Ben Wilhelmi

Flying with FMS part X

 

woman going home with bay strapped in the

traditional way.

 

 

local grocery, Pininyi, lake Natron.

 

 

 

the cage made of stick is a bed! Ideal for the very hot nights. Just

spread a mosquito net above and the breeze will cool the sleep.

 

3 wise men (girls, don't laugh!). The middle is the leader of Pininyi village.

He gave me a place to sleep once when the aircraft wouldn't start. I was not

provided with a wife for the night! The man knows we don't have

that custom. They're logical though, you're the guest, food is provided,

bed is provided and so on... the women have the right to say no but rarely

do. They seem to enjoy that custom! Having said that it is not a favor to

the guest, it is considered very rude to decline the woman. You if a guy

is not "up to it", he'd better stay in the bush and sleep under a tree.

So I was not provided with a woman but I had all the choice if I had wanted

to discover the local girls. They were all interested, very curious to try

out a white dude. The other guys were laughing...at me for not going with one.

My by-then girl was waiting firmly for me when I came back the next day, and

guess what was her first question? That custom is very famous in East Africa...

 

 

 

setting the goats free out of the shelter in the morning.

 

a very cold and misty morning in Engoveroni in the Ngorongoro mountains.

At 7000 ft, it can be really chilly out there. This hut is the medical hut.

 

 

   

flying with Flying Medical Service, part IX

mostly old pictures from my early years. Lake Natron area.

not a great shot but I left it to the people to choose the pose with the cloth

and babies in arms.

 

 

so far so good, good milk, I remember I had tasted it...

 

 

...just before she poured it in that calabash!

That's where things got bad for my liking.

Those gourds are cleaned and sterilised with

ashes and urine. So thanks but no thanks!

 

the medical cabinet, with a bit of privacy, designed to keep curious people at bay.

 

 

going home...far.

 

 

great ear ring! Using it as a purse. great idea but I'm not sure we, in the West,

are ready to embrace this fashion. Maybe the piercing lovers?

 

 

collecting some maize. With weapons, just in case

one corn cob bites.

 

 

 

building and thatching a hut.

 

would-be aviators! I loved their toys. None of us pilots showed them.

 

the full squadron in action on the airstrip.

 

 

 

getting the maize ready to be pounded.

a quick visit in a village near Loliondo

 

after the flying clinic, Ezra and I came back to the hospital. He had one errand to do in a nearby 'boma', that is a little cluster of huts, a hamlet or so...he had taken some pictures and promised to bring some prints to the people. These people are so poor that a print is an event in their life. Maybe some have never seen a picture of themselves. I always made a point to respect my promises to bring prints to people, and so does Ezra. The distribution was quite a moment, everybody was surprised, laughing at each other but pleased by the results. Neighbors came in and shared the fun but were a bit jealous. So when my camera was spotted, I couldn't decently escape though the light was quite bad and I knew the pictures would be worthless for my standards. But they don't ask for much in the end, they would feel insulted if I refused... nevertheless these images show something. Poverty and lack of the basics, including hygiene though there is a nice river close by. The mom looks good but the younger kids were awful. Flies all over them, they were really scruffy and not bothered.

 

 

 

school uniform. Too bad the old bloody British rules

are still holding on: uniforms are mandatory.

 

 

flies...

 

 

flies getting worse

proudly holding a print.

 

cloud of flies!

 

 

 

 

 

holding the younger warrior of a brother.

  

 

flying with Flying Medical Service part VIII

 

not Masai style at all!

 

 

another case of mother wearing traditional

outfit but not the kid.

 

 

2 Masai posing at Olemilei.

 

sunny at Olemilei.

 

 

same place but cloudy, this man covered his head from the "cold"...

 

waiting under the wing and the shade.

 

 

old man with his life long stick. Even at a younger

age, people carry these sticks. Useful for

walking, for beating (guess who) or fighting...

 

another location, Oljoro, down the mountain at Olemilei.

Another new place for me.

 

 

the village nearby.

