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Submit Last week Laura did a flight with an older woman that had been bitten by a snake, by the time the decision was made to evacuate her she was very weak and bleeding from the mouth and gums, unfortunately I got the word yesterday that she has died. The other patient on that flight was a baby with pneumonia and we hear the she is doing much better so that is encouraging.
We have had a volunteer working with us for the last week and a half or so, Salina, she is flying out of Georgetown tomorrow. She is interested in nursing and mission aviation, while she was here she volunteered at the hospital, worked on the airplane and rode along as an assistant/observer on a couple of flights.
Last week was our anniversary, 13 years! We celebrated by going out to eat with the boys at Broome’s Guesthouse, they serve a limited fixed menu and everyone sits at one long table, not so romantic but no dishes! Jacob and Zack made us a nice card and also made sure we remembered the date with this note on the calendar.
Submit I am still astounded by the insects here, they are SOOO big and we don’t have to do any jungle excursions to find them, they come right to us in the house, try some of these on for size…
Our house has no screens and is quite well ventilated, so much so that birds regularly fly through the living room, when having a shower you often have to move around to stay under the water if the wind is blowing. The frog population has declined in the last few weeks, for a while they were hanging out in abundance on the sink, toilet and shower, in the kitchen I flipped the louvered window closed the other day and fired a frog onto the counter.
Submit We have been to Blackwater for two Sabbaths this past month to meet with the group there, it has been interesting as that fellowship begins to develop. Two weeks ago we went with Pastor Williams who had last met with them over a year ago, Bill LaBore, Gilbert Sissons who operates the Bethany Medical Missions College with Guyana Adventist Medical Aviation Service, Sabrine Bourne and Saray (also from Bethany). We actually had more people in the boat but we had to leave some back as it was just too heavy and wouldn’t come out of the water. Sabrine is a recent graduate from Bethany where they train Guyanese young people to be health and Bible workers in villages, Sabrine and another volunteer will be going back into the Blackwater community to stay for at least several months to work directly with the people there. We are really pleased about this as we are only able to go once or twice a month and the
We will be ensuring that Sabrine has what she needs to live there with our Village Fund, we will also provide study materials that she can share along with medical supplies and transportation, we have sent along an outboard motor she can use on the local boat. This couple from Blackwater wanted to dedicate their baby to God, fortunately the Pastor was able to perform the service for them, Leroy plays guitar for the church services. Submit Last week I was called over to Port Kaituma to pick up a patient with a suspected heart attack, I had been waiting all day for better weather to make a non essential flight but with the higher level of urgency I departed and fortunately the weather had improved slightly. Anyway when I got there they had the guy sitting beside a pickup in front of a fan being run by a generator, he was at least 275 lbs and was conscious but in a high level of distress, fortunately they had him on their newly acquired oxygen. They said he needed to sit so you can imagine the difficulty of trying to load him into the backseat and get him secured, his wife sat in the front and they sent a Cuban Dr. that spoke very little English (That is common in Guyana). About 25 minutes into the flight the patient lost consciousness and vomited, the Dr. started bagging him (remember he is sitting in a tiny seat with no headrest), somewhere in there he did the cardiac thump and got a heartbeat for about 15 minutes but then he lost that too and got out of his seat and kind of stood in front of the patient and performed CPR for a few minutes but with no success. To make matters more complicated the man’s wife has been half turned in the front seat the entire time and was wailing and praying and crying as would be expected. Furthermore I was in and out of heavy rain and with the Dr. up and down I was constantly re-trimming the stay level. After a brief discussion with the Dr. we decided that we would carry on to Gtn as the patient would likely require a post mortem so I called ATC and advised them to cancel the ambulance (ambulance's will not transport a body) and to call the police for me as they have to attend before you can move a body, then they have to call a hearse and then you have to wait, in this case for 1 1/2 hours, with the body in the plane and family and airport staff standing around in the rain. It was an unfortunate event however the Dr. did everything he could and nothing would have made any difference. Submit
We were visiting Kahn’s Hill, a tiny settlement only about 1 ½ miles from our house but easily a 100 year time warp, thatch huts on stilts, many with no walls at all and the ones that do are only about two feet high or a draped piece of plastic. No power or water, no vehicles…not much of anything except tall cassava plants and naked children. Bill LaBore and Bro. George have been visiting the community for some time, studying and getting to know them, they had built this chapel on their own hoping that someone would come a worship with them. Today we brought many of the Mabaruma church members for an afternoon program. One of the Mabaruma church members had a short message and we sang some songs then Bill got up and talked a bit about how we needed to come here more often. Mr. Kahn is the captain of the village and as Bill talked his wife was wiping tears from her eyes, they were so happy to have us visit! As we were about to close Mr. Kahn picked up that sad little guitar and indicated he wanted to sing a song, he plucked away for a couple of minutes trying to “tune” it and then proceeded to strum and sing a really beautiful song. I was quite impressed and I hope that we are able to go back there regularly. Some of the people there have come to the Mabaruma church a few times but the walk is most of an hour for an adult and then you need to deal with the small children so it is very difficult for them to come regularly.
Submit June 18, 2008 Catching up again…Yesterday I made a departure from Mabaruma between the rain showers, this is what it looked like while I was waiting…Karen and the boys tried to stay dry under the wing without a lot of success, the picture of what looks like a puddle is from inside the plane looking through the windshield at the propeller.
I had a little boy with a broken arm and his mother (he got a little stuffed camel which he was holding tightly for the entire flight), a man with an abcess that was destroying a very large portion of his ankle and a pregnant women with complications. Shortly after takeoff a tiny luminescent green frog popped out of the vent and landed on the right side control column, after a while jumped onto the face of the instrument panel and eventually onto the inside of the windshield where he stayed for most of the trip. The flight was surprisingly not too bad, some light rain and lots of cloud layers but within a few miles of windshield
From Baramita we gave a courtesy ride back to Mabaruma to a couple of carpenters that had been away from home for a couple of months on the way we had to stop back at Matthews Ridge to pick up the patient that I had left there earlier to make room for the passengers to Baramita. Submit We had a call late Thursday from the Doctor in Mabaruma. They had a critical patient and their initial assessment was tetanus as he was unable to open his jaw (lockjaw) and other symptoms consistent with tetanus. They felt he needed to be evacuated however it was too late for us to make the flight before dark plus he really should have oxygen during transport and there is no portable system available here with the MOH. The only option was for them to ask the airline that flies the regular flight to bring in theirs so that we could use it to medivac the patient. This is something we have done before but it is not a very effective way to provide the care. I went to bed prepared to get the call early to fly but instead the call came to say the patient had died early in the morning, and the later assessment was that he had likely died from a stroke, explaining the paralysis. I was asked instead, to fly out three pregnant women. None were critical but met the criteria as “high risk” deliveries. When I got to Georgetown I started making some calls and inquiries and Dion, the “go to” guy at Davis Memorial put me in contact with someone that had a used portable oxygen setup. It was kind of expensive ($450.00 US), but still less than a brand new one so I took it and we are now equipped to provide oxygen to those patients that require it. This is something that could easily make the difference between life and death in some cases. I know that the newborn with pneumonia that I took out with the borrowed oxygen a few weeks ago probably wouldn’t have survived without it. Thankfully he held on long enough for us to get it. On the return trip I carried two young moms with newborns and a man that was paralyzed from the waist down from being run over with a tractor. I discovered that the man didn’t have his own wheelchair yet so we got one to him that we had brought down in the container, thanks to someone in Kelowna for donating that. He was quite happy to get some wheels. A couple of days earlier Laura had taken in a young boy with a radius/ulna fracture. Because of his age, and the fact that he was unaccompanied, she arranged for him to be admitted and treated at Davis Memorial under their program for indigenous people set up by Heidi Wilson. The surgeon was going to operate later on Friday so I had to leave him there. As I was leaving, Dr. Wilson and the surgeon were headed out to get the Dr.’s cordless drill to use for an upcoming surgery, we improvise at all levels here. I heard today the boy is doing well, and he should be able to return home in a few days. Submit Here is something exciting. We have talked about the charcoal treatment protocol for snakebites and the kits we have put together to apply that treatment, well it was used this week on two patients at the hospital. In one case there is question as to whether the bite he received was
venomous but in the other case a 10 year old girl was bit on the finger and she subsequently killed it and it was the locally feared Labaria.
