Heard that Vicki and Peggy were working on selecting 11 children to take to the COTN clinic in Barahona. It was apparently no easy task. Found out later on that day, that someone from the D.R. authorities were accusing COTN of kidnapping these 11 potential children. It almost didn't happen! Chris, who is the founder of COTN had intervened and eventually won over the trust of the authorities and the green light was then given to COTN to proceed with the transfer of these children, along with their family members over to Barahona. I was told by someone in the group that the Puerto Rican army had volunteered to fly the victims over in their blackhawk helicopter, which wasn't being utilized that day for some reason. GREAT OPPORTUNITY! Denise and I, along with other members in our group watched as they loaded up these kids and their families. What a tearful site! Tears of both joy and sadness came to me. I was joyful for the fact, that these 11 children will be cared for by us and sadness for the fact, that many more sick children were left behind. I just couldn't think about it anymore...IT WAS WHAT IT WAS...
After we saw the helicopter leave for Barahona, those of us who were scheduled to leave later in the day decided to say our farewells to the other courageous men and women volunteers whom we had the great opportunity to work alongside with during our stay in Jimani...
We went back to the house, and packed up our belongings. We had some food to eat, which was provided by Brandon, our logistics officer. Ate our meal and loaded up our luggages in one pickup truck, and proceeded to go into another minivan which was chartered for us by COTN. We headed out back to Barahona. It was going to be a 3 hour drive...
Tried to get a snooze in the van. But I couldn't. Too many potholes! I kept hitting my head against the window! So Denise and I just talked for the rest of the journey back to the COTN mission house. Two hours into the journey, our driver had noticed that the pickup truck, which had our lugages, where Brandon was riding in had been missing and had not been following us for quite some time. So we decided to stop at the side of the road and waited for about 10 minutes to see if they would eventually catch up behind us. NO SIGN OF THEM!
So we decided to go back to look for them. Feeling very tired, I thought to myself..."What if something happened to them? There was no security personnel with us on this trip. And it was getting pretty late. I checked the clock on my phone, and it said, 9 pm". The WHAT IF's started flooding my mind...
A few miles back, we spotted them! They were on the side of the road, front hood open and Brandon and the driver stooped over the engine compartment. They needed a flashlight. So Denise handed them her headlamp. As we waited in the van, we saw a couple of locals walking on the sidewalk. A child, who couldn't have been more than 8 years old, tried to sell us 2 sticks of cigarettes! Leigh, who was sitting by the window wanted to buy it off of her, just to get it off this little girls hands. But, I told her not to buy it from her, because it would only ENABLE her into selling more. Everyone seemed to have agreed with me, and Leigh decided to tell the child, "No thanks."
Brandon returned to the van to tell us, that the truck, which ran on PROPANE was running out of fuel. Fortunately, he thought that it also was able to run on regular gasoline and that they were going to try and restart it. After some tinkering, he attempted to start it and VOILA! It was running again!
Our driver decided to let Brandon go ahead of us, so that we could keep an eye on the pickup in case it decided to stop again. We headed back on the road...it was almost 10 pm.
We went through a small town and saw a gas station. We pulled into it, but they were closed! Back on the road, we crossed our fingers that Brandon and his pickup truck would make it straight through. But, it wasn't going to. His truck stopped and he pulled over alongside the road. Our driver said that we were about 15 minutes to our destination. So Brandon and his driver decided to wait in the pickup truck and we went ahead to the COTN mission house.
We finally arrived at the house. The new group of volunteers from Arizona had arrived the day before and were waiting for us on the veranda. We quickly exited the van, and sent our driver back to get Brandon, his driver and our luggages.
The first thing I did was RUN TO THE BATHROOM TO GET A SHOWER!!! No hot water...BUT I DIDN'T CARE! What a feeling! I'm clean once again!
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