 

the hut where the nurse performs gynecologist checks.

A bit of privacy is needed as people would otherwise consider those checks

as show time and free looking for all.

 

 

one of the poorest shade of the whole clinic trip, a dead tree...no shade...

and far away from the aircraft whereas normally there is no more than 50m.

 

 

another little clown kid! It's sooo hot down there, what the hell...?

 

 

flying with FMS part VII

 

Still in Pininyi on lake Natron

 

all mothers are the same! Rearranging the kid's look

for the picture.

 

some jewels

 

taking blood sample for HIV test for all the newly pregnant women.

 

   

the HIV kits are small and easy to carry around

with an immediate result.

 

 

no vein on the arm, so let's have a look on the hand.

 

 

  here is a detail: the syringe, the reading tool where

the blood is dropped and the vial containing the

chemical to create the reaction between the blood

sample and the reader. All the women tested negative.

Which came as a surprise to me because the hospitals

would show 40% as a standard rate.

 

landing at Olemilei on top of a mountain, the Gol mountains.

That is a new airstrip to me.

 

 

African scenery.

 

 

Olemilei might be a new airstrip but some things are not new at all!

Like Masai not working to maintain their airstrip....

but Ezra said he felt good getting dirty with the soil, just like a kid.

flying with FMS part VI

Pininyi village, on the western shore of lake Natron. The escarpment in the background is part of the famous Rift Valley. I recognised a few of the people I had seen during my time with Flying Medical Service. And this village leader recognised me too. He gave me an open invitation to come and visit him again. I might do that soon, there is indeed a road track from the volcano area to here. I'd bring sugar, rice or beans to respect the customs about being a guest. Don't bring flowers for instance...it would be like us visiting each other and bringing a tyre or a set of fake teeth.

proud chick

 

little warrior with a knife, never too early...

 

unusual colors and patterns. I wonder where she got that bright and

abstract piece of cloth.

 

few men show up at these clinics. Here are

some husbands.

 

 

 

Ezra holding a little vial of polio vaccine and

distributing drops around. Women patiently

waiting under the shade.

 

one curious kid passing by.

 

 

 

saying goodbyes, on the way home...

 

 

very sober style! no jewels at all, unusual.

flying with FMS part V

 

back from a normal flight today, nothing bushy, too bad. I met some pilots friends in Arusha and Dar es Salaam, that is good to be back in the flying world. Still hearing many bad things and compassion about my previous company. Endless subject...

anyway back to last week in the real world with Flying Medical Service...topic of the day, jewels! Girls, you should be impressed that I have noticed the jewels! Guys don't pay attention to the appearance or the wrapping, we look under that, to the inner beauty, heehee. And not only did I spot these tiny jewels, I have noticed that they are different from one area to the next, though we are still talking about Maasai people. In Olaika and around, near the Serengeti, colors and complex patterns are the norm, see below.

 

for those who wonder, I've used a lot of "fill-in" while shooting the pictures, that is to use the flash in daylight to soften the harsh shadows. Hence the light that might look strange. Not a Photoshop thing.

 

 

colors and geometric designs....

ear extension for nearly every man and woman.

 

notice the big hole on the white background! The piercing

process takes years. One tiny hole where

a small cone of wood is inserted. Then a bigger one...

 

and really bigger ones like on this dude. Not the

biggest I've seen. Men don't escape from the fashion

here either...

 

this one though kept his ears intact. No clue why

and he is shaved, strange, at his age?

 

these 3 pictures of warriors are very old pictures

but they fit today as things don't change too

much out there.

this is the end of Olaika and we now go to

Pininyi, on the shore of lake Natron.

 

same amount of beads and necklace and ear rings

but no colors!

 

 

common tree in the area? Acacia! better be careful

with these dangling contraptions.

sober ear rings. look at her light eyes, I

suspect the dad was coming from further...

 

Untouched ears, maybe not a masai girl. Luckily it is only light plastic beads,

it weights nothing and it is very cheap. Lucky guys...