Submit Once the major repairs were completed on the plane ourselves along with Keith, Anthony and Cassia met up with Romeo from Shell Beach at Kumaka, he had his brand new wooden boat with a 200 hp Yamaha, that’ll inflate your nasal cavities! We did slow down a couple of times during the hour long ride to try and get some pictures of the Scarlet Ibis’ in the trees along the river, they are sneaky though, they fly just far enough into the trees that you can’t get a good picture. The arrival at the beach is an adventure in itself, the surf wasn’t too big but it will wash over the back of the boat so the guys on the beach lay out poles then as the boat hits the sand everybody bails out, then you drag the boat up above the high tide line.
The turtle conservation camp is a temporary affair that they have to move every year or two due to erosion; they have thatch shelters set up with tents under them and a cooking hut with an open fire set up on a wooden platform. The people there have been working to protect the turtles for 20 years now, they used to be turtle hunters and they were converted to protectors. The turtles come onto the beach to lay their eggs at night and typically on a rising tide so our first walk up the beach was at 8:30pm and amazingly we found a turtle almost right away. The giant Leatherback turtle had already laid its eggs and was just finishing covering them up when we found it, they are truly huge, about the size of a single bed with flippers. They are completely oblivious to anything other than the task at hand and ignore us as we gather to watch and even touch it’s back and flippers, in spite of it’s size and prehistoric appearance they are surprisingly streamlined. Their flippers mold nearly seamlessly into its shell however that shape is designed for water and the turtle high centres on a four inch diameter piece of driftwood and flails helplessly for a few seconds before dragging itself into the surf and vanishing into the foam. You can read more about the turtles, Shell Beach and the Conservancy at http://www.gmtcs.org.gy/ .
We sleep through the 2am patrol as no more turtles are spotted, practically at the crack of dawn the kids are out in the crashing waves where they happily spent nearly the entire day interspersed with burying each other in the sand and playing with Nobody (the camp dog). They had to be careful though as there are quite a few Man-O-War jellyfish floating on the surface. Also at the camp was a group of high school students getting their first look at the turtles and learning about their lifecycle and the concept of conservation, the Conservancy sponsors kids from all over Guyana during the turtle season. We stayed one more night and in spite of a few more hours of traipsing up and down the beach with kids who had no desire to have their eyes open we spotted no more turtles but just seeing the one was an amazing thing and it was well worth the trip out. Our hosts were gracious and eager to share the history and of the people and their own families, the community of Almond Beach is isolated primarily due to the cost of transportation and communications are poor leaving little support for the medical worker. We are looking into the possibility of air drops on the beach for medicines and some food requirements, the Conservancy does a lot to help but they only operate the camp for about six months a year. The area is under constant erosion as well and the community school that was once a distance from sea is now only a few yards from the surf and will have to be relocated within the next year.
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The rainy season has begun and that instantly brings on a whole host of insect invasions such as swarms of flying termites that cover everything then shed their wings and crawl off to presumably begin devouring the closest piece of wood. Moths are back in abundance, from little tiny yellow ones to golden ones that are fully the size of my outstretched hand. Then there are these black one inch long flying beatles, they whir around like little out of control helicopters crashing noisily into walls, furniture and us then fall helplessly onto their backs, in the morning we sweep them up by the dozens. Oddly the majority of these invasions only last a day or two before rotating on to the next species. On the first day and night of the really heavy rain the frogs began croaking at a tremendous volume, apparently the beginning of the mating season, now a few days later the standing water is clogged with long gelatinous strings of black frog eggs, I assume that will be the next onslaught. Submit Since I am so far behind on blog entries I am just going to start with today and add on what I have missed afterwards. The rainy season has truly begun, this afternoon the thunder was rolling, yesterday I heard that local Amerindian lore is that if you eat the head of an armadillo the rains will fall, I am thinking if that were so the armadillo population must have taken a bit hit last night. The grassy field across the road has become a lake and the frogs are croaking at a desperate volume. The unfortunate thing is that there is a boy at the clinic with a head injury, he is stable for now but he has lost the hearing in one ear since yesterday. We had him in the plane earlier to depart but the weather came down again and we are now waiting for a break to get him out. Submit We would like to make you aware of a shortfall, separate from our family support, we need some help with airplane fuel, we are doing all we can to minimize our dependence on donors for fuel and we actually now have some agreements with the local Government and the Health Authority that will allow us to get reimbursed for fuel for at least some of the flights we make. The current problem is that to get to where we are now we have used up nearly all of the operations resources we had on hand providing those essential flights and maintenance. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Wings for Humanity Foundation,
Guyana Project 1281 Highway 33 East Kelowna, BC V1P 1M1 Canada Tel: (250) 491-1498 Online donations; http://www.flywfh.org/donate/index.htm In the USA; Adventist World Aviation, Inc. Online donations; http://flyawa.org/article.php?id=5 Submit In the air again. We finished re-assembling the tail on Wednesday, Keith painted it up so that you can hardly tell that the work was done. The only problem was that when he went to fasten the new tail skid on the bolt failed to catch the threads in the anchor nut, after much consternation we had to give up and wait to get a new bolt on a trip to Georgetown. On Thursday though Keith went with me to Port Kaituma for a flight and we had to wait for passengers, while we were waiting we found a small machine shop and they were actually able to thread us a new bolt, we were quite amazed. Back in Mabaruma we were able to attach the bolt in time for another flight later in the afternoon to Kwebanna. Keith and his brother Darien have made the skid from nylon and it is designed to spread and absorb the impact in the event of a tail strike thereby reducing the chance of damage. Production skids for tricycle Cessna’s should be available soon, contact them at 250 503-1999.
On the way back we ran up a small creek for a side trip, we stopped for lunch in the boat in the mangroves, kidney beans and bread, the kids said it was delicious. The kids swam from the boat in the main river, they tell us that the caimans are up the creek “feeding” and the piranhas are also upriver because there is salt in the water here this time of year so we felt pretty safe.
When we got back to the place where we launched the boat the tide was out and the bottom of the wooden ramp was covered in a thick layer of silty mud. The kids got out and kept trying to walk up but would start to slide then get their grip and try again, eventually most of them fell into the mud or slid of the end into the creek. By the time they were done they were almost completely caked in mud and we had to take them to another part of the creek where they could rinse some of it off. Tomorrow we are headed out to Shell Beach, about one hour by speedboat, we will stay for two or three days and hopefully be able to see some of the giant leatherback turtles coming in to lay their eggs on the beach. We will let you know how it goes.
Submit Nearing completion, by dusk tonight we had the airplane fully assembled with just a few rigging issues remaining before test flights and hopefully acceptable weather tomorrow to paint the new section. Note the new tail skid that Keith brought, I will have more information about that after we get it fully installed.
