January 17, 2006
Medical outreach to Zavora (Inhambane in Mozambique) with Mercy Air and MSCF
Aid to Africa Update: Doctors for Life and Mercy Air Helicopterreach remote villages in Mozambique
By Matthias Reuter, Mercy Air Heli-Ops
"The Global Positioning System in the instrument panel of the helicopter is confirming what I am seeing through the tropical humid and hot air in the distance. The old Portuguese built lighthouse near Zavora on the eastern shore of southern Mozambique is coming into sight. “Our camp is only 4 kilometers along the sand road from the lighthouse”, I remember Johan Claassen from Doctors for life describing to me on the phone some weeks earlier. There were coconut and palm trees every where! But I found, and then carefully followed the tracks as it would only take me barely more than one minute to cover those 4 km by air with the helicopter! On my second slow and low pass I spotted Johan on the sand tracks, standing next to his white 4x4 Land Cruiser waving his arms to land in a clearing between the lush vegetation and trees.
Zavora is a small community in the Inhambane province of southern Mozambique. It had no school, no health post and no church. That was until Missionaries Daniel and Dina du Preez from South Africa started coming to the region some years ago. Today there is a completed, although very simple wood and straw church with a permanent Mozambiquen pastor family, a school building under construction waiting for the roof, the foundations dug for the health post building and an almost finished very basic mission house for the retired but no less active du Preez missionary couple.
Doctors For Life International (DFL), a South African Christian medical NGO is partnering with various organisations across southern Africa. DFL has been involved in several medical outreaches to Zavora in the past, supporting the work of the local church and missionaries du Preez and their organisation.
For this last outreach in December 2005 four different organisations plus local interpreters joined efforts to reach out to various bush villages around Zavora and even the area north of Inhambane. Congolese born Augustine Lutakwa of the Christian Medical Fellowship SA brought a group of highly motivated and very dedicated medical students from the University in Durban, South Africa to join the team of DFL at Zavora’s bush camp made up of several tents for accommodation as well as very basic washing and cooking facilities.
At Zavora a basic mobile health post was run by DFL from an efficiently set up medical tent. Between 50 and 100 Patients were coming daily from as far as 30 km. Some started walking at 3 am when it was still cooler to bring their sick family members to the health post. Others had been brought by donkey in the past.
Meanwhile the helicopter took two teams of five per day out to the surrounding bush villages to support the work of the missionaries and the local church. The medical students were teaching about basic health care and hygiene, risks of TB and the deadly danger of HIV-Aids. There is still a vast ignorance about HIV-Aids in Africa. Many good programs are up and running, but
while the clock is running for more than 30 million people infected with HIV-Aids in Africa. Safe family values and practices can prevent the fast spread of Aids. In addition the teams held devotions and explained eternal life found in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Pastor Armando of Pataguane spent five hours on his bicycle to come and ask us to visit his village as well to speak to the people… When we landed at his village after only six minutes of flight, we were greeted by a large group and received a warm welcome by the local chiefs and village elders. In the village of Chindole, an old women held a speech and expressed her wish that the medical students could finish their studies soon so they could come back to her village to stay with them and help them.
I had often experienced this before, but it strikes me anew again and again: when the blades of the helicopter stoped turning, and I walk to the village, it seems as if time had stopped a long time ago. I see huts made from mud and straw, I see women holding five fish on a stick next to the fire, I see kids drawing things in the sand with their fingers and I see men watching their animals grazing. The men of Chindole nod with understanding as Heinrich from DFL explains to them that it was the shepherds who heard first of the good news of the Messiah’s birth.
It still amazes me - even after years of seeing the face of Africa, how poor people here really are, how quietly and willingly they deal with life’s basic struggle to survive day by day, how hospitable they are to us visitors, how open for the gospel and how thankful for even the most simple medical aid given.
As we were walking back to the helicopter in the village of Ocuane, an old man came and gave me two mangos, as a thank you for bringing the team to his village…
It is that simple but heartfelt thank you, that I want to pass on to you the donor! It happens daily through people who pray, people who give and people who fly."
'Doctors for Life International' represents more than 1400 medical doctors and specialists, three-quarters of who practice in South Africa. Since 1991 DFL has been actively promoting health care that is safe and efficient for all South Africans. DFL was founded as a South African organization in 1991 and has spread across the globe. DFL is involved in several community projects including orphan care, the care of terminal AIDS patients, malaria prevention and the care of abused women.