Surprise!

Someone bought a plane ticket for Joy to go home to see her parents for Christmas. Her sister, who teaches at Sahel, planned it so that the trip would be a surprise to their parents. Joy arrived here from school in Europe early in the morning. Our family and a group of her friends met her at the airport and went to the hangar for an early breakfast. I then flew Joy and her sister home for Christmas.


In the southern part of Mali there are some mesas that reach to 3000 - 4000 ft.


They jet up out of the flat barren land around them.

The steep sides are impressive.


Joy's dad asked me to make a detour on the way to their home to take some aerial footage of some fire breaks he had cut through the grasslands. Technology can be a wonderful thing! We talked on Skype before the flight. He described the location of the fire breaks while I looked at Google Earth. I was then able to get some coordinates for where the fire breaks would probably be. After 2 hours of flying to get there, the fire breaks were right where he had described. You can see the black ribbon weaving through the brown. That's one of the fire breaks he cut. The people in that area feed their herds of sheep, goats and cows with the grass. Brush fires rush across that area every year destroying the grass vital to the survival of these people. Joy's dad has been cutting fire breaks for about three years now to show the people and the government the effect they can have on stopping these fires.


Here's a little village we flew over.


And a herd of cows.

There's a large lake in that area. Apparently there is a lot of wildlife that gathers at this lake which is surrounded by sand and grasslands. Elephants venture north to this lake after the rainy season is over.


The second fire break we filmed was near this lake. It had actually stopped a brush fire. You can see the burned area to the right of the fire break in the picture. Joy's dad wanted the video footage to include in a dvd presentation he's preparing for the government.

The surprise worked out perfectly. We landed in the town where Joy's parents live. Joy hid in the plane while her parents pulled up. We told them to close their eyes and then Joy came out of the plane and walked up to them. Tears of joy flowed all around.

We enjoyed another quick visit with Joy on her way back to school after the break. The kids still consider her to be part of our family.