May Day Update

Welcome to "May Day" in Gabon! Here, it's kind of a "Labor Day" thing- so lots of employers have given their employees the day off and school is out.

May Day has me away from Alace and the kids. On Wednesday, I traveled "down-country" to the Bongolo Hospital with a team of people. The team is here for a leadership meeting while I am here to CUT GRASS!!! YIPPEE!

Seriously, I'm here to spruce up the airport a little more. This is my 3rd time to do so. It's important to keep working here and trying everything that I can to assist to get this airstrip open. We've had some interest by road crews from Spain, France, China, and Gabon, however, none of them have responded with anything definite. Our "plan A" is to have a road crew regrade and compact the surface. "Plan B" is for a crew of guys to come in with hand tools.

At issue are drainage problems and a few "wash out" areas. Please pray that we have a solution soon. We have an aircraft that has been made available to us, so the airport is the only thing that is at issue.

Keeping the airport in shape will require me to hire someone to do a day or two of work every other week. It will mainly be mowing. I have met with "Igor" and it seems that he may work out well. I have to train him to use the Kubota tractor with the mower attachment. This is the tractor that I have been using the last two days to cut grass. However, it is a "finish" mower, meaning that it's really not made to take down high grass, which is what the airport has. C'est la vie.

So, we were hoping to take a machete to the high grass and then cut it with the mower. This seemed to work for a while, but the blades kept getting bogged down which caused the belt to slip in the pulleys thereby wearing out the belt. This caused us to need to readjust the belt tension, which we did. Mowing went well for about 10 minutes, then the same problem reared it's ugly head. We finished the day by getting a push mower out to the airport and continuing with the machetes. Our crew were two local guys (Mass and Fred) as well as the teenage son of one of the workers at Bongolo- Zach. We got alot done and the airport is taking shape quite nicely, thank you.

By the way, getting the Kubota to the airport requires driving it- there is no trailer. So, I was given a quick lesson in the ways of the Kubota and set out on my journey, umbrella in hand to protect from the rays of the sun. I thought I was in 4th gear, but later found that I had been in 2nd gear. This low speed enabled many along my route to go in their house and the house of one or two neighbors to tell them to come observe the bizarre white man, holding an umbrella, listening to an iPod, and driving a tractor down their street! There were many smiles, waves, and words of encouragement. Actually, I couldn't hear what people were actually saying, but I'm going with "encouragement".

Airplane news... As many of you know, we have put a bid to purchase a Cessna 207 in Nevada. The pre-purchase agreement has been signed by us and the seller, and the inspection is next week. Oh... by the way... the inspection got bumped to May 4 and 5 from the 5th and 6th. Just an FYI.

It has been reported that a key government leader, here, is gravely ill. It's so serious that the French Embassy has reportedly started to evacuate some of their "non essential" staff. Also, the US Embassy staff is meeting to discuss their plans and advice to US citizens. Things could get a little messy or, perhaps, not. We'll see.

The kids are involved in a musical, next week, with the other kids in their home school group. They have invited many people from the ex-pat community. It's all very exciting! We'll be sure to post some photos.

Also, the family that we have been working with, Solvig's, are leaving for a year of furlough and then, on to another deployment. The kids have grown so close to each other. This will be a very difficult good bye with more to follow as many of the embassy crowd are moving on as well.

Back to airport news... Remember, our goal is to fix up the airstrip at the Bongolo Hospital and get the inspectors from the government to certify it as useable. If we wanted to, we could use the airport without the certification, however, most insurance companies will render their policies void when they find out you are doing this. The main problem at the airport is drainage. There are some washed out areas that have developed as a result. They can be fixed by hand, but we're trying to find a road crew to put down a nice surface and compact it- this will hold for years to come.

I have been pretty frustrated that we've not found a solution to the problem for months. I chatted with Dr. Thompson from the hospital today and we agreed to set the end of May as the time that, should no road crew respond, we will assemble a team of workers to do the work by hand. We made this decision after dropping by the headquarters of the Chinese road crew nearby, and finding only one employee there who could only say "parler, parler" (talk, talk) and "kilometre, kilometre". Dave and I both think that he was saying that the "big boss" went some kilometers away to talk to someone.

Hope you all enjoy your May Day!!! Thanks for praying.