Submit Yesterday Anthony, Cassia, Jacob and Zachary assembled our first batch of charcoal treatment kits for snakebites. We will be distributing these to all of the health clinics in the region to be used as a first treatment for snake bites, if applied soon after the bite charcoal has a very good success rate at removing the toxins and significantly reducing the effects.
Submit Today at the Mabaruma airstrip. Keith begins reassembly of tail section under the careful supervision of Roy and his brother Troy. Roy is a regular assistant at the airstrip, affectionately known as "Captain Underpants". After two weeks without rain today we had a few showers, we have managed to keep our work area fairly dry but this project definitely reinforces the need for a hanger at the Mabaruma airstrip.
Special thanks to Spring Aviation in Kamloops, BC http://www.springaviation.com/ for providing the rear bulkhead assembly (shown above), at a substantial discount Submit “It looks like a dog without a tail” said Roy, one of the Regional Administration’s drivers, after watching us for a while. By noon on Sunday we had the entire tail feathers removed along with the last section of the tail skin that requires replacement. The repairs are going very well, Keith has fabricated a new aft skin and primed it so it will be ready to start riveting first thing in the morning. Laura has already started removing some of the control components in preparation for re-rigging the airplane as soon as the tail is reassembled.
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Keith Swartz is generously spending his holiday time here to do some repairs and modifications to the plane, Keith and his children Anthony and Cassia arrived into Georgetown late on Wednesday then on Thursday after some reorganization of baggage we flew out to Mabaruma. As Thursday was a holiday the Mabaruma church group had a picnic at Brother George’s house, we arrived just in time for the remains of pots of “cook-up” (rice and beans cooked in coconut milk), and “provisions” (plantain, cassava, eddo and other roots cooked in a soup), it was really good. After their introduction to local cuisine we then walked down to a place called Kissing Rocks just a bit farther down the road where several of us ended up swimming in the creek. Anthony, Cassia, Jake and Zack have been spending their time riding bikes and exploring the fields, they leave the house armed to the teeth with bows and arrows, slingshots and hatchets. The vultures are now flying away at the first sight of them coming. The Swartz’s brought a couple of boxes of donated bibles, last week at Blackwater I asked how many people had bibles with them or at home and only about three of thirty indicated they did, it will be a real blessing to them to get one of their own.
We will post details and progress on the plane as we get underway on Sunday.
It was my birthday last week too and Karen made me Black Forest cake with a few Guyanese twists such as candied cherries and Dream Whip, it was really good. Submit We were held up in Georgetown for over three weeks with maintenance issues for the plane, we were specifically waiting for a replacement cylinder for the engine to be shipped and then cleared through customs for something less than a king’s ransom. We got ourselves airborne again last Thursday and were right back in the thick of things with flying and getting reorganized after being gone so long. Surprisingly the rats and insects didn’t completely take over the house but there was a lot of cleaning to do. A couple of nights ago I was standing in the kitchen when a bat started swooping back and forth across the room. The cat began launching herself into the air in attempts to catch it with each pass, as I dodged the bat it got lower and lower until the cat made a successful snatch. She then took it into a corner and ate it…icky but better than having bats populating the house! Laura and I have made quite a few medical emergency flights in the last week, including: Man with a gangrenous foot that had to be amputated. Two victims of a truck and trailer that had rolled down a hill near Port Kaituma, Woman with advanced labour that was not progressing, Man that had been chopped in the side of the head by a cutlass and was developing paralysis on the opposite side of his body. Interestingly we were visiting with Dr. Sam (a volunteer Dr. from Britain), a couple of nights ago and we were talking about Ecclampsia, an illness women can experience during pregnancy, if left untreated it results in seizures and eventually death. Anyway the next day (Thursday), I got a call to Baramita, the women was four months pregnant and was already unconscious and seizing when I got there, as they carried her out she was making terrible rasping/gasping sounds and was seized nearly rigid. Once we got her lying down she was completely unresponsive and still seizing, it was very difficult to detect breathing but she had a pulse, the really eerie thing was that her eyes were wide open. Fortunately I had brought a nurse with me from Georgetown, there wasn’t much she could do but at least she could monitor the patient, after we landed her level of consciousness began to improve although she still had no idea where she was. I also took in a newborn baby that was not able to breath without oxygen, we borrowed a portable bottle from one of the local airlines to transport the baby to Georgetown, the portable tank ran out just before we landed and fortunately they had some in the ambulance. He was starting to turn blue as got him into the ambulance. Last I heard the baby was diagnosed with pneumonia but was recovering. On a return trip I brought back a 10 year old boy that I had taken in a couple of months ago, he had gone in for surgery on his leg, his foot was turned out to the side from an injury or a birth defect. Now his foot is pointed the correct direction. Yesterday on the trip to Baramita I took two young Amerindian girls home with their newborns, the moms were 17 and 20. Tomorrow we off up the river to Blackwater for church, the Zodiac is all inflated and ready to go first thing. Next week our friend Keith Swartz is coming down from British Columbia to do a few things on the plane and his two kids, Anthony and Cassia should run our boys ragged. Submit Today I was able to do hygiene again. Finally! This morning I went to the Cheddi Jagan Dental Centre in Georgetown, where I met Dr. Karen, and our driver Ron (who I later found out doubles as an excellent dental assistant). We drove up along the East Coast for a bit, and then stopped at another town, where there is a Greyhound bus that’s been donated by a Rotary Club from the U.S.A. We got in the bus, and drove for about 10 minutes to a public school down the road. The bus is equipped with 4 portable dental chairs, cavitrons, a sterilizer, and even a wall mounted x-ray unit. Unfortunately the x-ray unit isn’t being used since there isn’t a lead wall to protect the rest of the people in the bus from any secondary rays! When supplies run low, the dentist just send a wish list to the Rotary Club, and they get restocked!! Unfortunately the rest of the country doesn’t have such luck!
The bus is 10 years old, but it uses a generator that powers the dental equipment and provides air conditioning! I was working with a dentist that I met in Mabaruma last November. She had told me about the bus she worked on, and that if I’m ever in Georgetown I should come see it. We were joined by a Dentex (someone with an education somewhere between a Dental Hygienist and a Dentist), so there were 3 of us working. The miracle today was that when I went, my friend Dr. Karen, told me that I could just sit and watch if I wanted too. Well after 20 minutes of that, I figured I should get to doing something, but the problem is that I wear nitrile gloves due to the fact that latex and I don’t get along. I had left my gloves in Mabaruma not thinking that I’d be doing anything here in Georgetown where I’d need to wear them. This morning Jud was looking through the container and found some skin barrier lotion which he gave to me along with a scrub top with Montana‘s cookhouse saloon written on it! So with a prayer, and looking mighty professional I’m sure, I applied the lotion, and put on the latex gloves that I haven’t worn for at least 5 years. I kept applying the lotion between each patient, and I didn’t get any reaction whatsoever! It was fun cleaning the kids teeth, even though we had no suction., and no overhead lights. The garbage can and the sun were surprisingly adequate substitutes today. I also missed using fluoride trays, but you learn to make do. Tomorrow I’m going to do it all over again! Submit
By Jerrie Lou Wickwire
Where to start? I have just spent 18 wonderful days in Paradise with my family, Jud, Karen, Jake and Zack Wickwire. Well, it certainly seemed like Paradise at the time. Jake, Zack and I spent some really fun times wandering in the fields around where they live, they with their bows and arrows, sling shots and even a wood sword, all eventually in their own cases for easy “traveling”. We did some planning and sewing of interesting things. Those boys always have great ideas for the sewing machine! We all went to Kumaka market a couple of times, went by boat Aruka River then the Barima River 1 ½ to 2 hours to Blackwater for church services with some lovely people. We went to Kissing Rocks, and to Hosororo Falls to sit in the cool water in the “jungle”. We shared Coconut water, cocoa sticks blended with milk and sugar, all manner of strange fruits and vegetables too with Brother George and his wife. Karen and the boys took me to visit to Laura’s friend, Bibi and family where she shared some of her specialty items, like Achar, a spicy Indian relish made with tamarind and/or a fruit that grows there called Sourie. They have small packets of peanuts that Norifa, Bibi’s daughter, sells at school and also a tamarind treat that has a bit of hot pepper and sugar that she also sells at school. But unlike Paradise, this world is like our world in many ways. As the pilots for Wings for Humanity in that area, Jud and Laura work with the local Medex people and doctor where needed and often there is an emergency somewhere. They are a blessing for the area, able to move people from remote spots into Georgetown where there is more help available.
