Frogger

This morning as I arrived on my bike at the hangar I almost ran over a most peculiar creature. Turns out it was just a frog, of which species I haven't a clue. So, I put him in an ammo box until I had time later to get some photos of him. Pretty interesting huh?


I did have a flight to do today, but it was canceled early on in the morning. I am on a "have your flight canceled" streak lately. I think this is number 3 in the last 4 flying days.

Misc...

• We have our Bronco up and running again. Thursday and Friday I hung around the hangar waiting for flights to happen that never came together, so I worked on the Bronco. Long story short, I determined it was the fuel injectors that weren't working properly. This is something I don't know how to fix, so off to Puyo it went. Sure enough, 3 of my 8 injectors were plugged. Now the jungle jeep roars after having all of my injectors cleaned and re-tuned!
• Our worship team seems to be getting a little better every week at church. I was playing the guitar previously, but now we have another guitar player so I am giving the bass guitar a try. It has been a lot of fun.
• While in Cusuimi last week dropping off parts for the radio install, I saw these mushrooms growing on a dead tree stump. It doesn't take long for decay to take over in the jungle environment.

La Piña

For those of you who ever wondered how pineapple is grown, this is what is looks like just before it is picked. I had a friend in language school in Costa Rica that I could not convince that pineapples grow above ground, not below. A few years ago while driving in Panama, we drove by some HUGE farms for Dole Pineapple, and it reminded me of corn rows in Kansas, except it was pineapple. I took this picture yesterday in Bufeo after dropping off the kids for church camp.

From the logbook...feast or famine

After some quick pilot changes this morning, my flying plate suddenly got really full. I hauled a little bit of everything, and made it back to Shell at 5pm, just as a thunderstorm shut the airport down.

My first leg was to take two doctors to a military base in Montalvo. Then I went to Conambo and picked up 5 kids for a church camp sponsored by Ecuador for Christ in Bufeo. After dropping off my kids in Bufeo, I headed back to Shell to get round 2. I left Shell full of cargo and a water engineer for HCJB World Radio. We went to Makuma and dropped off 650 pounds of cargo, picked up two adults and 2 kids and then fought weather to make our way south to Acheuntza to drop off the Makuma passengers, who happen to be Shuar Bible translators. From Achuentza we flew to Cusuimi where I waited for the water engineer to gather some info for a future project. It just so happens that another pilot and other MAF staff were also in Cusuimi doing an FM radio install. They had forgotten some key parts and I brought those as well. Two hours later the water engineer and I took off for Makuma again to pick up 4 more people, all missionaries for a conference they have in Quito. From Makuma we then made my last landing , number 10, and called it a day.

Our radio install crew blasting off in Cusuimi on the way to install number two. They will be in the jungle until Thursday trying to complete 6-7 village installs before they return to Shell.

Misc...

• Not a lot happening here. We have had a rash of crummy weather, so I haven't been flying. Guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.
• Hopefully this weekend I will get our Bronco back up and running. I haven't had the time I want to dedicate to it fully. Until then we will just keep getting around "de pica" or by foot.
  
• We went on our bi-monthly grocery shopping trip this past weekend. The woman below was a fruit/snack vendor at a tourist type place we stopped at for a bathroom break. I recomend the conconut covered fried peanuts, but not the bathrooms.

La vida cuesta

So here are the reasons nothing has been posted...in one word...life. Details below...

• My car. It started running rough so I thought maybe an ignition/fuel problem. I installed a new fuel filter, and built a new ignition harness and put it on. Didn't seem to make much of a change. Things were still running rough. Long story short, my fuel pump finally went out, luckily in front of my house. We towed it to the hangar and placed it on the famous ramp of shame. Some day I will have time and put my extra pump in.
  
• My Internet. You have heard that "the dog ate my homework" right? Well, my dog ate my Internet cable. We share Internet with some co-workers. The signal is beamed over to my house and received by an antenna on my roof. My dog got hold of the cable leading from the roof down to my office and made mince cable out of it. After some failed attempts, I finally got the cable repaired and we obviously have Internet again.
• My neighbors. Remember a few posts ago when I posted a picture of our neighbors that have a bar attached to their house. Well, it has been active lately...really active. And not just at night. In fact, it is worse during the day. We cannot seam to understand why someone needs their music so loud. Luckily we have had a bit of reprieve today.
  

From the logbook...

One of my stops yesterday was into a village called Pacayacu (PAC) to drop off and education supervisor. He only needed around an hour to get his things done, so on my way back to Shell after stopping in Masaramu to pick up a patient, I landed again in PAC to get the supervisor. All of the kids were there from one of the classes and the kids of PAC are always fun and willing for a picture. I handed my camera off to one of the villagers (always an interesting and funny experience) and had her take our picture.

