights to Nampula, Pemba, and Dar es Salaam have been rumored. (Mozambican rumor mill). Flying into Tete and Chimoio is like flying onto a page of National Geographic magazine. Outside the main towns are red dirt trails, grass huts, and classic African trees. I'm sure there are Hyenas lurking about but they are hard to see. If I saw one I would laugh at it just to see what it would do. Chimoio has an 8000' mtn. range south that is the highest in the country. I've looked for ski resorts. There are none. The major rivers are the Zambezi, Sauve, Limpopo, and Elephant rivers. We will not ditch Q400 in rivers due to croc's. I hate croc's. They creep me out. If it came to that the choice would definitely be hard ground. We'll take our chances with the land based animals. After all, billy clubs were included in aircraft purchase, and most likely some passenger will have a gun. (For their comfort it is stowed in a super secret place). Nice!
Pictured above are shallow waters along Bazrutto Island chain. Below are Captains Paulino Mandalante left, myself, and Captain Sergio Natingue, on the ramp in Vilankulo this afternoon. They are nearing completion of their line operation training. I will start with the last two Pilots this Sunday. If I can maintain the current pace, I should be returning in early March.
The ripple of this tragedy can be felt all the way in Africa. Colgan Air 3407. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the crew and passengers.
Checking on with Mozambique Control (Like SEA center only different)
Pw: “Maputo Control Mozambique 2333 with you flt level 130 for 250.” Maputo Control: *&#@$@*&**%# Pw: “Unreadable. Say again?” MC: *&#@#*&*# Pw: “Completely unreadable. 2333 eta for fix is….and fix is…” MC: &#$#@***($$# Lp: “Maputo radio is very bad Captain.” Pw: “When we land we should go plug it in for them or feed the hamsters.” Lp: “What?” Pw: “Nevermind.”
30 min’s later…
MC: “Mozambique 2333 say @#@&& radial and *&*&#@ distance from VMA?” Pw: “Moz. 2333 is 025 at 98 DME.” MC: “Moz. 2333 say @#&** distance VMA?” Pw: “2333 is 98 DME.” Silence Pw: Do you have a cell number? I’ll text you.”
Arrival to aeroporto: This is most likely fiction
Pw: “I can usually understand this controller but not now. What did he just say?” Local pilot: “Yes Captain. I don’t know.” Pw: “Well ask again for a lower altitude.” Lp: “Yes Captain.” Pw: “See? It’s the same. It’s like the controller is slurring his words or something.” Lp: “The controller is drunk.” Pw: (Laugh) “Yea…he sounds like it….” Lp: “No Captain, he really is. The controller is drunk.” Pw: “No s**t?” Lp: “Yes Captain…it’s Friday.” Pw: “Oh..yea, I suppose it is. Well let's get a landing clearance before he passes out."
At every aeroporto there is a separate building that usually sits along side the main terminal.This is true at all aeroportos, large or small.These separate structures are fancied up like first class lounges, kind of like Alaska Airlines Platinum Club. (Or whatever it's called these days). They stand out a little in one of the poorest countries in the world with red carpet, velvet rope, and real nice flowering plants. These high class areas are exclusively for VIP’s.Very Important People/Person.Very important people here are government people.BMOC types that parade themselves toward the aircraft only after all the passengers have boarded.The BMOC posse’ line up and shake hands with VIP as he (always a he) steps slowly up the aircraft stairs, waving like he will never come back.(Some probably hope that is the case).It’s all a very nice production.
Who are these VIP’s you ask, these people who command this level of exclusive attention?Well, it’s unclear.But there seems to be a lot of Ministers here.Ministers of Commerce, Ministers of Travel…Ministers of Building…Health…Restaurants… Ministers of Bowling… Ministers that minister the Ministers…a cornucopia of Very Important People that guarantee the high level of efficient Nation Ops I’ve observed during my time here. Life is good when you’re a big fish.