Remember the idiot wearing a ton of gold necklaces in A Team?

 

  

and rather basic design, still no color, but a hat

that was only seen here, in Olpirikata, closer to

Ngorongoro area.

flying with FMS part IV...and I got a job today!

Afficher la carte

 

here is a map of the area. Serengeti, Ngorongoro ...will ring a bell. I don't get these maps: they always mention unknown locations, and I've flown over this area for 10 years, but then they forget the fabulous reknown volcano Oldoinyo Lengai which is just a few miles south of lake Natron! Except Loliondo, all of the airstrips and villages I've been to last weekend are missing from that map. Malambo is one I know though. In turn I red-marked the volcano. Natron is cut in half by the border with Kenya but that northern part of the lake, called Magadi there, is not so nice. Salt is being extracted by industries and the scenery is heavily spoilt.

as promised here is another bunch of Natron pictures, red or brown or purple tones today. These and the yesterday ones have been shot just a few miles from each other! Great diversity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

flying with FMS part III, lake Natron, blue tones

I don't really know what I've missed in the Congo in '98 in term of landscapes or colors (jungle for sure, some mountains though...) but Tanzania, specially the northern part and the eastern Rift Valley, offered me of the best visual orgasms I was looking for. For instance this Friday, we flew above lake Natron to link 3 airstrips, Pininyi, Njurlan, and Olorbelin. Even the names have a nice tune.

here we go with some aerials of the dry part of the lake Natron, well not that dry or the colors would be washed out and all white like kitchen salt. That salt is collected by locals for cooking but also for sniffing, mixed with tobacco, and getting high. It was also eyed by some fucking greedy businessman but his project finally collapsed (let's hope for good) after an international outcry! Some of you might remember the petition going on 2 years ago...

 

 

 

blue tones... only when the lake is dry I've noticed...

too bad, if it could be so much brighter when wet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and tomorrow will be a different colorful note!

Flying with FMS part II

 

a bit more than 3 years with this NGO as a volunteer pilot... Holidays for 3 years, it went too fast! I had arrived in Kenya in April '99 with no contacts, just knocking on doors at Wilson Airport, Nairobi. I remember some assholes, mainly British pilots who would hardly take time to talk to me. Nostalgic of colonial times, thinking Kenya still belongs to them, even in post independence times...I make a point not to behave like that, answering all inquiries from young pilots. why Kenya? Well that was the cheapest air fare for Africa at the time and my job in the Congo blew up one week before I was to board the plane for Kinshasa in '98, when Mobutu fled and chaos got worse. After a few weeks meandering in Wilson, I started to think that I'd get nothing there and was ready to move on on a bus southwards when I met an ex Flying Medical Service pilot. When he realised I had been about to go for an NGO in the Congo, he hooked me to Pat Patten, the FMS director-founder. So in May a coach brought me in Arusha, I enjoyed the great scenery on that road. I remember seeing ostriches, zebras, Massais, mountains and even the Kilimanjaro!

the 3 year commitment looked excessive by then but after a few weeks I knew it would be great and fun though some hard moments arose when the patient, even more in case of a kid, didn't survive after admission at the hospital. I received 2 or 3 months of training on that great Cessna 206, about 80 hours of flight time. That was necessary to get a grip on the bush flying with FMS. I was just out of flying school by then, I had to forget or adapt a lot of things from the school books that were useless, too conservative. And I loved that, still do by the way. The airstrips were short, narrow, in poor conditions, stuck on ridges or between hills, on a slope of a crater, some at 7000 feet high and the engine is not turbo equipped. The scenery is one of the best in the world, the Masai quickly struck me as guys coming from another planet, there were animals to chase off the strips, low passes were required to inspect the airstrip before landing...the main job was to fly with a doctor and nurses to really remote villages and offer outreach medical care and vaccinations. Some places are far away from any medical facility, a few days of walk, if you're fit. If sick, good luck. There were as well medical evacuations and it could be hair rising sometimes: lion wounds, buffalo wounds, snake bites, all kinds of weapon wounds, difficult pregnancies...we also flew medical supplies to hospitals. I started , luckily,  write road books from day one and never regretted it. Sooo many stories that I would have forgot otherwise.

