Photo of the week March 27th, 2013

As the rainy season threatens to begin in earnest, the rural dwellers of Ghana watch patiently as the brown patches of bushland turn slowly to green, signalling the time to begin the planting of the rain-fed crops. Interestingly, even around the Volta Lake, where irrigation should be a matter of course, 'rain fed' dominates agricultural activity. Imagine the yields, employment, food security and socio-economic sustainability that could be achieved with appropriate irrigation, education and infrastructural support to our rural communities. Photo courtesy of Medicine on the Move http://www.medicineonthemove.org

March 25th, 2013

Fresh Air Matters... with Capt. Yaw

Barely a week goes by without me being asked one of two questions.

1. I want to learn to fly and to become a commercial pilot. Can you help me?

2. I have a commercial pilot’s licence and can’t find work. Can you help me?

The answer to both questions is ‘YES!’ To the first question, I answer ‘consider another career, and look to flying as something you do for yourself. Never consider flying as a way of making money, but do consider learning to fly as a personal development goal. Flying is like driving a car, most people learn to drive for their own development, few learn to drive because they want to drive a bus for a living!’

Right now there appears to be a surplus of pilots in the world. Changes in regulations, economic pressures, misleading reports, etc. have created the situation where you have about a one in a hundred chance (from first lesson to commercial pilot placement) of getting a job. Considering the immense amount of money it takes to get a commercial pilot’s licence, it is probably best to seek to fly for pleasure (Ghana has a wonderful national licence that is relatively affordable, limiting flying to 2 seat aircraft, but providing the stepping stone to future licences), and to enjoy the amazing joy of flight. Perhaps, seek to expand your skills towards some humanitarian flying and wait and see what the industry does. At least if you have a basic licence you are attractive for sponsorship down the line, if the industry improves.

To the second question, I have to shake my head and put on my ‘you can’t be serious face’. In fact I do that a lot these days. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to get a commercial licence – close to $100,000 to obtain the ATPL (Air Transport Pilot Licence), and the chances of ever recuperating the amount you invested is tiny. Very few pilots ‘make it’ compared to those who start. You must only pursue this dream if a) you have the passion to take it on and b) you can afford to spend that amount of money and NOT get a job at the end! If you have the qualification, and you can’t find work, then consider another career and just keep to flying for fun, as you can afford. Oh, and don’t complain to me about the ‘repayment on your loans’, you should have done your research before borrowing that much money. This is a tough industry, and you should have gone into it with your eyes wide open. You demonstrate a lack of risk assessment (an essential skill in the cockpit) if you failed to consider ‘what do I do if I can’t get a job at the end’ before you embarked on the project. Do I sound harsh? Perhaps, but this is not a new phenomenon. Learn to fly, by all means, but do not get yourself – or your family - in a financial mess by doing so.

Now, if you seek to become a crop spraying pilot, then the numbers change. But so do the risks. Good aerial dispersal pilots are hard to come by. The risks are higher in other ways. In France I was told ‘a crop spraying pilot works six months of the year and spends six months of the year in hospital’! Thus reflecting the relatively high number of accidents – many of them fatal – recorded. Aerial dispersal is about getting up before dawn, working low level, carrying large quantities of potentially health damaging chemicals around you, and knowing that ‘if anything goes wrong’ you have little option but to take the trees in your face. All the same, it is a great career for those who want to fly, scrape a living (it is not well paid) and to help the agricultural and public health sectors. You must be exceptionally quick witted and have reactions as lightning fast as a green mamba striking a rat in the bush! If you are a trained aerial dispersal pilot, you just need to wait for the next accident, often a death, for a job opening! Oh, I sound harsh again!

Of course, if you are not interested in making money, but more interested in making a difference, then there is the ‘humanitarian pilot’. My chosen line of work. I love it. I get paid in smiles – miles of smiles – and love every minute of it. In fact, I love the potential it gives me to fly low and slow over communities, changing lives as I go. I love the training of young people aspect, the twenty four hours a day, seven days per week, three hundred and sixty five days of the year - aspects of maintenance, flying, materials development, community meetings, teaching and training. I love it. But it is not a ‘good return on investment’. It is not ‘attractive’ financially. But it satisfies (and satisflies) me.