Jud, Karen, Laura and Bill can tell those stories better, but we all do get caught up in some of these situations and wonder how the stories end up. They were able to give a few of the small stuffed animals that were donated to some children that were hurting, and later saw two of those children with their stuffed toys still in hand.
Now to start saving for my next trip there, and maybe staying longer next time. Jerrie Lou Wickwire Submit
Jud’s Mother was visiting for close to three weeks in March, she had a great time catching up and getting the local tours from the boys, we will be posting her journal here shortly. We caught up with a lot of sewing and the boys are well on their way to being tailors. The Labore’s returned as well so we have been busy catching up and getting reorganized so we have been a bit remiss on the blog entries. Just as a follow up to the two mothers in labour, Jud returned two healthy moms and babies back to Mabaruma a few days later, they each now have a little stuffy to remind them and their mothers of their flights. Thanks to all who donated the small stuffed animals that we give to the children and babies we fly, often children that are medivaced out go without family or personal possessions so sometimes when we load them in the ambulance they are clutching that stuffy as their only possession.
Annual inspection. Once a year we have to complete what is known as an annual inspection on the airplane, we open up all of the inspection panels and inspect, check and test virtually all of the mechanical and structural components of the airplane. For this inspection we need an Airframe Inspector (AI) to be present and this year and last Kyle Kennedy has come down and taken time away from his work and family to work with us and GAMAS to get our airplanes back in the air again, we are very grateful for his help. We were out at the airport for long hours everyday for several days, typically this process takes close to a week and this was no different. These inspections usually reveal a few items that need attention, which is the purpose of completing it. This time we found one of the cylinders on the engine had low compression, enough that it had to be removed and when we did we discovered that the exhaust valve guide was worn so that the valve would not seat (close), properly. Solutions for problems like this are not so simple when you are in a place like Guyana, we explored all of the local options for parts but in the end it was decided to have a new one sent from the States and at the time of this writing it is enjoying first class treatment in a Fedex plane and seemingly funding the operations of Fedex for the day. Once we receive it we should be able to reassemble it in a day and be flying again and get the airplane back to Mabaruma.
In a couple of weeks our friend Keith Swartz and his son Anthony will be coming down, Keith and his brother have been doing the maintenance on our plane back in Canada for several years and he is going to help us with a few maintenance items that need to be taken care of. He will be installing a better set of inertia reel shoulder harness’ for the front seats, doing some rigging on the controls and a bit of sheet metal work. We will show you that as it happens. Submit March 17, 2008, This is a good example of how planning and events are constantly shifting; a few days ago there were two flights anticipated to Baramita with a stop in Port Kaituma to drop of a family member of the group on Blackwater who is also a bible worker. There was a patient at the Mabaruma Hospital that was from Baramita as well as a couple of hundred pounds of food and clothing from Food for the Poor. There was also a second full plane load of foodstuffs for the shop in Baramita, something we don’t normally transport but the community has been cut off from the road (trail) by heavy rains and the one commercial aircraft that services the area is not available because of a maintenance issue. The first change was that the supplier of the foodstuffs wasn’t going to be ready until the next day, that’s ok, just one trip with a stop in Port Kaituma. But when I called the hospital to see if they could transport the patient to the airstrip they informed me that the Port Kaituma hospital had called with a mother in labour that urgently needed to be evacuated. Based on that I changed my plan to direct to Baramita, drop the food and passenger then back to Port Kaituma to drop the other passenger and pickup the patient for the flight to Georgetown. We had to drive over to the hospital here to pickup the patient from Baramita because they couldn’t take him to the airstrip, at the airstrip I started loading up with the things for Baramita (80lbs of beans, boxes of clothes etc.), I also put on most of the baggage for Port Kaituma before it was mentioned that there were actually two passengers for Port Kaituma. After a quick re-think of the plan I off-loaded everything for Baramita and sent the patient back to the hospital with Karen after telling him we would make that flight later in the day. I dropped the two passengers in Port Port Kaituma and loaded up the very pregnant mother, I don’t know the exact nature of why the baby wasn’t coming but they had her on valium so we folded her into the seat then they gave her a bit more valium so she had no idea what was happening. On the return flight from Georgetown to Mabaruma I brought a woman home that I had flown out a few days earlier for treatment. Back in Mabaruma we again drove to the hospital for the patient for Baramita and again loaded up the beans and boxes, this time there was room for Karen to ride along as she has never seen Baramita. After all the changes we arrived back in Mabaruma at 5pm with four hours of flying time for the day, substantially different from what I had been expecting. Submit Expect the unexpected…again. I had no plans today for flying but I was awakened at just after 5am by a call from the Medex, they had a mother that had been in labour since the day before and since 9:30pm the baby’s foot had been out! I pre-flighted the airplane in the dark and we got underway at first light, the flight was uneventful and fortunately the ambulance was there waiting at the airport. I found out later that the baby was delivered by C-section and both mother and baby appeared to be ok. On the return flight the nurse brought her six year old nephew because his mother was coming on the steamer in a few days. He was pretty brave at first but we had to stop at Matthew’s Ridge and at first was trying to stifle his chest heaves but by the time we took off he was full blown sobbing for his mommy. Fortunately a few minutes after takeoff he flopped down across the back seats and fell fast asleep, so much so that we had to wake him up in Mabaruma where he seemed to be feeling much better.