I said volunteer pilot, so yes I worked for free, I saved lives but just as an ambulance driver does, I don't consider myself as a saint or a new Mother Teresa. Some volunteers and other well paid pilots in the humanitarian world do, even if they only go for 2 months in some needy places. I wanted to help in a way but have fun at the same time. No way I would have gone and washed leprosy patients' feet...

more writing the next days,... and pictures in the meantime.

 

the Masai shoe, strong and breathable, made of tyre. This place is on the lake

Natron shore, where 40°C are not rare. An extreme dry place. So I don't

get why the other guy wears rubber boots...the stench must be awful.

 

BCG vaccination.

 

packing and wrapping, ready to go home. Many layers of cloth is the norm.

 

 

the mom knows what's going on, the baby...not yet.

 

 

now he knows and he also knows who to yell at.

 

 

10 years ago was already the same story: women

wear traditional clothes but wrap up the baby

in wool, polar and other hot clothes! Poor little

dudes. They're all hot and sweaty in there. But

that's common throughout all Africa. Somebody said

it was a way to get the babies numb and quiet...

 

 

cool haircut!

 

 

then she noticed me and tried to hide her baby's

face. A funny issue, pictures...some people

believe the soul is stolen, some want money

first (mostly near touristy areas) but some

are ready to sell their soul apparently, others just

don't like it, others love it and expect a print later on.

And then there are those like this mom

who pretend no picture but laugh at the same

time. Always worth trying anyway.

 

a jab in the thigh again, mom cringing, baby crying...

 

 

but here's the baby silencer!

 

 

milk being the main source of food for adults and babies, spilt milk is

common on clothes and turns sour. Special smell that the flies don't miss.

 

 

Masai women don't shave their head for a year after delivering babies.

 

 

flies after a storm!!! a pain in the ass, nearly as many inside and we

had forgot to bring insecticide spray! Awful...

flying with Flying Medical Service

 

Flying Medical Service...my first 3 years in Africa when I arrived in '99.

I'll write longer tomorrow but here are a few random pictures of the

bush flying trip I've just done with Ezra Jay (2nd picture), one of their pilots.

the airplane, a Cessna 206, a workhorse, a flying Land Rover, heavily modified

for the rough and short bush airstrips. Longer wings but more curved as well

for shorter strips, a better propeller, huge tyres, reinforced here and there.

The belly pod is also a modification but only to carry more stuff. And for personal

reasons, the thing is much better suited for aerial pictures than the Caravan.

Famous aircraft that 206...loved it. Too bad many pilots tend to spit in the soup.

 

 

Ezra refueling from jerrycans at loliondo,

northern Serengeti where the base, the hospital

is located. The bucket is a filter. Veeerrry important.

I know by experience from an engine quit when I was

flying for another company. The 3 built-in fuel

filters had been clogged though we had been using

an extra filter as well. Bush conditions...

 

from the hospital, the flights bring the team to the remote villages, usually

Massai, but Sonjo as well for instance. A doctor, 2 nurses, their

supplies and tools go with the pilot. This time I replaced a nurse and gave

some help (between pictures, Ezra, sorry if I didn't help as mush as I should).

 

 

this is not America, nobody is going to sue the pilot

because he is not qualify to give an injection.

Look at the mother, her expression clearly shows she

is in pain for her kid. Typical.

  

this one prefers to look away.

 

  

this one cries...

  

clinic cards have to be filled in carefully with the baby

weight evolution, what kind of vaccinations have

been administrated, names of baby, mother, father,

village....

here is the cool box with the vials, a suitcase

with the nurse's tool. The doctor has his as well.

Incredible what can be done with a few suitcases

for the most common diseases!

 

 

calling names.

 

 

the pilot at work again.

