I arrived at the Ft. Pierce airport and awaited my marching orders. Slight chill in the air, MFI staff preparing for the day, bleary-eyed and coffee in hand. I decline the coffee and gear up for the flight down. I know I'm going on a private jet parked just outside the hangar. A group of doctors is weighing their luggage and medical supplies. I send my bag on a later flight to make room for the doctors belongings and equipment.
We are told it's time to go board. Our pilot's name is Bob, a kind gentleman with graying hair and mustache. I am the second on board and we are all just blown away. I hear the exclamations of shock behind me. Leather seats, wood-grain and cabinets. Every handle, seatbelt latch and fixture is gilded and a big tray of donuts and bagels is on the front galley. I have never experience anything like this. The guys are from Flight Options and like so many others, their hoping for anyway that they can do to help out.
Ah, just rich people, they don't miss it.
It's tempting to think so, but we ask the mechanic and he says it takes about ten to twelve thousand dollars an hour to operate the plane...that doesn't include the pay of the mechanic and two pilots on board. This is no small donation. This flight I'm taking, just for my trip down, is about 20,000 dollars in costs alone. It's nice to have this, because I know once we land, all the luxury is off. The doctors and nurses are fantastic. A pharmacists sits across from me and his wife, a former ER nurse along with a nurse practitioner and another nurse and Haitian translator sit beside me on the long couch.
We land and it's hot and it's dry. I was expecting dripping, tropical humidity, but this reminds me more of Arizona. The first day is hectic. I'm running around with Jeff who coordinates all the flights out, bookings and passenger lists, plus getting passports to the main terminal to stamp out. It is a crazy job and it is soon to be mine. Mike Labady helps run the passports when he can and it is a God send. When a flight comes in, everyone on the flight gives Jeff (now me) their passports after which he gives them to Mike or if Mike cannot he takes them himself. To do this you have to take a bumpy, dirty and rocky road through what looks like a squatter camp of rescue workers, private security teams, medical teams and military. Most of the camps have their own flag flying above their military-esque tents and their ensignia on the side of one or more of the tents. You go past the gate going and coming from the airport and past the fuel depot.
It looks like pictures of Iraq. Soldiers stand watch, weapons slung across their checks, flak jackets and zip ties for detaining slipped around the rings on their vests. They usually just wave us by and then its around the planes until you get to the main terminal to check the passports.
Once you're back it is getting the people (if you've already had their passports stamped)on to the plane and ready to go home...usually they're pretty anxious. It is a long day, my head is splitting from the heat and the noise. We had at least four Blackhawk helicopters land right on the tarmac to drop off some wounded going to the University of Miami tent hospital right behind the hangar.
We go to the missionaries' houses and split up to stay tonight. Uncle Rick and Will White (his house) invite me to stay there with the two MAF pilots, Brian and Scott, who flew a Kodiak down from Nampa, ID. I am nervous to be sure staying in a two story concrete house after driving by rows of houses that are reduced to rubble. I am too tired to worry much longer and go to sleep.
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