Back in Mabaruma I had a brief respite before another call came, and this is where it gets kind of weird, they had another mother in labour that was not progressing, in this case the baby had one arm out! Again the baby couldn’t be born that way so we had just enough time to load up and make it to Georgetown before dark. The Labore’s (our partner family), arrived back in Georgetown yesterday as well so they were surprised to see me back at the apartment for the night, we spent the evening catching up surrounded by the mountains of baggage that they brought. Tomorrow my (Jud's), mother is arriving for a visit, we are all very excited to have our very first visitor, the boys particularly thrilled and hopefully more about Grandma than the oodles of goodies they are sure to get. Submit Every day brings something new and unexpected here. Yesterday morning we were finishing breakfast when a call came that there was a boy that had been bitten by a snake and his condition was already quite advanced, to the point that he was semi conscious and coughing up blood. At the time of the call he was already in a truck headed to the airstrip, in 20 minutes I was airborne with the six year old boy (Ravi) and Dexter Bourne, one of the nurses, they also sent a 13 year old boy (Roy), with what they described as “severe anemia”. We loaded the plane in just a few minutes, just after I reached across and latched the passenger door Roy vomited down the side of the door and seat, Karen was still at the door so I opened it again and we quickly mopped it up as best we could, unfortunately that was the least of my concerns as Ravi’s condition was much more perilous. En route Ravi was in and out of consciousness and convulsing, when I called ATC for an ambulance request I made it clear that the patient was very critical. On arrival the ambulance was just coming through the gate so they were quickly on their way to the hospital. I waited for a couple of hours (I spent most of the time cleaning the plane), to see if the nurse needed to go back to Mabaruma, unfortunately the news was that Ravi had died just as they were taking him into the hospital. Our response time was excellent with the plane and there was nothing more we could have done in that regard however it is incredibly sad to see this small boy suffer and die and so far from his family. At the time of this writing it quite possible that his mother may still not know of his death. Ravi was bit by the snake sometime the previous afternoon near his home far up the Barima River, his uncle and another family member began the journey down the river shortly afterwards in a dugout, I believe with a small motor. They travelled for the entire night arriving in Mabaruma the next morning where they called me to fly him out. There are small clinics scattered along the rivers usually staffed by a single health worker however there is no treatment available at any of them for a snake bite. There is something that we can do to help though, activated charcoal, a treatment often used in North American hospitals for poisonings. Snake venom is a poison. Charcoal has been proven over and over again to be an excellent initial treatment, in many cases experienced here by Guyana Aviation Medical Services the patients were released from hospital with no further treatment, particularly where the charcoal is applied shortly after the bite. We have been working on putting together kits for distribution to the clinics and we have everything already on hand except a quantity of charcoal. There is a distributor in Georgetown that has been known to have, and has indicated that they will sell to us, but they have not had any in the last six months. Our second plan is to use cooking charcoal that they make here and grind it up however due to the rains they have not been making any. After this tragic event the Regional Health Officer is willing to work with us to train the village health workers on the use of charcoal as a first line of defence. We need to get at least one 50 pound bag shipped down to Guyana so that we can get the first set of kits distributed, we are working on a crate to be shipped shortly from Michigan with parts for the plane and in it we can get a couple more bags to use as required. If anyone would like to help with charcoal, shipping, parts for the kits or distribution to the clinics it would be greatly appreciated. Submit
Submit Today we went to Blackwater for the church service again, we were supposed to go last week but just before we were to head down to the river with the boat I received a call for a medivac over in Matthews Ridge, a pregnant women in distress, by the time I got back to Mabaruma it was too late to go to Blackwater. It was a beautiful day, we only had one brief rain shower while we were in church. The Zodiac inflatable performed very well, a bit crowded but very fuel efficient and just as fast as the church boat that uses twice as much fuel. The trip took just over 1 1/2 hours, I think it's just over 30 miles, there are a few pictures here to capture the trip, there were quite a few people there, in addition to the dugouts they went and collected a lot of them with a couple of power boats. There were at least 50 people there including children, they are so happy to have someone come there, even if we were a week late! Again we plan on visiting on the second Sabbath of each month, we are looking forward to it, this is our family's "project" church group, they need help with bibles, hymnals, study materials and soon a new church building. On the way back we meandered up a side channel in the mangrove where we saw a couple of Blue Morph butterflies flashing in the sunlight and some amazing root formations. It makes for a long day with all the preparations but it was a good day.
Tomorrow I am off to Georgetown with some patients from the Hospital and then over to the Bethany airstrip where Jim Craik, the pilot with Guyana Adventist Medical Service is going to give me a hand completing another 100 hr inspection on the plane. On Friday I flew a team of seven Medex and Health Workers into Baramita for a three day vaccination tour, I also took over an 80 lb bag of kidney beans for free distribution from Food for the Poor. When I go back to pickup the Health Workers next week I will take a full planeload of food and clothes, Baramita is one of the poorest and underserved areas of the country, they have little access to outside food and health benefits so anything we can do to assist has a significant impact. Submit Joanie: This story begins sometime back in August, Joanie is an elderly member of the Mabaruma SDA Church and she had complained to Laura about an abscess on her breast, Laura felt that while she should probably get it checked in Georgetown, there was a chance that it was just an abscess. Laura began treating her at home everyday with charcoal compress’ in hopes that it would reduce in size, after about a week of this Jonnie finally “mentioned” that she had seen a Dr. in Georgetown and a biopsy had been taken, she was just waiting for the results. You just can’t ask enough history questions of people that come to you with a health problem. With this information Laura pursued the results of her biopsy, the answer was that it was in fact cancer and she would need to go Georgetown for surgery. We took her in with the plane and in the weeks and actually months that followed we made numerous inquiries as to the status of her surgery only to hear that “she hadn’t had it yet”. At one point she actually made her way back to Mabaruma to be with family for a bit and we again took her back to Georgetown for scheduled surgery. I am not sure when she finally did get the surgery but she did and by then the cancer had spread considerably, she returned to Mabaruma in the middle of January to be with her daughter. Her condition continued to deteriorate and then last Saturday afternoon the entire church met at her daughter’s home for a prayer service for her healing, by this time she was showing little signs of response. On Wednesday Jacob and I went to the church for prayer meeting only to find the building locked, we were going to drive over to another someone’s house to see what was happening when a church member appeared out of the dark. George told us that Joanie had died that afternoon and everyone was meeting at her home to comfort the family, so off we went to the bottom of Hosororo Hill. It seems that viewing the body is a show of respect here so we went upstairs where she was lying on her bed wrapped in a sheet, everyone was meeting in the house next door and we spent a bit of time with the family. Now when a person dies here it activates a procedure significantly different than in North America. There is not funeral home or undertaker here so it is up to family and friends to deal with all the arrangements, and time is of the essence. That night plans were made to build a temporary box for the body to rest in, someone was sent to bring back a boatful of ice first thing in the morning from a place down the river that makes it for the fishing boats. Others are sent to notify the men that build tombs and the carpenter that will construct the coffin and others. Since we are equipped with a vehicle, utility trailer and practically the only power tools in the area I was instantly recruited for a variety of things. First thing the following morning I took the generator and circular saw back to the house where we quickly built the temporary box so the body could be put on ice as soon as possible. I had a flight to make so I headed up to the airstrip while the coffin builders got to work right there under the house. The flight didn’t go so well actually I was to go to Port Kaituma but within 10 miles of there the clouds settled in and we were unable to land, so my passengers came back to Mabaruma. Anyway upon my return I hooked up the trailer and picked up several bags of sand, stone and cement to take up to the cemetery at the top of Hosororo Hill where they were to build the tomb. Here they rarely bury their dead but place them in a concrete block tomb that sits on top of the ground, each one is made upon someone’s death. I made several more trips up the hill with concrete blocks and wood to form up the roof of the tomb, when they ran out of lumber we tore the walls off of the chicken coop. All the while the casket builders are working steadily just a few feet from where the body lay on ice, they actually did a pretty nice job, soft mahogany that they call “red cedar”, all cut, planed and sanded by hand and custom fitted to the deceased. There were four guys on the hired tomb building crew, two older brothers were in charge and in the course of the afternoon the two of them managed to consume an entire bottle of “High Wine”, some sort of a clear and inexpensive alcohol. The level and alignment of the blocks left quite a bit to be desired however with the masonry parging on both sides they managed to straighten it up ok. With the tomb finished up by about 5:30 we headed back to the house where the casket was getting the finishing touches of decorative strips nailed to the sides and a cross to the top. At this point Brother Bourne decided that the casket needed a window, apparently he had some glass at home and this would be a better way of viewing the body at the church than removing the lid, particularly if there was a smell. So with that early the next morning found me again loading up the jeep with tools and generator to cut an opening for the glass before they placed the body, Brother Bourne simply removed some of the trim pieces to use as stops for the glass in the opening.