 

it is also a good opportunities for the women to get out of home and see

friends. Even they're done with vaccinations or treatment, they stay around,

not in a hurry to go home and work...

 

 

 

we used to reuse after sterilization the one-use-only syringes. That has stopped.

Probably better funding. But the old way worked really well too. So now here

is the white box to collect the needles and to be incinerated later.

old cameras part II

still shooting with a Zorki. Lots of knobs to set and in the right sequence

otherwise there is a big risk to snap a spring or a cog, guess the light

or get it from a separate light-meter (more knobs), adjust the settings,

compose, focus, recompose and shoot. The shutter noise is definitely

coming from other times. My Leica M6 still using a similar design

from the 50's is nearly mute in comparison to the 30's. Why wasting my time

shooting with such antiques? Well just for the same reasons to drive

a vintage car or fly an old aircraft. It also increases the respect I have for the

great photographers who brought so many great pictures with antiques like that.

I know the difficulties, the skills it requires to get the most of these cameras.

Nothing to compare with the actual point-and-shoot style.

 

So after Zanzibar, more images, from an aircraft towards

the sunset and the clouds.

 

and on safari below.

 

Ndutu area. Some hippos in the lake. Of course as I wrote yesterday,

the lens is a standard 50mm. No big lens though some are available up

to 135mm, but not enough for a safari and close-ups anyway.

  

Luckily animals come close enough to fill in a landscape.

lions being the most comprehensive or relaxed of the bunch.

 

Karine is also keen on oldies, here with a twin-lens

Mamiya C220, similar to the famous Rolleiflex. That

thing also requires a checklist before you click...

 

salt lake around Ndutu. The Ngorongoro mountains in the distance.

 

wildebeests in the Ngorongoro crater. Those cliffs measure 700m.

 

  

 

  

 

     

Storm brewing in the background.

This male has the biggest tusks I've ever seen on a live elephant.

They touch the ground while he is walking. Bloody hunters shot

all the elephants with big tusks for stupid trophies

in the past so the genes for big tusks dwindled...

 

so this guy here shows the usual tusks nowadays...

old cameras part I

 

this a Russian camera built in the 50's. looks familiar? Well the Russians

started to copy the famous fabulous Leica II in the 30's. After the war, it didn't

stop and they even took blue prints, machinery and parts from the German Leica

factory. Contax/Zeiss also bore the same brunt. After a while they decided

to performs some minor modifications, mostly cosmetic. So this model below

doesn't look perfectly like a Leica anymore. But the system is still the same.

They're dead cheap on eBay, so to have fun and play old style in

Africa, it's good enough. I'd be concerned to bring a real Leica II here in

the rough African conditions. Some of these Zorki cameras has been

tampered with and labelled Leica! This is forgery and deceit and rip off

of course. as opposed to the fake Rolex or other luxury items, these

fake Leica are sold as real...and thus expensive.

  

 

 

anyway some pictures in Zanzibar. A standard 50mm, no lightmeter, no zoom,

no autofocus, tiny rangefinder...

 

 

 

 

 

     

  

 

great fun for all these guys...not a chick to be seen!!

Poor girls: wearing some black veil in the heat and

humidity and not allowed a little swim...

 

 

 

mural art and language lessons in Tanzania

 

all these paintings were spotted in a remote village, Loliondo, north of

the Serengeti. There is a great little bush hospital out there that I used

to fly to when I was a volunteer pilot with Flying Medical Service.

Once in a while I'd have time to walk down to the village and enjoy

the atmosphere of an African village, the color, the vibrant people,

the laughing kids. The theme of the day is art. I spotted these mural

paintings, the nice ones done by one Mr Olle, probably a Maasai artist.

 

the thigh here bears the signature.

 

 

this drawing is obviously from another artist.

 

the caption says shoemaker, literally the "craftsman of shoes"

 

the Maasai national sport: tampering with a lion...

 

"a pangolin catching a bug" by Olle. A scaly anteater for those who wonder.

