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The Swiss pilot David Graf is returning home with his family from South Sudan after three and a half years.
As of the editorial deadline for this article, David and Sibylle Graf are flying north with their children Melina (4) and Maurice (2) high above the African continent. For once, the pilot is not in the cockpit, but in the back of the passenger cabin.
We’ll go if we can still miss it.
After three and a half years of working for the non-profit aviation company “Mission Aviation Fellowship” (MAF) in South Sudan, the man from Schaffhausen is returning home with his family. “It’s easy to burn out here and we don’t want that,” he says during the video interview. “We’ll go if we can still miss it.”
David Graf would like to fly as a commercial pilot in Switzerland in the future, and Sibylle Graf would like to work as a nurse again. In addition, the grandparents should be able to maintain their relationship with the grandchildren.
Family life behind walls and barbed wire fences
Your life back home will be very different than in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. The family has lived there for the last few years together with other foreign employees of the MAF in a compound, a guarded housing estate behind walls and barbed wire fences.
There is running water, electricity, a small pool. Outside the walls, people live in abject poverty and fetch their water from the overflow of the compound. “It’s really bad, you could help anywhere. But I can’t do that, »says Sibylle Graf. It is therefore important to see in which area the help really makes a difference.
Once a week, the 39-year-old visits a children’s home, where she can take Maurice and Melina with her. There she tells stories, sings songs with the children or organizes a birthday party with cake, games and small gifts for everyone.
Small movement horizon
Sibylle Graf’s everyday life takes place in just a few places – in and around the compound, on the market, in the children’s home. The security situation does not allow excursions.
Many people here experience violence in their lives, so the inhibition threshold for violence is lower.
There is a risk of robberies or accidentally getting into a violent confrontation between hostile groups. “Many people experience violence in their lives, which is why the inhibition threshold for violence is lower,” explains Sibylle Graf. She feels safer when she is traveling with Melina and Maurice and is thus recognizable as a mother.
children and Goats on the airstrip
Unlike his wife, David Graf gets around the country every day. He takes off for the first flight at 8 a.m. On behalf of various NGOs, he brings relief supplies, but also passengers to remote places.
Many places are difficult to access by land and not accessible at all during the rainy season. Although South Sudan is 15 times larger than Switzerland, it only has around 300 kilometers of paved roads. With the Cessna he lands on unpaved runways and has to make sure that there are no children or animals on them. However, the greatest sense of achievement for the 35-year-old is “that we can make a difference”. For example, when he lands months later with malaria medication in his luggage and the doctors come to meet him beaming with joy.
Now the four are looking forward to their family. And the amenities in the new, old homeland: jogging at normal temperatures, as Sibylle Graf says with a laugh. And on spaetzli with red wine sauce and a good piece of meat, adds her husband.