I started as a simple desire to retreat from many days of work and decompress by the sea. It was for only two days…no problemo. Yesterday, as I was making my way back to the B&B, I saw a mighty Q400 takeoff on it’s early morning pass through town, only it wasn’t so early. It was 4hrs late. The plane was suppose to return again for the flight to Maputo. Airplane no returno. Again, no problemo, another night in Vilankulos. “There will be airplane tomorrow at 2pm to Maputo…special flight”, the station agent texted back. OK…not so bad. Again, today no airplano. Passengers had been waiting for days to leave. They began to yell at me because they saw my airline badge. No official word from the Airline to anyone in 48hrs. Station agents had no idea what year the plane would come. FUBAR! I called and texted every key person I could to try and get info to the passengers. “Filah de puta”, (Portuguese swear word) I thought to myself. A Mozambique CARE executive was thinking the same thing as we both discovered we would be spending another night in Vilankulos and there were no rooms available in town. His people pulled some strings and found a room with two twin beds. We will share a room tonight and then drive 9hrs to Maputo tomorrow. As it turns out he is a big cheese for CARE in Mozambique. Out of the 6 languages he speaks, English is one of them. Lucky me. My AIDS education begins tomorrow morning at 5am.
Patrick and Mandy Retzlaff lived in Zimbabwe.They farmed and had horses.Their neighbors did the same.In 2001, Mugabe’s policies made them victims of land claim violence.This decimated Zimbabwe’s farming communities.With oftentimes violent means, farms were taken over and destroyed.Pat and Mandy were forced to leave.They saved their horses and many others in the area…over 100 in total.
Their story is one of dedication and perseverance in the face of very challenging situations and countless obstacles.I had a chance to learn about the “Horses of Mozambique” from their son Jon who was visiting from Gorangosa, and from Sara, a horsewoman from London who had volunteered her time and money to be a part.
This is their story from a Christian Science Monitor Article:
Vilanculos, Mozambique
The horse’s name is Viper. Which is enough, really, to make an inexperienced rider a bit nervous.Mandy Retzlaff laughs at the idea and hands over the reins. “Oh, you’ll be fine,” she says, and gives a wink and a smile that can be either reassuring or devilish.Viper snorts. “Just let him know you’re taking charge,” instructs Mandy.
Easy for her to say. This is a woman who, with her husband, ferried 100 horses hundreds of miles through Zimbabwe’s worst political turmoil. And that was after they’d saved the horses from violent land invaders by sneaking into the farms where the horses were stranded. In short, Mandy seems to have a particular knack for taking charge, bucking and kicking notwithstanding.
She and her husband, Pat Retzlaff, were farmers in Zimbabwe when, in 2000, President Robert Mugabe encouraged the violent takeover of white-owned property. They were evicted – from six different farms, actually – and their savings disappeared with their country’s skyrocketing inflation (now estimated at more than 11 million percent).
But after an epic effort to save the farm horses – and themselves – they’re turning the experience into a new livelihood in a new homeland. They saddle up the horses they saved for equestrian-minded tourists visiting this Indian Ocean beach town.
Mandy glares at Viper, who still seems displeased with his clumsy load. She hands a lead to Dhuvai Musekwa, another Zimbabwean who fled, and who recently found work with the Retzlaffs’ Mozambique Horse Safaris. He keeps Viper in line during the walk along Vilanculos’ palm-tree lined beach and saves money to send to his wife and child in Zimbabwe.“Don’t be afraid,” he says to the rider. “You get used to horse quickly.”
It’s hard for Pat Retzlaff to find words to explain why he needed to take the horses.For him it was obvious, something that stretches back to his great-grandfather’s work with Olympic horses in Germany, before Hitler’s rise to power forced the family to flee to East Africa and a life of farming and riding. (A photograph of his ancestors with their prize-winning horses is one of the Pat’s only remaining possessions from Zimbabwe – he found it in a field after their house had been looted.)
“We’re animal lovers,” he says softly, and then glances at his wife’s challenging expression. “Well, Mandy not so much,” he adds, with a barely hidden smile. “I’m an animal lover. I’ve ridden all my life; I have a degree in animal sciences. And once you’ve owned a horse and have looked after it – well, it’s worse [to lose] than a pet, worse than a dog.”
“Pat has dedicated his life to these horses,” Mandy says. “They’ve become such a part of the family. It’s unimaginable that they wouldn’t eat.” She sighs. “We must be absolutely mad.”
When the land takeovers started in 2000, most white-owned Zimbabwean farms had at least three or four horses. As farmers fled threats of violence against them and their workers, many shot their horses, not wanting to leave them to starvation or abuse. Vets also traveled around the country, putting the animals down in a wave of mercy killings.
