2009 Nov 19

Thursday
Paul heads back to the US

Woke up in the Addis house and made some breakfast for who ever dared eat. Those currently in the house include Paul, Wes and Alyssa, Joe, and Miesa, and the maids, Harik and Wasun and her daughter Radit. The maids made their own breakfast and it looked a little more appetizing than mine.

We had early guests of two officials from Beltu which is just a few kilometers from the Alyssa farm. The came to sure up some paperwork needed for us to secure the farm and location of boundaries. Soon after they left Paul said his goodbyes because today he heads back to the US. He told me to expect a meeting the first part of December with most everyone in Logan. We did the traditional Ethiopian handshake then the right shoulder to right shoulder move and said goodbye till next time.

Wes and I put together a list of equipment needed to order for Mr. Chombe for later that afternoon. I needed to get soil the soil samples to the soil testing center here in Addis so I had Wes take me. He though he knew where it might be but got a lengthy tour of the capital instead. Oh well we got to know the place a little better.

We learned that the African Cessna airplane representative was coincidently in town and thought it a good idea to get together with him later in the evening.

Chombe showed up and we briefly went over equipment again then he took Wes and I to look a metal fabrication business to see about fuel tanks. We were impressed and got bids for two 15,000 tanks as well as two portable tanks on wheels. The price was about $.50/ gallon which we both thought very reasonable here. We told Chombe that we were planning to visit with the Cessna rep for dinner and he asked if he could come because he thought some day to buy a plane of his own.

Joe, Wes, Miesa, Chombe, Wally, and I met up with Bob Prentice and a “Bush Pilot” from the area at the Harmony restaurant. They gave us brochures on the Cessna Grand Caravan model which is the type of plane Paul was most interested in buying. It has over a 2,000 lb. payload capacity and can takeoff and land in remote areas with relatively short landing distances. We had a good discussion on what we would be looking at for cost and upkeep for this type of plane. My first thoughts were that the cost is so far out of my comprehension but for Morrell Agro it seemed to be a necessity for efficient operations and most importantly for safety reasons in case of emergency to quickly get to Addis Ababa in a little over an hour rather than the 14 hr. trip it would take over the roughest roads. Wally took control of the conversation having been a seasoned pilot in the armed forces earlier in life. We concurred that we would propose to Paul to seriously consider the plane and to put landing strips at Sheneka and Alyssa farms. Mr. Prentice thought that this plane would be a cinch to learn to fly compared to the Mooney M20F that I currently fly. It also has a full glass instrument panel with the Garmin 1000 system. I suspect that tonight I will have dreams of flying.