Same name in French. Look at the swahili name: "kioski". Typical

swahili feat: use the English name and make it sound swahili by adding an

"i" as a suffix. For some reasons, many Tanzanians can't pronounce a

word and stop on a consonant. Hence the "i" usually, to pronounce the

French way, not "eye". So I'm rarely called Ben, but Beni, or even

Beni Piloti (my favorite!). And amongst other modified words, we have

aspirini, antibiotiksi, exosti (for exhaust!), hospitali, hoteli, belti, booti,

engini, petroli, busi...A variant is to use the English again in case

the pronunciation doesn't match the swahili, the spelling is altered

accordingly. So doctor is daktari, remember the TV stuff? Or betri

for battery, kemra for camera, picha for picture, puncha for puncture,

compyuta for computer, stesheni for station, passiporti for passport,

kiplefti (another hilarious one) for roundabout (that is...keep left!),

benuwah for benoît (my full first name)...

These words have been added during the last decades of course.

Swahili is a real complex language on its own with a long history.

Now back to the curious habit to add an "i" at the end of words,

it applies as well to people speaking normal English. And walking

down the booby trap touristy zones, you'll hear very often (unfortunately)

"goodi morningi my friendi (or bossi), goodi prici".

 

old Maasai man sitting in a pub near a Cape eland.

 

I was surprised by these 2 cavemen, labeled "mean people".

 

same pub, people drinking.

 

can't do much without attracting kids. The middle one was happy to

fix my film canister sticker on his forehead.

 

 

Obviously this artists doesn't have good skills.

But this kind of painted advertising is very

common all over Tanzania.

 

 

for the local gin, Konyagi.

 

 

but the worst of all is this: advertising on

plastic bags! Rambo with a crossbow on a Roman

horse-carriage...!?

Schwartzenegger and Madonna were prized too.

Tasteful choice...

Tanzanian stories part V

 

some news from East Africa. The Rift Fever is on the rise again but abroad this time. It was spotted in the islands off Tanzania, like the Comores apparently. That's new because so far the disease was hardly spreading outside Kenya, the origin country. You may have never heard of till recently because Kenyan authorities tried to hide the fact. They didn't want another new disease to scare off the tourists...Last time we got a few cases around, 2 people died in Arusha whereas 200 died in Kenya. Luckily the disease is not that lethal, as opposed to Ebola or Marburg for instance.

Kenya...politicians there are not afraid of any scandal it seems. The main scandal is corruption, which is really rife, even the people are fed up of it. One guy from the British Foreign Office was removed of his job because he made once a public comment about it. The furor from the government was such that the Brits bowed and sacked the honest employee. Nowadays a Mr Clean, John Githongo, is still scared for his life just for doing his job. He was expected to run an anti-corruption program to please the IMF or other donors. He took it seriously and has produced implacable reports. Reports that were a shock to the government because such honesty was not the goal when the commission was set up! Pressure mounted on him and he was forced into exile but didn't give up his task, his crusade. He has just released a book that is so hot that many bookshops in Kenya are too afraid to sell it! Afraid to see some government thugs might trash their place! So much for the democracy...

I wrote about the plastic ban to be enforced again last month...still waiting to see something happen. The bags are not even hidden when you go shopping, just laying there on the cash desk. Which is weird because I thought the cops, not that they are any 'green', would jump on the opportunity to harass the shop keepers and extort bribes...

working kids...not talking about sweat shops as they are none. But the Maasai boys... Yes they work. Schooling is slowly integrating but many kids still don't go to school and work. What do they do? They're high 'like 3 apples" as we say in French, meaning 5 years old in this case, and they herd 20 cows or goats. Whistling, yelling, running all around the animals. Work? Well according to our standards yes, but ask them and they're happy to do it, proud to get such a prestigious adult job, they meet friends, are in the wild under the sun. School doesn't look very attractive in comparison...for girls that's another story unfortunately. More household work, water fetching...not so pleasant. Some feminist friends of mine say that it is better to come back in next life as a Maasai cow than a Maasai woman...not politically correct I know but true.