Lubumbashi Update

So for and update on life in Lubumbashi. It has been awhile.

One would that that I would have learned my lesson in high school when it came to raising chickens and a puppy at the same time. Well, I am at it again. About two months ago Steve and I bought 9 laying hens and a rooster. Unfortunately we have collected very few eggs to date. A couple of weeks ago one of our laying hens (the only one that consistently lays eggs) took a liking to her eggs and decided to hatch a few youngens. We now have 5 little bitties running around. Good fun.

So then a couple of weeks ago Steve found a puppy to add to our growing farm, because every good farm needs a farm dog. Right? Lies! Lie! Its all lies! So now we have a puppy who is becoming ever so bold in her attempt to find a play mate. I have this gut feeling that her choice playmates her choice delicacy. We will see. Her name is Charlie and we all really like her.

Today we had a little bit of excitement out to the airport. I flew this morning and when I got back I locked up and secured the airplane. This afternoon we got a call from our ramp guys saying that something fell out of a helicopter onto the airplane. We had no clue what they were talking about so we decided to go to the airport and survey the damage. When we got there we found the airplane turned 180 degrees from where I left it and several meters into the grass. Apparently an Mi-26 (one of the largest helicopters in the world) took off right behind the airplane. It is amazing that there was not more damage than what occurred. It was sitting next to several other airplanes which could have been quite costly.

Here are some of the pics.

This is how I left it.


This is what the rotor wash did to the airplane. Almost 180 degrees.

Me inspecting the damage.

Check out this control lock! It definitely did it's job.

Our goofy engineers... They are great!


And our ramp guys...

Air Serv wanted me to get some good pics of our new airplane for the home office. The pics didn't turn out all that well because the kids were a little more preoccupied with cookies that I had promised them. Needless to say, it eventually turned into a riot!