Submit Well, we are back in Mabaruma. It was nice to be in the big city for a little bit, but it’s nice to be away from the craziness too! We arrived back here on Wednesday morning. We were met at the airport by Mr. Cheung, who does a lot of our running around to the docks for us, and who picks us up at the airport whenever he can. Unfortunately Jud was unable to come back to the house and unload all our luggage and carry it upstairs, because he had to fly away on another flight back to Georgetown. (Actually Mr. Cheung carried a lot of the boxes and bags for me;) Jud had warned me that the bugs had figured that we’d vacated the house, and that they were trying to take it back!! He had been back to the house during the week that we’d been away, and he’d fortunately done some spraying for us. There are these crazy black beetles about 1 inch in length that we find lying on their backs not quite dead, wiggling their legs. When I take a broom to swish them out the door, they cling on to the broom and I have to give it a good flick to get them off!! Anyway, that wasn’t the worst of it all! We have this great new battery operated fridge, and it was working wonderfully before we went away. In fact we even put some extra things in the fridge before we went away just because we knew the bugs wouldn’t get them there. hah! Well, I opened the fridge to be met by a wave of warm stinky air. Unfortunately the batteries went dead because the temporary charger couldn’t keep up with them while we were gone. Jud has a more powerful charger, but we need to be here to monitor it when he uses it. Anyway, I don’t know exactly what they are called, but they looked like little maggots, and they were all over. How I wished that I knew how to fly the plane!!!! Well, it’s all cleaned up, and the fridge is working wonderfully again. Don’t worry, bleach is a wonderful cleaner for everything!! Unfortunately you can tell that by some of our clothes. oops. Home school is going ok. Please pray for us. The boys are doing well, but I don’t have them as focused on their work like their other teachers did. They are currently learning their times tables, and about Canada and maps in general. Reading is going well too. We were almost out of books, but then a package arrived, and we have a few more to keep them going. Today the boys were busy chasing down a baby lamb for our landlord. The lamb needs to have it’s umbilical cord sprayed so it doesn’t get infected, and I think it has another sore that needs disinfectant. Anyway they were chasing it around, and the three of them couldn’t catch it, so I guess it’s doing ok. The boys also go off in the fields with their slingshots trying to hit cans that they put up. Zack takes his bow and arrows for extra ammo!! Every once in a while they take a shot at a vulture (who like to eat the lambs), but so far no animals have been injured in their hunting expeditions! Submit Here is something that had never happened to me before, our power goes off at around 10:30pm so night time excursions to the facilities require a flashlight. As usual I was still half asleep and trying to stay that way, suddenly something fell on my neck and it didn’t really just fall but it sort of slapped and stuck in a wet sort of way. I think Steve Irwin said something about “fight or flight”, anyway flight wasn’t really an option so fight it was, after much yelling and flailing I was able to determine that there wasn’t anything still one me. Once my heart rate settled to something less than my post marathon levels I started looking around to find out what it was, there stuck on the wall was a small frog. Submit We were able to get the Zodiac out for a test run the other day, we can load it up on the utility trailer here at the house then tow it behind the Prowler about 3 km down to where a small creek runs along the road where we can launch, it’s then a short distance out to the main river. We even tried a little fishing but I think we need some local advise on where and how to fish. We plan on taking it up to the Blackwater church next Saturday for the service, we get a lot of strange and sceptical looks with the inflatable, most people have never seen anything like it and assume that it will “pop” with the slightest impact, I’m not worried.
We hadn’t been receiving any parcels at the post office since before Christmas then suddenly yesterday we get four, the date of mailing varied from Oct. 22nd to Dec. 20th or so, we were beginning to wonder if some had been lost. Somewhere there was a pile of parcels that got set aside during the Christmas rush and finally someone got around to checking them on through. Today we are waiting for our last few boxes of personal items that we shipped from Georgetown to Mabaruma, the steamer arrived yesterday, it takes several days for the unloading. Perishables come off first followed by the individual crates that they lift out with the crane, after that they start with the smaller items that are stacked inside the hold including hundreds of bags of flour, sugar and rice. Each of the bags is hand carried to the slings under the hatch then a bundle is lifted up onto the wharf, again each bag is carried into the warehouse. When a tractor and trailer arrives to move them to the next place each bag is carried out and loaded and several men accompany the vehicle to its destination which is often another boat where the process is repeated. The ship is loaded in exactly the same way; lots of manual labour! Submit I can’t say for certain that the rainy season is over but the weather has been much better for flying lately. I had a couple of serious medivacs last week, I was called to Bemichi where a man had been hit on the head by a falling tree and he had an obvious deformity and severe swelling. I did hear a couple of days later that he was recovering which was good to hear.
The next day I had a call to Matthews Ridge where the outcome wasn’t as good. I departed from Georgetown with just enough time and fuel to make the flight, I picked up the young man who I found out had been cut or stabbed in several places but the worst was to his lower abdomen where he was partially eviscerated. He was conscious when we loaded him and they sent along a village nurse/orderly, I also ended up taking his wife and about one year old son in the front seat. About ½ way back to Georgetown the nurse gestured to me that she was unable to get a pulse and then indicated that he had died. My immediate concern was that the wife would find out and react in some way that might not be good with her in the front seat, fortunately as near as I could tell she wasn’t aware of what had happened. After we landed I took the baby while she was informed by the nurse, her reaction was quite composed, I expect she had either already figured it out or was expecting it. The ambulance that we had called was no longer needed and since he had died enroute the police needed to attend and furthermore since he had died from injuries sustained in a fight of some sort with his cousin it now was a murder. The police detective that attended could not understand why it had taken the man over 24 hours just to get from his home in the backdam (the jungle), to Matthews Ridge, he probably had to be carried in some way). Nor why the cousin had not been arrested, that was because the police in Matthews Ridge had only learned of the incident a few hours before and still had to send someone for at least day’s walk somewhere out in the jungle, you can be sure that he won’t be found unless he wants to be. Anyway it took a couple of hours before I was able to get the plane parked and head back to the house. A sad and unfortunate incident and nothing I could have done differently would have changed anything. Submit We were in Georgetown for about 10 days to take care of a few things including moving from our project house to an upstairs apartment, the Labore’s lived in the house for nearly a year while working on approvals to operate the airplane in the country. Now with both of our families in Mabaruma we don’t need as much space, the apartment will have better security and most importantly it costs a bit less. We still need a place in Georgetown as we often have to stay over when we have flights late in the day and there are times when our families need to spend a few days there, additionally when we have visiting volunteers it provides secure accommodations when needed. We had a long list of things to get done, it seems that if you take any kind of list here and average it out you can generally count on getting two things done in the course of a day, as we were told before we came, you have to lower your expectations of yourself. You may have heard Guyana in the news recently, a wanted criminal orchestrated the massacre of 11 men, women and children in there homes as part of a personal vendetta with the police. I won’t go into details here but if you go to BBC.com “Americas”, they provide good coverage of what has happened. We have not been too close to any of the events that have unfolded, there have been protests in the streets with burning of some vehicles and tires, there were fears of racial violence but so far the blame has been placed on an individual madman. We received caution advisories from both the US and Canadian Embassy’s so we have limited our movements in Georgetown, we have stopped using the busses which have a poor safety record anyway. As I write this we are back in Mabaruma where pretty much all is peaceful.
Here is a picture of the Arctic Cat, Prowler, super handy for us here.
Also I have heard second-hand that the boy with the head injury seems to be slowly improving, pretty limited information but if I find out more I will post it here.
