After the cancellation of the Denton flight on Saturday, we had to plan for a possible flight arriving on Sunday. Ruben, the military liaison from the Embassy, was going to contact us all on Sunday to let us know as soon as he heard when the flight would arrive. Meanwhile, Saturday night I explained our situation to Pastor Herold. We needed a truck and a driver again for Sunday. The Dodge was the only truck available. Herold called Juliome, a C’ville mechanic who also works as a weekend driver. Juliome would drive me to PauP in the Dodge where we would pick up Meer and then go to the airport and wait for the Denton flight again.
At 10:30 am Sunday, I received the email from Ruben. The flight was on and scheduled to arrive at 1:00 pm. Time to go. I called Juliome and Meer to let them know. In less than 10 minutes, Juliome was at the lab to pick me up. We headed out to the National Route #2 and drove to PauP. There was a lot less traffic than on Saturday and we made good time. We picked up Meer and went straight to the airport. We checked through the gate and Juliome backed the Dodge into a space next to the trucks from Lifeline Missions. As I stepped out of the Dodge, I heard the sound of military jet engines. I turned around in time to see our C-17 rolling slowly down the PAP runway to a stop. I checked my watch: 12:50 pm. The flight was exactly 24 hours late. I managed to pull out my cell phone and snap a few pictures as the C-17 turned and began to taxi down the runway to the unloading area.
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| The C-17 Globemaster III from Charleston, SC |
We walked over and greeted Ruben who was getting ready to drive onto the runway area with the airport security escort. He gave Meer a great big hug and thanked him for the Indian food Meer had given him when we were here for the flight that was canceled on Saturday (see July 21 blog post). Then we all got back in our vehicles and waited for the escort vehicle to lead us onto the runway area. Soon we were driving on the tarmac and past a Delta Airlines and two American Airlines planes and then parked behind the C-17 that a forklift was busily unloading. We got out of the Dodge and looked around at the pallets that the forklift had already off-loaded. Soon we found two pallets with Meer’s petri dishes. Meer counted them: all 40 cases were there. I looked around, twice. My GeneXpert and test cartridges were not on this flight.
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| Kathy, Ozmy, and Meer with Meer's petri dishes |
We began loading the petri dish boxes into the Dodge. They were all going to fit. Then Kathy started showing me stuff and asking if we could use them: a desk, filing cabinets, buckets. We took them all. At least we took what we could fit in the Dodge. I reminded Meer that we still had to pick up Nancy, the graduate student from UF, and her bags. Her flight was arriving in another 40 minutes. Ruben helped us tie down the load on the Dodge while the C-17 revved up its engines and taxied to the runway for takeoff. The C-17 was quickly in the air and on its way back to Charleston, SC. It was 2:15 pm. The entire unloading operation had taken less then 90 minutes.
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| Some of the pallets of humanitarian cargo from the Denton flight |
We said good-bye to Ruben and Kathy. We’ll be back next week for the next Denton flight. Kathy has 85,000 pounds of rice and 42,500 pounds of beans in the system. Her group always brings several trucks and school buses that they fill up with all the food and stuff that Kathy brings into Haiti. We will come back with the Dodge again next Sunday. My stuff should easily fit in it.
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