Would I recommend others to do what I do? Only for those who are ready to take the sacrifices that accompany it. It is not easy. It is tiring. It is amazing. It has its risks. It does not pay the bills. You do not get a social life with it!

So, then I come to the pilots in Europe and the USA who contact me ‘wanting to come and gain some hours flying humanitarian missions’. No. That is not what we do. Our missions are flown by our locally trained young people. Those who are LONG term, committed and desirous of taking help to their own people. It takes a lot of training to be ready to go out on a drop mission (we work on four years). It is exhausting, and it draws on skills that are not generally taught (just like aerial dispersal). Experienced commercial pilots often insult me, coupled with their declaration ‘but I have a commercial licence and four hundred hours’ or even those who have ‘thousands of hours’. Such experience is of little use when you consider low-inertia, high revving engine, bush flying operations in areas where you do not let go of the stick and throttle for many hours in a row. It is like telling me that you have driven a bus all of your life so now you can drive a racing car. Fortunately, some of the pilots in Europe and the USA are ready to come to Ghana to share their experiences with our trainees. Ready to come to learn how we do what we do, and to help us to train our young people through sharing their experiences – they are ready to come out for a few weeks to a few months, paying their own way, covering all of their costs and their flight training, supporting the young people they teach; being a part of the development. To such pilots, I take my hat off and thank them from the bottom of my heart – and I enjoy flying with them too! Such pilots are few and far between – but treasures to behold!

So, I guess the answer to a career in aviation is that it is only for those who really want it, regardless of the sacrifice, regardless of the type of flying, regardless of the risks. If you want a salary, then take a desk job. If you want a life - and will not count the costs – financial, emotional and social, then fly!

Capt. Yaw is Chief Flying Instructor and Chief Engineer at WAASPS, and lead Pilot with Medicine on the Move, Humanitarian Aviation Logistics (www.waasps.com www.medicineonthemove.org e-mail capt.yaw@gmail.com )

Photo of the week March 20th, 2013

Here we see a built in Ghana CH701 aircraft en-route to a health education drop run in the Afram Plains, flown by Patricia Mawuli. Early morning mist can be seen rising from the lush Volta Region vegetation below. This aircraft can remain airborne for more than 12 hours, with a range of over 1,600km, but most importantly it is taking much needed educational materials to communities far from the paved roads, touching lives with inspiration and a clear demonstration of Ghanaian determination and ability to change lives, positively and sustainably, through the use of engineering and aviation. Photo courtesy of Rex Pemberton. Aircraft built and maintained by WAASPS Ltd www.waasps.com and mission flight co-ordinated by Medicine on the Move www.medicineonthemove.org - Medicine on the Move is currently seeking sponsorship to expand its health drop operations, planning to drop around one thousand health packages in 2013.

March 18th, 2013

Fresh Air Matters... with Capt. Yaw

Over the past few years there have been sporadic reports about passengers refusing to fly upon hearing that there was a female pilot in the cockpit. A quick trawl of the search engines and you will find reports of several incidents related to ‘gender fear’.

I find it hard to comprehend why a passenger on an airliner would insist on disembarking simply due to the gender of the pilot. Personally, I am always pleased to hear that a woman is up at the pointy end of the aircraft, I feel a little bit safer! Women are, in general, less likely to take risks and to be ‘more gentle’ on the controls. I see it every day as I watch women land ‘v’ men land aircraft. It is hard to believe that such attitudes still exist in the world… or is it?

Here in Ghana there is an on-going debate over the ‘bride-price’. There exists a lot of confusion over terminology and the ‘bride price’ in Ghana is often, mistakenly, called the Dowry. A Dowry is what is given to the groom when marrying – it is given by the family of the bride. Conversely, the ‘bride-price’ is what is demanded by the woman’s family in return for the release of the woman to marriage. In some cultures both are practiced, often extravagantly, as a way to demonstrate that both families are able to provide such items.

In most western societies these practices have all but vanished. The idea of putting a ‘price’ on the head of a human being is seen as ‘unacceptable’. Instead, the families of both the bride and the groom are encouraged to assist the couple on their journey together, providing support to them, be it financial, material or moral support. There are, of course, good and positive examples of both ‘bride-price’ and dowry being used to the constructive establishment of a couple’s life journey.