Although humane societies and horse rescue groups found homes in England and South Africa for many thoroughbred and racing horses, the farm animals seemed forgotten.
But when the Retzlaffs were given four hours to leave the farm that they’d lived on for decades, they decided to take their horses, as well their neighbor’s, when they fled. They grazed the animals on other farms, in back yards, even a private school’s cricket grounds. Soon, other farmers were bringing them horses, or telling them where to find animals to rescue.
“What Mandy and Pat have done is phenomenal,” says Moyra Charters, another former Zimbabwean farmer. “They couldn’t just walk away.”
Pat says he would go to farms that had been invaded and – sometimes stealthily at night, with the guidance of other former landowners – take the horses, which were often seen as useless by the new residents. (Most invaded farms went to Mugabe cronies rather than experienced black farm workers.) Almost all the horses he took had been corralled for days without food or water, he says. One that he saved had a spear in its side. Another had a hoof chopped off.
As the family tried to figure out what to do next, Pat spoke with an acquaintance who was developing property along the Mozambican coast and suggested Retzlaff bring the horses for riding safaris and beach walks. There was no existing horse culture in Mozambique, so there was a business niche to be filled. Moreover, the move would mean living on the breathtaking coast where they’d both vacationed as children.
“And really,” Pat says, “We had nothing else to do.”
• • •
It took three years to move the horses into Mozambique. Every time they went to the border, if they had even a single bale of hay for the horses to eat, they’d be turned back for trying to bring agricultural produce out of the country. But eventually, they managed to cross into Mozambique with the remnants of their old life – a bag of clothes, an album of family photos collected from friends, and their animals: farm dogs and more than 100 horses.
But the developer who’d suggested the move wasn’t yet ready for the horses. So the Retzlaffs set up shop not far from the border in a Mozambican town called Chimoio, where dozens of Zimbabwean farmers were starting to grow paprika and tobacco. They started a riding school. But when the Chimoio agricultural schemes started to flop, and most of the Zimbabweans moved on, the Retzlaffs knew that they needed to move as well.
So the Retzlaffs moved again, into a hurricane-damaged house behind a patch of mangrove and palms near Vilanculos. “I showed up here with 10 horses and not a penny in my pocket,” Pat says.
“And then we had the cyclone,” he says of cyclone Favio that hit the coast of Mozambique in early 2007 and all but ended tourism for months. The Retzlaffs say their neighbors helped them survive. Then, three months later, they had their first horse safari customer.
• • •
It is 6:30 a.m., and the sun is already strong across the Indian Ocean. The Retzlaffs, two volunteers from the United Kingdom, and a handful of Zimbabwean workers are getting the horses ready for a ride.It’s not simple: Horses need to be fed, groomed, and saddled before carrying tourists.
There’s nowhere to buy reins, bits, or saddle cinches in Mozambique, so Pat has fixed or made everything himself. In the evening, the Retzlaffs graze the horses and cut grass for them to eat. There’s no horse feed in Mozambique (and no cobbling or horse veterinary services).
After their slow start, they now have regular bookings. But it’s still hand-to-mouth.
“I used to have a wardrobe and shoes that I used to change into every day,” Mandy says, adjusting a pile of stirrups hanging from a wall. “Now I am bathing in a plastic bucket. But I guess you could have a much worse life. To wake up each morning and look at that bay,” she says, keeps her going.
Sometimes they worry about the future: with three grown children working elsewhere, the Retzlaffs worry that there’s no one to take over in the future.
“We’re here all the time for them,” Mandy says of the horses. “But you know, you get exceptionally fond of them. They’re family.
By Stephanie Hanes | Correspondent / September 11, 2008 edition
Christian Science Monitor
Donations and information can be found at:
http://www.mozambiquehorsesafari.com/
or
http://www.mandyretzlaff.com/
Andrew and his family headed for home on Feb. 10. I had several days off so I headed back to the Vilankulo to spend more time around the shallow waters of the Bazarutto Archipelago. Some good fish, snorkling, and hanging out sailing Dhows. It's like I just removed the fork from my eye. One of the two LAM Q400's has been down for a maintenance issue so they canceled my flight back to Maputo this afternoon. I just might have to hang here for a while. Bummer! More to come...