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Yesterday (Saturday), we took the boat that belongs to the church up the Barima River to a place called Blackwater, it took close to an hour and a half and I would estimate it was around 30 miles. On the river there are few villages as you might picture them, instead there of concentrations of people living within a few miles of each other, all travel is by boat or dugout canoe as the jungle is too swampy to walk most of the time. For our first trip we took along a young man who was from the area along as a guide so we would know where to stop, it's a good thing too as I may have driven right by the place. In the Blackwater area there is a handful of people that have been meeting for close to two years; since the previous pastor conducted some meetings there, the current pastor has been there only once. We met one of the families here in Mabaruma previously, they come here occasionally for church services but it is quite costly for them to do so, the pastor had suggested that this might be a group that we could "adopt" and at this time we plan on returning about once a month to meet with them. As you can imagine leading a group is not something that comes naturally to Karen and I however I felt significantly moved that this was a place that we could really help the people. We weren't quite sure what to expect but we ended up leading the entire children's and adults programs for the service and they have about three hymnals that they used to have a song service. Not only do they need leadership in the church but also health education, for example one mother showed up with her two year old with a sucker in his mouth, once that was done she topped him off with a good drink of orange soda…breakfast of champions! The group is now meeting in a church that belongs to another denomination and they would like to build a church of their own, watch for this as a project in the future. It was fun to take the boat to church, next time we will take the Zodiac, it should use less gas, we just haven't had a chance to get it set-up yet. We should be in Georgetown later this week for a few days to make the moving arrangements from one house to another there and to dig a few more things out of the container to ship up here to Mabaruma. God's blessings, The Wickwire's Submit
Submit On the 26th I took the local medic over to Baramita to administer more vaccines, on the way we stopped at Matthews Ridge to pickup another medic but she didn’t show up at the airstrip so we went on to Baramita without her. Once we got there the medic discovered that there was one very sick baby there (whooping cough), so I took the baby and his mother back to Matthews Ridge, after a few calls on the HF radio from the plane I raised the medic who came out to the airstrip. Back in Baramita the medics continued with the vaccines and while I was waiting the rains came again, the strip had been relatively dry but after a couple of hours of heavy rain it was good and mucky again. This airplane is pretty dirty, there is even mud splashed way up on the vertical stabilizer, some of it comes off when I fly in the heavy rain but it is way overdue for a scrub.
On our arrival in Georgetown I figured that if he could move around in the plane he could probably climb out on his own
Wednesday and Thursday I worked on getting the more stuff moved out of the container and trying to coordinate a crane and a truck to arrive at the hospital at the same time in order to get it lifted and placed on the ground. The Guyana Ministry of Health came and collected the beds destined for the Mabaruma Hospital and transferred them to the
For church this week we found out that the Mabaruma church members were going to Wauna for the service, Wauna is about 10 miles away on a very rough road, it takes about 45 minutes to get there. At first we had fairly comfortable seating in the 15 passenger minibus, and then we picked up a few more people that then it was full, then more…and more until it was up to 25 or 26. Once we got underway it started to rain heavy so all of the windows were rolled up and the glass was steamed so it was hot and stuffy and we couldn’t see anything for most of the way although it seemed as thought the road was mostly underwater. Anyway we arrived safe and sore, and on the way back we had at least one more than on the way, next time we may just drive our own jeep. |
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Another
interesting case was a couple of weeks ago, a woman who had given birth at home
in her village, the baby was fine but the mother continued to bleed. Before she
was brought out they tried their local treatment which was to truss up her belly
so that her womb could not return to its normal position so in addition to
continuing to bleed she also became septic. (By the way I am speaking as a
layman with little medical knowledge) They were pushing saline to keep her blood
volume up and we had her on oxygen for the flight, it was my understanding that
she had basically unreadable blood pressure on her arrival at the hospital in
Georgetown and they immediately began a transfusion. She is recovering but it is
almost certain that she would have died without the transportation we were able
to provide. It is always encouraging to see cases where the outcome is
unquestionably better due to the availability of the “yellow airplane”
The
last few weeks we have been doing regular flights with basic foodstuffs for the
village of Baramita, it is nearly cut-off and we are the only airplane that is
making flights in. Last week I took three loads and today Laura is taking in
four, it’s still not enough but at least they are surviving and they are
incredibly grateful for what we are able to do.
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The birds are quite amazing too, there is a huge variety but the most
magnificent are the Macaws, their red, blue and yellow colours are so vivid,
when we were working on the plane a couple of days ago three of them flew right
by us, we have yet to get a good picture of one though. These blue birds
often sit outside the kitchen window and sing.
people are so eager to learn more but we don’t have the time to work with them one-on-one. The people in the Blackwater are excited too, they have arranged for them to stay at the school and are providing a boat for them to use to get around from house to house on the river. 
As we packed into the tiny jungle chapel I noticed a four stringed guitar resting in the corner of the platform at the front of the church. I was surprised to see a stringed instrument of any kind and this one looked not only a bit primitive but kind of like it had been rescued from a child’s box of discarded toys.
due to the streaming water. I spotted the airstrip as I was directly overhead then circled close to land, then it started to rain even harder. I ended up staying over in Gtn to wait for better weather, which was providential as the next morning we had a unexpected call that a volunteer was out at the international airport trying to meet up with us so I delayed the return until we could collect her.
We dropped a woman and her son in Maruka, they had been in for gall stone and an
appendectomy respectively, I gave the boy a camel Beanie Baby, not sure if he
knew what it was but he liked it. We made a stop in Matthews Ridge to pick up
passengers to take to Baramita from the Education Ministry that are setting up
the much needed lunch program in the school. The Baramita strip is getting
pretty rough and mucky in places, one tire started to sink on turning around and
it took nearly full power to keep from getting stuck and the mud was flying in
all directions.
This is Vanessa, she lives about 40 miles up the Barima River near the Amkar cabbage (heart of palm), cannery, her family earns their income by cutting the heart of palm in the jungle along the river and sell it to the cannery. On
Monday she was working with her family and the Labaria came out of the palm and struck her on the hand, you can still see the swelling. She had the courage and presence of mind to kill the snake
herself which proves the species, she was transported to the hospital in Mabaruma where she was
exhibiting the classic symptoms of the poison, the staff used the kit we had recently supplied to them to make a poultice to apply to her hand and she was also given a mixture orally. By the next day she was recovering and when I visited her yesterday she just wanted to go home and today I believe she is. We have more of the kits available and with this success we now have the full support of the local nursing staff and the Regional Health Officer. 
Laura flew the boy out that had the head injury the next morning when the weather cleared, his condition was unchanged, also on the flight was a girl with an eye injury/infection and a woman with a vaginal tumour that according to the doctor was the size of a grapefruit. Unfortunately at this time I don’t know their conditions and that is an area we need some help with, we really need a volunteer in Georgetown that will keep track of patients progress and locations to ensure that they are getting through the system. They would also be able to provide communication back to families and to advise us when they are ready to be taken back home. Many of the Amerindian patients have never been to Georgetown and just don’t know what to do or where to go if the hospital discharges them, medication regimes are difficult to understand and follow and sometimes all they have are the clothes that they were wearing when they took ill or were injured.
Plane
Labour! Friday was spent working on the plane at the Mabaruma Airstrip; new
shoulder harnesses for the front and an inertia reel safety device on the
pilot’s seat that keeps it from sliding back inadvertently. We also made sure
that we had everything ready to do the repair to the tail section starting on
Sunday, that will ground us for several days here in Mabaruma and we have to
ensure that we have everything here that we need before we start taking things
apart.
We
have not had any significant rain now for a couple of weeks and our water supply
is down to about three days worth at our present consumption so we will have to
implement conservation measures today.
I was most fortunate in seeing Jud and Laura in action my last day in Mabaruma. Our family was getting ready to fly to Georgetown when in came a call for a life threatening situation in Matthews Ridge. Jud went as pilot, Laura as attending nurse and I as a passenger. The patient was not there when we first arrived. But one of the local teachers had his students out for a walk and they loved looking the plane over. When the injured man arrived he was quickly placed in the plane and made a successful flight to Georgetown where an ambulance took him off to hospital in a stable condition.
