What were they thinking?

These are some pictures that I got via e-mail the other day of my dad and my nephew. Sometimes you have to sit back and ask "What were they thinking?"

FLY FLY FLY

That seems to be the extent of my week with a little bit of paperwork thrown in for fun. On Monday I started the week by completing our month end paperwork, this is an all day process and you spend most of the day correcting errors here and there. For June we flew over 150 hours in Lesotho with only four airplanes and three pilots for the whole month. I was able to fly a little over 50 hours for the month. Our days our busy with two or three airplanes flying every day. So on days that we fly, we average between 3.5 to 5 hours of flying with anywhere from 8 to 15 landings in a day. This can make for a very tired pilot by the end of the day. In between landings we are fueling, unloading, loading, preparing passengers and numerous other tasks that have to be completed, usually getting back to the airport just in time to go home.

This is a picture of the clouds last week over Lesotho. Unfortunately I couldn't find any holes to get down to the airstrip, so we ended up going back to Maseru. It was incredible view flying over the snow and the clouds.

In Maseru there were no clouds but they started right at the mountains and continued as far as the eyes could see.

This is a picture of Fran landing just a few hours after the last pictures were taken.

Happy Birthday Caleb

Caleb's first birthday was on Friday. We had a lot of fun with the other MAF families and their kids. Caleb enjoyed his first cake and mom enjoyed making it, staying up until 11 PM the night before making sure it was perfect.
The rest of the weekend was busy as well. On Saturday we had a 4th of July celebration with other Americans and Leslie spent the rest of the time doing most of her cooking for July.

Snow Day

Here are a few pictures from work today. We didn't get much done except catch up on some paperwork before the end of the month. The mountains were completely covered with clouds not allowing us to do any flying. Even if the weather is better tomorrow we don't know how much snow is in the mountains, and how long it will leave many of our mountain airstrips closed.
In other news on Friday we are celebrating Caleb's first birthday. He has been such an incredible baby this first year. He is so laid back and took the moves and living in the hospital in stride.

Africa Snowman

So here it is. Actual proof that it snows in Lesotho. After a month of complaining about the cold, here is a video of us playing in the snow.
This has been a busy month and I have already flown over 45 hours this month. In Lesotho where everything is so close I have already had over 135 landings so far And after every stop it means that I am unloading passengers or cargo, and then putting more passengers on who are returning to Maseru. It makes for a busy days work. Yesterday I took the 4 people on the doctor team to a village called Matekane. I couldn't pick them up in the afternoon because the airplane was being shaken around in what I would call extreme turbulence. I tried again this morning but could not even make it to the airstrip because of low clouds and not wanting to get closer to the ground in the turbulence. Well tonight they are snowed in and we are hoping that we can get the military helicopter in there tomorrow to get them out. They will have much more snow in the mountains than we do in Maseru and it will probably be a week before it melts enough to land at some of these airstrips.

Smile for the camera

Last week was probably one of the busiest weeks I have experienced. Of the eight families that are in Lesotho there were only three of us working last week. Furloughs, deputation and vacations had taken everyone else out of the picture. So Tim and I had the task of doing all of the flying for a week. We had Ron from MAF in Nampa come to take new video footage for MAF as well. We had a great time and he was able to join us on a lot of flights to the mountains...
On Friday I flew a "corpse" as the Basotho call it to the mountain village of Nkau. I was hoping to hear more of the story about who had died. Upon arriving at Nkau and unloading the casket two young men were at the plane and I asked them who had died. It was a 14 year old girl who had meningitis and TB. Last week we flew her to Maseru to go to the hospital and after three days she died. The men who collected her then had a long journey ahead of them to carry her up the mountain to the village she was from.
I wish I had some pictures for you of my busy week, but Leslie wants the camera for pictures of the kids at home and I want it to take pictures out in the mountains. We usually end up trying to compromise a little bit.

Countrywide curfew

Since last Friday our evening plans have been extremely limited. Because of some political problems as a result of the elections in January the government imposed a statewide curfew starting last Friday for the entire country of Lesotho. From 6PM to 6AM there is to be nobody out on the streets of Lesotho. If you get caught is is a guaranteed trip to the local jail for the night. Even with the curfew there have been some shootings, carjackings and some kidnappings. These have been focused on government officials and not at the general public. Leslie and I feel extremely safe at this time, as long as we remain locked in our house during the curfew. Pray that the issues would be resolved quickly and that the violence would stop.



