Hello to all of you out there in cyberspace! After a long lapse of e mail service here, I have been on a very long trip, and have not been home to check my newly reinstated e mail in about 17 days. I have been operating mostly along the Zambezi river again, and the big news there is this rainy season is a real soaker. The Zambezi is so far over its banks that a large portion of the crops for that entire region are destroyed. Those poor farmers have had it rough these past few years. First it was the war, an all the land mines, then it was drought, now it is flooding. Throw in a few locust swarms, and we've got a real problem here. I've been working mostly with FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY, WORLD VISION, ACF, and of course USAID, who provide direct funding for my flights. The flooding has also caused a lot of transportation problems. The roads were terrible before the rains came, and now many of them are impassable. The ferry crossing over the Zambezi is closed because the road is washed out just before the dock. The newly opened bridge at Sena/Mutarara (the one that was blown up by Renamo forces) is closed because of another wash out. That leaves only one crossing of the Zambezi for the whole country, the bridge at Tete. All this rain has also made the flying increasingly more difficult. Flight visibility has been a problem, but worse than that is the fact that many of the remote airstrips that we service have become soft. The ones with good turf have been growing grass so fast that the local people cutting them with machetes cannot keep up. I had to leave a team of German agriculturists in Gorongosa because the grass was so long that I probably wouldn't have been able to get a fully loaded plane off of that strip. A few days ago I had a trip for World Vision out of Tete to Mutarara. From there their agricultural team went by road up to the Malawi border. I didn't have anything else on my flight schedule that day, so I took the road trip with them. The World Vision Land Cruiser was stuck so we borrowed one from Doctors Without Borders. All of these NGO people really help each other out. It was an interesting day for me, and a pleasant change from flying all day. World Vision does a very good job with their agriculture programs. It was a pleasure to work with them. On the flight back to Tete, the weather had cleared enough so that we we were able to do some sight seeing along the Zambezi. Saw some Hippos, and a really beautiful waterfall that cascaded down a cliff into the river. I slept one night out in Caia (on the Zambezi). There are no hotels in this little village. I stayed in the ACF camp (Action Contre La Faim, the French relief organization). While in Caia I had a chance to visit the clinic/Hospital there with Claude the ACF doctor. The facility is quite primitive. They are trying to treat many of the malnourished children, and it is sad to see so many kids in such poor health. There are also many aids cases being treated there. On Sunday of that week I was in Beira, on the Indian Ocean. I had the day off. I went with some missionary people I know to a little mud hut church outside of town. The service is all in the local tribal language, so I didn't understand much, but the singing that those people do is incredibly beautiful. It was very interesting to hear the drumming, and other percussion instruments. It was a good Sunday morning. That afternoon the weather was still windy and rough, but I decided to go to the beach anyway. I went down to a popular restaurant on the beach. I hadn't been there ten minutes when I noticed a commotion on the beach. Someone was in trouble out in the surf! No one was getting to her. I quickly stripped off my shirt and sandals, I could see she was face down beyond the breakers, and when I got to her the situation did not look any better. I got some help bringing her in. My friend Derrick from FHI helped me do CPR on the beach, but she didn't make it. She was a young Mozambican girl about 12 years old. I didn't feel like eating after that so I just went back to my guest house, for a rest. I have been appointed Instructor Pilot for AirServ, so I've had a new pilot with me to train. His name is Holm Tran, originally from Viet Nam. We have enjoyed working together, and he is doing quite well. I will soon also have the designation of Senior Base Pilot, and will also do the company flight checks here at the Quelimane base. Soon I'll be going to Nelspruit, South Africa to pick up a Cessna 206 that has been getting an engine change. I'll fly the plane back to Quelimane, and we'll use it here in our operations. I hope to have a couple of days of R & R in Nelspruit. That's the news for now. More later. Mike

[webmaster: standby for more.....gotta take a short 24 break]