A rule. My Rule #2 for working in Haiti is: Have a plan B and a plan B for your plan B. Meer and I put the rule to the test this week. After a lapse of three months, we have more cargo coming in on a Denton flight. The last flight (our first) that we had was back in March (see blog entry March 29) and we have been anxious to get another shipment of material for the lab on another Denton flight. Meer ordered 40 cases of petri dishes and I purchased a GeneXpert plus several cases of test cartridges. All of these orders were shipped to the Operation Ukraine warehouse where Kathy Cadden included them in her load of humanitarian aid for shipment to Haiti. And then we waited. No flights came in April or May. One flight came in June but it did not have any of Kathy’s cargo. Meer and I waited impatiently for a date for our shipment.
A date. Early July, Kathy emailed me and said a flight was coming in on July 16. She would arrive in Haiti on July 16 to be there when the flight arrived. I emailed Meer, who was back in Haiti, and made my arrangements to return to Haiti in time for the shipment (and also to be present for training the personnel I planned to hire). Before I left, Kathy emailed me again to say that the flight was arriving on July 20, not July 16. I flew out on July 14 as planned and waited in C’ville for Kathy to call. A few days after my arrival, I received a call from Kathy. Good new, bad news. The good news is that there will be two Denton flights arriving this month – one on Saturday, July 19 and the other on Sunday, July 27. The bad news is that her cargo was split up and she does not know which flight our cargo will be on. We need to be at the airport Saturday with a truck in case our stuff is on that flight.
A truck. Meer and I talked about getting a driver and a truck to transport our supplies. No C’ville weekend drivers were available. So we had to call on Makendy to work on Saturday, his day off. We talked to Pastor Herold, the C’ville director about getting a truck. The large red flatbed Daihatsu will do nicely. Not available, it was leaving on Saturday morning to bring chickens up to Gonaives. I have no idea where the Kia is. The other pick up trucks are too small. Then there is the Dodge. Herold said we could use the Dodge. It is large but not large enough to carry 40 cases of petri dishes plus my instrument and supplies. We would have to rent a truck. Meer thought that maybe we could fill out the paperwork to rent a truck and wait until the flight arrived to sign the rental contract or cancel. I guess that may work. We needed a Plan B for Plan B. I called Kathy and explained our problem with the truck. She told me that her logistics guy knows how to get a truck on short notice and not to worry. He’ll take care of us. Meer and I left it at that. We decided to see what would happen next.
The Dodge. We piled into the Dodge at 10:15 am Saturday and Makendy headed for the PAP airport. Traffic was bad around Mariani (it usually is) and it took us about a hour and a half to get to the airport. We dropped off Amanda, a graduate student from Johns Hopkins who worked with Meer on a cholera project for the past couple of weeks. Then we drove to gate #7 and into the parking area to wait for the Denton flight. It was 11:45 am, one hour before the flight was scheduled to arrive. Kathy arrived with the trucks from Lifeline Mission shortly after 12 noon and Ruben arrived 15 minutes later. Meer had prepared some Indian food for Ruben and his fiancé (who was visiting this week). We originally had planned to have a big Indian dinner with Kathy and Ruben and his fiancé and one of Meer’s friends in Port-au-Prince but it is the middle of Ramadan and it would be too hard to set something up. So Meer made the meal and froze it for Ruben. We all stood around in the bright mid-day sun and talked about things: the situation in Ukraine, the state of orphanages in Haiti, sexual violence against women in Haiti and other countries (Ruben’s fiancé works in that field), Indian food, how Kathy manages to raise money for her organization and how she gets people to donate things. There was a constant breeze so we did not feel the July heat so much but it was better to stand in the shade.
12:45 pm. We all squinted up to the sky as Ruben pointed out an approaching aircraft. Then he shook his head. It’s not our C-17 transport. Even at this distance he could tell by how the wings were bent. Sure enough, the plane that landed was a Delta flight. We waited again. Then another aircraft began its final approach. Still not our C-17. This time it was an American Airlines 757. 1:45 pm and still no Denton flight. Meanwhile, another American Airlines 757 landed. At 2:00 pm, Ruben contacted flight control. Where is our flight? Bad news. The aircraft had taken off from Charleston, SC but encountered some mechanical problems and turned back. They were not sure how long it would take to fix the problem but they were hoping to get the flight out today. We all shook our heads as Ruben read the email. No way. It was too late. By the time the plane gets to PAP, unloads and gets turned around, it would be too late to take off. The PAP airport has no runway lights. All air traffic stops around 6 pm. We did not think there would be a flight today. But flight control told Ruben to stand by and they would do their best to get the flight out. At 2:45 pm. Ruben got the word. No flight today. They will let us know what time they plan to fly out tomorrow. We all got in our empty vehicles for the long return ride home. We’ll be back tomorrow, maybe?
3:00 pm. We drive up to Petionville and drop Meer off at his friend’s house. Meer will spend the night with them and we’ll come back Sunday to pick him up and meet the Denton flight, if it comes. Makendy and I get back in the Dodge and start down the mountain into PauP and the National Route #2 to drive back to C’ville. Traffic started to slow down and then stop just before Mariani, always a bottleneck. We managed to drive past the curtain of smoke that continually blows across the highway from the trash dump next to the road. And then traffic stopped completely. For almost two solid hours, we barely moved. All told it took us more than three hours to cover the 12 km from Mariani to C’ville. We finally pulled into C’ville at 7:15 pm over four hours after we left Petionville. A long day and we returned home empty-handed.
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