Blog 8 - Vermin and Destruction

So a natural succession to be a tourist would I guess to be very busy with work no? So the other morning I found myself driving a 6x6 ambulance back from its break down in the field, with our electrician on leave we had to recruit the other very competent electrician (Inhambane has two I am told, our Phillipe and Daniel) to join us for the morning and sort out a small issue of a contact in the starter circuit.
Electrical things remain a bit of a mystery to me, but I was helping where I could. Word to the wise here when driving a left hand drive truck on the left side of the road it is extremely important to attempt to pass stopped chapas with extreme caution!! As line of sight is greatly reduced from the far left.
With all of our mechanics also trying to use up there accrued annual leave before the year end I find myself a little short staffed. The switch to applied work instead of inventory and sourcing issues is a welcome change though.
Monday morning for example I was elbows deep in engine grease pulling a leaking water pump from a 1974 Steyr transport truck (big whites ones in the photos). Felt good to be distracted with a manual task and useful again. Currently the Inhambane’s resident scrap parts man, Barroosh in retro-fitting a new pressure seal into place. So far he has proved competent bordering on ingenious so I have high hopes we are back in business for redeployment next Monday.
The weekend was interesting as well, as I received an emergency call late in the day on Friday that one of the Tempests had found a mine in a bad way and was currently out of commission 2 hours up the road. This meant a first thing Saturday deployment, and two hours actually meant 4. It was in an area I had been meaning to visit as the coast there hosts a large lagoon, more snorkeling and some amazing kiting potential if we ever get some more wind. Pomene resort if anyone is looking for a honeymoon or week in paradise, I haven’t actually made it there yet but if it is in keeping with the rest of the coast it wouldn’t be a disappointment.
Anyway I tried to photo-doc the sequence of events as best I could, so I will let the pictures do most of the talking. I will say that as this was my first time really witnessing the destructive power of an anti-personnel mine it was pretty sobering. I find myself quite conscious of every footfall again the same as when I first was around a mine field. The background story on the site as explained to me in Portuguese (I am at about 50% comprehension now, and maybe 66% expressive ability, stuck in the present tense, so this might not be exactly the skinny) was that previously the area was a Renamo encampment with a hospital and school nearby and associated villages, communities etc. When Renamo had to make there exit they collected all the domestic type items which where too cumbersome to take with and deposited them in this fairly dense forest surrounding them with a ring of mines. Regrettably this meant that a stash of bicycles and the like was left in the woods in a place where a bicycle would be quite a score to stumble upon. It was actually possible to see other “potholes’ left behind in the forest floor and have a similar pit form in your stomach while contemplating the history of each pock mark.
To make a long story short, the Tempest was fine other than requiring the last of our spare tracks, actually scavenged off the newly broken tempest sitting here in the workshop, so when the 2 spares finally arrive they actually won’t be spares at all, and the lack of spares situation looks primed to repeat itself. Current negotiations with a supplier in SA will hopefully sort this out in short order though.
Now to find some funding so the project can actually continue… Apparently bordering on global recession makes for tight times in the developing world as well. (in case you haven’t been following the news)
In others news I dropped in on Apopo’s operations a couple weeks back now to see how the use giant pouched rats in place of mine detecting dogs. Pretty neat animals, which come with there own set of benefits and challenges to work with. Apopo is currently in the process of scaling up their operations to complete Gaza province as assigned to them under the national clearance plan. I think it will be interesting to see how the costs play out on a m^2 cleared basis but with all the unexpectedness of a demining program I have doubts that one could ever draw a rigid conclusion between dogs or rats. Both need land preparation teams, both have potential health issues (tropic heat for dogs, and tropic sun for normally nocturnal rats). Certainly start up costs for a “fleet” of rats seems cheaper, so I guess it would come down to efficiency on the ground. More photos attached on this topic too.
I also added my Kruger park photo collection a while back, visited the park with a few friends from town and despite a grey weekend the animals made up for it. Still making time for fun, and with yesterday being a holiday for provincial elections I got a chance to read a book in the dunes for the morning, rent a surf board for the afternoon, and take in a yoga class in the evening and generally chill out a bit. Hope this finds you all well.