In a loving family environment, where the people getting married and starting their life together matter, the money and articles changing hands are nothing more than ‘designated wedding gifts’. Items and cash being used to give the newly-weds a little head start on life together. This is good.

For example, in the ‘bride price’ weddings I have witnessed, the idea of a ‘suitcase with clothing, cloth and cooking utensils’ for the bride is common place in the ‘price’. How wonderful! The husband ‘to be’ can choose suitable items for his wife ‘to be’, and ensure that she has those things that will give her dignity and independence on day one. I applaud that concept.

Sadly, the ‘bride price’ in some of the families is far from ‘positive’. Lists that include many bottles of alcoholic beverages – often stating that they must be ‘foreign Gin’ or ‘foreign schnapps’… one such list that I witnessed, requested 24 bottles of hard liquor for the men in the family to consume. It makes me wonder if such a family is in need of counselling from Alcoholics Anonymous! Alcohol has no place in a marriage – it is well documented as a ‘destructive liquid’ and the root cause of failure in many relationships.

Then there is the demand for ‘Holland Cloth’ for the ‘in-laws’. What is wrong with Ghanaian cloth? Are we using marriage as a means of causing financial flight from the country? If such a list is ‘traditional’ then surely ‘Ghanaian cloth’ is what we should see! All the same, giving something to the ‘in-laws’ as a gift is perfectly acceptable – provided that the ‘in-laws’ are supportive and loving towards their offspring!

But the thing that repulses me most in the ‘bride price’ is the money. You cannot and should not put a price on a human being. Giving of gifts, which should be done from the heart and not from a list, is one thing, but asking for a set amount of money in exchange for a human being is repulsive. It is degrading – how can any amount of money represent the value of a human being’s heart in love. No person can ever pay the value of a human heart – for it is a priceless item, and one that can only be rewarded with an equally loving heart, beating in unison.

I was told that ‘the better educated and more pretty a girl is, the more money the family will ask for’. How disgusting! How can you tell me that a girl who cannot read and write is worth less than one who can use a computer? How can one’s appearance affect one’s value?

Then the argument gets thrown in ‘but the family raised the girl, they educated the girl and as such they need to get a return on their investment’. Now, my blood is boiling.

When a child is conceived, is it conceived as an investment? Did the parents lie in their bed one night and say ‘let us make children so that we can raise them and sell them?’ Is that really what is going on? Surely not. Definitely not. I see mothers with their children, thrilled at the magnificent miracle of life. Lovingly playing with the fruit of their love; hoping for the very best future for them. Sadly, it seems that the men folk control the ‘bride price’ and listen little to the voices of the loving mothers – and rarely at all to the wishes of their daughters.

It seems that the system is driven by the greed of some of the men. Hence the alcohol (for I do not see the women getting drunk in the same way as the men). Hence the ‘valuing of the girl’ as an item (since it seems that the men get to spend most of the money). Perhaps the men folk need to get pregnant! I cannot imagine them taking the same line if they have carried that human being inside of them, feeding the child, taking care of their needs in return for nothing more than a smile and the love that only a human child can give to its parent. Sadly, too many men, in all cultures around the world, fail to engage in the bond that is on offer from their children.

I regularly come across situations where the boys in a family are given far more support towards their education than the girls. The girls seem to be seen as simply ‘objects for working the fields, cooking, making babies and perhaps a ‘bride-price’ one day’. The concept of ‘bride price’ reinforces my perception that, in some families, the girl children are still not given the same value as human beings as the boy children are. It is time for families to love their children regardless of their gender, to respect their child and human rights, and to support them in their choices, giving each and every one the freedom to reach their full potential, without fear, and with support.

Culture and tradition are organic, they grow and change. It is my fervent desire to see a positive growth in our cultures and traditions towards recognition of the freedom of each individual, regardless of their gender or social background. Let us enable all of our children to live full, free and successful lives without trying to put a price on their heads or impediments in the way of their education, development or happiness. Let us see some more ‘Girl Power’ on the Better Ghana Agenda!

Capt. Yaw is Chief Flying Instructor and Chief Engineer at WAASPS, and lead Pilot with Medicine on the Move, Humanitarian Aviation Logistics (www.waasps.com www.medicineonthemove.org e-mail capt.yaw@gmail.com )