From the logbook...snow day

Okay, I know it doesn't snow in the jungle, but it obviously rains. When it rains so hard everything is shut down, I call those days snow days, referring to the days as a child when it snowed so much you didn't have to go to school. (I miss those) Yesterday, was one of those days. So, what did I do with myself...I found all the unpainted propeller spinners in our fleet and gave them a nice polishing. Today, I took this picture in Mashient, and yes the weather was very nice.

Playtime

Recently Shell received a new jungle gym in the town plaza. Driving home last night I snapped a quick shot with Sangay Volcano looming in the distance.

From the logbook...Volleyball, jungle style

Last week after I landed in Charapacocha (CHR) the community offered to feed me lunch. I hesitantly yet graciously accepted. I sat down at the table by myself in the middle of the community hut as everyone gathered around to watch me eat. They shortly thereafter brought me a banana leaf full of freshly cooked fish, just caught from the nearby river. It was piping hot, so I couldn't eat it right away. I also realized something else was piping hot...my passengers. I forgot I had two passengers in the airplane from another airstrip, and I quickly made my way back to the plane to let them out. On my way back to the lunch table, I saw a volley ball game going on and just had to get in. Of course the community pulled up their "bleacher" seats and took part in the action. They were hootin' and a hollerin' every time I spiked the ball. After about 10-15 minutes of giving those shorties a whooping, I returned to my table to finish my fish, which was good, and several days later I am not sick. PTL!

Church life

A few weeks ago I had my camera at church and took a few shots of what things look like from the inside. I thought you all might like to see what church looks like in a third world jungle community. For those that have visited us and gone to church with us, there are some things that just...capture your attention. Most are not bad or wrong, they are just...different.

Wanted...Hot bartender.

For another picture of what the neighbors look like on my street, you will see an interesting sight, at least for an American. The house across the street from us also has an attached bar. Lately they haven't been too noisy, in fact they haven't even been open. When the doors are open though it sure makes me appreciate zoning laws in the USA. If you see the little white paper on the bar part of the building, it is a help wanted sign. If I were to translate the spirit of the sign, it would read something like," Wanted, a hot looking young girl to be our bartender." As far as I know, they don't have any takers yet.

From the logbook...tour guide

I am the on call pilot this weekend, therefore I have today off from work. Yesterday was a fun day in the cockpit as I flew to all ends of the jungle. I had two flights, the first taking patients and people back home and bringing missionaries out, and the second was a "tour."


We are often asked to fly people (usually North Americans) to various communities so they can see a glimpse of jungle life, and then fly back home the same day. Yesterday's group was large enough that we used 3 airplanes to get them all into the Waorani village of Tiweano (TIW). This is a popular destination because it is close, about a twenty minute flight, and the people are a lot of fun and very accommodating. As pilots, we end up being the middle man tour guide, acting as a translator and answering a lot of questions.

From the logbook...Road kill

A friend of mine sent this picture to me today...I don't think I will have this problem here in Ecuador. According to the aircraft registration, or tail number, this appears to have happened in Namibia, Africa.

Although, we do hit things when we land. Usually it is just the world's dumbest birds, chickens. But some of us have hit dogs, cats, etc. All of us have had close calls with cows and horses, which we hope never actually happens.

From the logbook...

Again, we had poor visibility yesterday due to Brazilian cane field smoke. Therefore I was able to log some more instrument time, and 2 approaches to get back into Shell. Visibility was never better than 3 miles.

As I was setting up for my last jungle landing of the day in Masaramu MSR I noticed an airplane on the ground and pulled off to the side of the airstrip. After landing and getting my cargo and people off, the pilot came out and told me why he was there. After looking a little closer at his airplane it became obvious. The nose wheel tire was flat. Unfortunately he found out about his flat tire when he landed in MSR. He works for another aviation business in Shell, so we were casually friends before. He told me someone was bringing him another wheel/tire, but it might be a while until they arrive. He didn't have any tools, so I offered mine to help get the process started in the repair. Five minutes later I had the wheel off and split to see why it went flat. It seems the tire itself has a deformity on the inside that rubbed a hole in the tube, and finally it all came to a head.

From the logbook...

After an almost 3 week hiatus from the cockpit, I was back flying again. It was a lot of fun to be back into the routine and taking people and their things all over God's green jungle. Part of my flying today entailed taking some medical staff from the local mission hospital to a village called San Juan. We will be picking them up in a few days, but from another community as they are going to walk through the jungle to reach it.

We have awful visibility right now due to smoke supposedly from Brazilian cane fields. They are being burned and the smoke gets blown our way thousands of miles until it hits the Andes. The visibility was never above 3 miles today everywhere I went, and I even shot the instrument approach to get back into Shell just to play it safe. The one upside of flying through such thick smoke is it isn't bumpy like clouds. The downside is, that the smoke hides the clouds, which are bumpy.
One of my stops had me in Makuma for a bit of gas, and to pick up some passengers. One of our other pilots was also there, and was taking off just as I shut the engine down.