Memoir Reading Blog #3

After installing Krystyne and himself in Nairobi, Scott begins his task of transforming the Flying Doctors Service into an efficient aid-providing service. Scott's first impression of the Flying Doctor's hanger is very poor. The hangar is an absolute mess, with loose paperwork, spare parts, and office equipment scattered all over the place. As Scott puts it, "It was all an invitation to waste, inefficiency, and loss of money." Scott also meets many of the pilots, engineers, and nurses with whom he'll be working for the next two years. Jim Heather Hayes, Colin Davies, Benoit Wangermez, Trevor Jones, Ahmed Ali, Bettina Vadera, and David Mutava are just some of the employees of the Flying Doctors Service who have given up their livelihood in order to help other people. Scott also has the opportunity to fly with the last active founding member of the Flying Doctors Service, Anne Spoerry. Anne joined the Flying Doctors Service in 1959 and has been flying to remote areas of Kenya to dispense medical aid and advice ever since. Scott flies with her on a routine visit to a remote area in the north of Kenya near Lake Turkana. He is amazed by her efficiency and the attachment she has formed with the most remote tribes in Kenya, who affectionately call her "Mama Daktari".

The dedication of the employees of the Flying Doctors Service stuck both Scott Griffin and myself. Scott commented on the employees,

"What struck me most about working at the hangar was the dedication of the Flying Doctors Service employees. They earned pitifully low wages and could expect no personal gain from their extraordinary efforts, their desire to help others. Somehow, it reawakened my faith in mankind; here was a higher order of morality, one understood and practiced by the African nurses, the mechanics, and the ambulance drivers."

It genuinely puzzles me as to how these people's minds work. What gives a person that overwhelming urge to help others, no matter how great the sacrifice in his or her own life. All of these employees genuinely want to make a difference in the lives of other people, and I commend them for that. Hearing about the situation of some of these tribes was also a shock to me. Most receive absolutely no medical attention other than the Flying Doctors Service, which is grossly underfunded for such a monumental task. In addition to routine checkups, the Flying Doctors Service is also called on to for emergency evacuations. Car crashes, malaria, AIDS, dengue, and falciparum were just some of the situations that the pilots and nurses had to respond to in an average day's work. Their efforts yield an amazingly high success rate for such a disorganized enterprise. It amazes me that they're able to continue to work with such dedication, even when their entire organization is literally imploding around them.