Dr. Mario came by one evening and was quite distressed with the condition of a small child that came in one day. She was over a year old, but very small. He did what he could for her but we found out the next morning that had she died that night and he found it so very hard.
Too soon it was time for me to go home. I so enjoyed the time I had with Jake and Zack, Jud and Karen and even getting to know Laura, Bill, Dani
and Micah Labore. They all make a good team!
Today we took an opportunity to get out and try the off-road capabilities of our Prowler. The local furniture maker had offered to show us the way to Tiger Caves. The road less travelled proved to be no problem for our Cat even though a lot of the road was not visible. At the end of the road we walked along the top of a small ridge for a few minutes before dropping down into a gulley where we found the “cave”. We came prepared with our new headlamps, however they proved to not be particularly required as the cave was just a large crevice under an overhang. The bats however found it quite to their liking as many of them swirled around our heads and hung from the overhang. The mosquitoes too were the most vicious I have experienced here. Down in another gulley were two more “caves” with at least equal quantities of bats and true to the name of the caves we found fresh jaguar tracks in the mud. 
The funeral was supposed to be at 1:00pm, we waited until 1:30 and then went looking for the funeral procession, the Regional Administration was to send a tractor and trailer for the body, we eventually found the tractor loaded with family members and the casket in the back of a pickup also loaded with family. The service was fairly typical until the daughter who read the eulogy collapsed wailing as she was moving back to her seat. After the service at the church the procession had to go through the village of Kumaka and back out again then to Joanie’s house where the casket was removed and then placed back on the back of the truck for the trip up the hill to the tomb. The service was fairly short there but was somewhat prolonged by one of the sons collapsing onto the casket wailing and banking on the glass, at that point I was beginning to wonder whether that was such a great idea after all as it appeared he might break it. Eventually he was physically removed so that the casket could be slid into the tomb and the last blocks cemented in to close the opening. It was a bit of an eye opener for the boys, funerals are typically a pretty sedate affair at home but not so here, the entire process of dealing with a death is entirely different.
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Last week I did another circuit of several villages with the Chief Medic to follow up on vaccinations and deliver medications, I took Zack along so he could see some of the places too. We also delivered several bags of hospital linens from our community services in Kelowna to the Hospital in Maruka and the clinic in Kwebanna as well as a few bags of clothes for the community. Zack enjoyed a test ride in a dugout canoe on the river and collected a bamboo “fishing rod” from along the river.
On Friday I was planning to take the Pastor over to Port Kaituma for the weekend but just before I left I got a call that there was a man in a coma that the family wanted to send to Georgetown. I spoke with the family and the Medic, they suspected that he had had a stroke and because they didn’t have oxygen didn’t feel that he should fly, I offered to make the trip at 2,000’ or below which we figured would make little difference from sea level for the patient. I made the quick trip to PK and as soon as I got back they showed up with the patient, his wife, small child and a nurse to monitor him. Fortunately the weather was really good and there were no problems at all at 2,000’. On arrival the ambulance was waiting and they whisked him away, I quickly re-fuelled and headed back to Mabaruma with some passengers that Karen had arranged while I was flying, we landed 10 minutes before sunset. By the time I had arrived in Mabaruma the patient had already had a scan that determined that he had bleeding on his brain so the outlook wasn’t good and in fact I found out the next morning that he died overnight. The patient didn’t benefit from the flight but at least his family knew that everything possible had been done for him and they now aware of what had happened.
Late on New Year’s Day I had a call that there were two patients at the hospital that were in urgent need of transport early the next morning, one was paralyzed from the waist down from a fall and a woman in labour that was having trouble. I made the arrangements for a six am departure the next morning then at 11:30pm I heard a plane fly over so I headed out to the airstrip to see what was happening. The pregnant woman had taken a turn for the worse so they had called for a night medivac, something we can’t do; they use a twin Islander with two pilots for all night operations. Anyway I went back to bed thinking that I didn’t have to get up too early but the phone rang at 5:30 and at 6:09 I was airborne for Port Kaituma to pick up a man with “multiple lacerations”. On arrival over PK there was a layer of shallow fog over the strip, it took me three attempts to get in, I finally made a contact approach with a very tight downwind to final, as I was flaring a cow
loomed out of the fog on the edge of the runway so I popped over him then rolled to a stop before the four cows that were laying down on the threshold at the other end. They brought out the patient on a mattress and we squished him into the back of the plane, he was bandaged all over his head, arms and hands, apparently he met up with the dangerous end of a cutlass (machete). On the flight in, the nose suddenly started to pitch up, I looked back to see that he was wandering around the back of the plane, at least as much wandering as you can do in a Cessna 182, it seemed he was trying to pee into a plastic bag, anyway eventually he laid back down and the rest of the flight was uneventful. 
too, so I had him sit up with his back to me, when he did I could see a large cut on his neck and what looked like an exposed vertebrae. He then turned his head and the cut opened up to be about 8” long and 3” wide, I was shocked that he could move at all never mind that he was even alive to do so. He still insisted on climbing out of the plane and we walked him to the ambulance, when the ambulance attendants saw the extent of his wounds they were aghast themselves, they slammed the door so fast that they hit one of the guys that was helping them then burned out of the parking lot. The thing is that a part of me was feeling a bit unsympathetic, in all probability this guy had gotten himself into this trouble through his own actions, even if that is true, and it may not be as he may have been an innocent victim, he is still entitled to fair treatment. For example I am often tempted to feel less concern for one of our boys when they get hurt doing something that I had just told them not to do but the fact is they get they deserve the same care and love regardless of how they got hurt. 
steamer for shipment, when their truck came in they clipped the telephone wire so that it was hanging low to the ground (important information for further down). Later I sent a truck load of clothes and hospital linens along with our utility trailer to the steamer also for shipment to Mabaruma. The crane and truck were coordinated for 13:00, the crane showed up right on time but no truck and the parking lot was full of cars so the hospital staff started wandering the hallways looking for drivers while the crane sat on the road with the clock ticking. Finally the truck showed after 14:00 and as it pulled in the driver of the last vehicle came out accompanied by her husband with his arm in a cast. When the driver was moving the trailer he hooked the now lowered telephone cable and after some popping and swaying of all of the poles ripped it right off of the front of the hospital, just in case there was anyone that hadn’t noticed we were disrupting things around there. Finally the truck and crane were positioned and as the helper was pulling out the slings the rain came again and everyone vanished into their cabs or under a roof or tree for 45 minutes until the rain eased. When it did they sent me up on to the top of the container to hook it up, if I had know I was going to do I would have done it in the rain. I figured the container still weighed around 30,000 lbs, Georgetown is built below sea level and it has been raining for at least a month so even the best ground is pretty soft. As the container swung around I was careful to keep my toes clear as I watched a crater from under the crane’s outrigger, fortunately he got it in place before there were any problems. The unfortunate thing is that the permanent location for the container is around the back of the hospital and it is much too swampy back there to set in place so we will have to wait a couple of months for things to dry up and have the crane come back. 
On Friday morning I arranged to take some passengers back from the Amerindian Hostel in Georgetown, I knew there were some people there from Baramita that they had been trying to get home for several weeks. When the manager met me at the airport he had with him three Amerindian women with three babies and two small boys around five, that’s eight! Fortunately it could work, they were all small, the babies could be held and the boys could sit in the back, so away we went, with a flight plan filed for nine on board. They were thrilled to be back at least close to home and they were all disappearing down the different trails as I flew away.