Arrival in Georgetown

5 May 2008

Well, it’s day one and we have already have a few glitches in the system. David Batt had airline problems and will not arrive until tomorrow. Our water team consisting of Victor Menkal, Arthur Mills and Betty Belsher are currently stuck in Trinidad, Tobago. They hope to arrive late tomorrow night. Tom Kamin has just bought his ticket and will arrive on Wednesday. Only myself and Marc Bacaro have arrived. Logistically this is a problem as we have been utilizing local people to pick us at the airport, schedule fights and truck supplies and personnel into the interior and these people have already paid for our tickets, which must now be changed. Today, I was expressing my concern about this to Terrance Trap, the Remote Area Medical pilot, he said this is very normal and I should not be too concerned.

The good news is that all of the critical supplies arrived with me on the flight today. We are bringing four solar panels and not one was lost by the airline. The boxes holding the panels seemed to be in good shape, so I suspect they are not damaged, but I did not pull out the panels to inspect them. Tomorrow the panels will have to survive a 12 hours four-wheel drive through the jungle to the city of Letham. I feel confident that they will arrive in good shape.

So today has been a day of adjusting schedules and resting from the flight. I was also able to get to know Marc Barcaro better. Marc is a member of the RAM Airborne team. I helped train him to join the team a few years ago in Eloy, AZ. Now he is trained to skydive into remote jungle areas or disaster zones for various disaster scenarios. He remains eager to tackle his first airborne assignment.

At home, Marc is 27 years old and is an assistant project manager for a developer in Las Vegas. He has an EMT certificate and the Wilderness EMT certificate. He understands construction projects and will be a valuable member of the construction team at the hospital site in Marinari. I think I will enjoy working with him over the next few weeks.

Well, tomorrow I am scheduled to fly to Letham. I will prepare the site for the work and make certain that all the supplies are purchased. I will be excited to see clean water running from the faucets at our site. Until then, we will continue to work.