I have been doing a lot of flying this week. Here are a few shots of some herdboys from the mountains that I met this morning at an airstrip called Matsaile. You can see the traditional Malumo fighting sticks that most of the boys and men carry with them all the time. These boys take care of a large number of cows and donkeys while wandering around the area around Matsaile.

What a week...

Last week will defiantly be a week to remember. First of all we are keeping very busy flying. And there always seems to be more flying than we can realistically do. Praise God that in about two months we should have an additional three staff members that are either returning after furlough or are coming to Lesotho for the first time. There are also some airplanes that are currently in Idaho at MAF headquarters that are getting fitted for service in Lesotho.

On Wednesday after an early flight I returned home to help as some carpet was installed in our house. (Thanks to those who helped out with this) Evi is very mobile but was having problems getting around our our linoleum tile floor partly because it was hard, falling apart and bitter cold as it is the dead of winter now. With the carpet it helps to solve all of these problems and she can actually walk around when she is not wearing her foot. It is a huge blessing for us, and really increases Evi's freedom. She is now able to get out of bed by herself and move around on her own without her foot. Ad a part of the process I had to move all of our furniture out of the house including my desktop that I brought from America. After I moved it back to the front room and plugged it in I got some major errors and upon some research and disassembling of my computer I found two pins on my CPU that were broken off. I am hoping that I can find a new processor here in Lesotho and hopefully get my computer running again. That is the reason why there are no new pictures or updates on the Blog.

Today all of us MAFers went to the top of the Berea (plateau overlooking Maseru) to have a picnic lunch for fathers day. I took a kite and we had a blast playing with the kids and eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yes there are a few American conveniences here in Maseru.

Next week is going to be a busy one with only two pilots flying all week. The rest of them are gone on furlough or are off on a well needed vacation. You can be praying for safety as we will be doing a lot of flying this next week.

Brrr its cold

Many of you have heard me talking about it being very cold in Lesotho. And I am sure just as many of you snickered behind my back as I left, because who would of thought that it got cold in Africa. I had an early flight this morning and took this just before I took off from Maseru. We are probably the only MAF airplanes around the world that has to defrost our airplanes before we can leave for the day.

Hulls Family photos

A Busy week

Hello – Well it’s about time for an update on our arrival and first few weeks in Lesotho. As you can imagine, we are keeping busy here in Maseru. Here is a brief update of the last couple of weeks.

- May 17^th we arrived in Lesotho about 3:30 PM. (6:30 AM in Flagstaff for those of you who always calculate the local time). At 4 we left and took Evi to the Baylor clinic. She ended up with a bout of pinkeye and her eyes were so crusty it was hard for her to open them. We spent the next few days unpacking and trying to get the kids and us adjusted to the time difference. There has been lots of unpacking, cleaning and projects around the house that had to be completed.

- May 28^th I returned to work. I had Monday to get organized at the hanger and prepare to begin my flight review so that I could start flying again.

- May 29^th I started to fly with Dave Lepoidivan (MAF pilot from Mozambique). We finished up my flight check and spent the rest of the day and the next day doing some airstrip checkouts and new airstrips I haven’t been to yet. Leslie and two other MAF’ers were all extremely sick with a 24 flu bug. Leslie was able to find someone to watch the kids so that she could rest and I could go fly. (Thanks Tonya and Barb!!) After work the US Embassy here in Maseru was also having a welcome back reception for Evi. Leslie couldn’t come, but it was well attended by embassy staff and the missions community.

- May 31^st I was volunteered to complete month end paperwork, I worked most of the day at it but I am still not done. Our printer is not working so I can’t finish until it is fixed.

- June 1^st My first operational flight with MAF since I last flew in August over 9 months ago. Praise the Lord!!! We have a lot of work to do and are short on staff and airplanes to get it all done.

- June 6th & 7th I was down with the flu. Leslie was taking care of me and the kids.