News from the Rotoplast Team

The girl in the photo is named "Sumalita", she was part of Rotoplast Guatemala, last years project. She has many more operations ahead of her.

Garberville Rotarian Brian Walker is the "Quartermaster" on the Rotoplast team to Venezuela. He is a reluctant "Blogger", so a member of the Rotoplast team has been chosen to keep us as up to date as possible, considering the remoteness of the area that they are in.

The team is down there repairing cleft lips and palettes. Click on this link for a description of the kind of work that they are doing; Clef palette repair. Also refer to this previous article. And this: Rotoplast

The reports from the team will be updated here as they come in. They will be posted at the bottom so they will read from earliest to latest. Here goes!

5-30-08

Dear Friends ~

Your friend or family member has given me your email address so that I can include you in my “reports from the field” as our team’s journalist. You may see this address or another one that I use (horsecrazykb@hotmail.com) so please don’t put them in the spam file!

Karen Bradford

(Rotary District 5330, sponsor of this mission)

6-2-08

Our Rotaplast team is safely in place in Venezuela. They took a military C-130 instead of an eight-hour bus drive from the airport.

Internet cafes are non-existent…there won’t be a lot directly from Karen.

Good news, though: Venezuela has adopted CDMA technology for their cellular network, so Karen can call using her home cell phone.

Clint Bradford

6-4-08

Karen advises there’s no Internet access in the hotel’s business office…So email messages from the team will be spotty.

Clint Bradford

6-6-08

Greetings to all of our family and friends!

This is just a little note to let you all know what is happening as I have not yet had time to write articles and have them cleared by our team leader in proper protocol. I hope to do that soon.

Our Team Cumana is very safe, happy and healthy on our fifth day in country. Our intake clinic day on Tuesday went well, despite a thunderstorm in oppressive heat, as we worked inside a smallish air- conditioned room on a military compound in Cumana.

The families are so appreciative that we are here. Surgeries started on Wednesday and are going well, and it is so rewarding to see lives changed in such a short period of time.

The host Rotary Club of Cumanagoto is absolutely exceptional in taking care of us. Despite it being a club of less than 30 people, there are so many supporter and volunteer relationships built during 10 years of sponsoring Rotaplast missions here. The Rotarians feed us very well and treat us with love and respect: At our first hosted dinner on Monday, I noticed the difference between our American customs by how one of the Venezuelan Rotarian ladies warmly held her arm around the shoulders of one of our female team members as she praised and welcomed us. When we go home, I will miss the ladies' custom of greeting me with kisses on each side of my face.

We are having difficulty with email by there being no Internet provisions here with the hotel's advertised facility being removed! I feel taunted by the sign on the door saying "Internet Center" but only an electrical cord in sight. Some team members brought their own laptops that they are happy to share, but modem connectivity has been very cranky, and there is so little time to spare as our team spends 12-hour days at the hospital --- and longer for some of the medical people! --- with a half-hour commute each way.

I am asked to convey that we are fine, and the team members may be able to phone if there is time. We are getting along well as a team and are proud of our work here. Thanks for your love and support in the time we are gone.

Warm regards from us to you,

Karen Bradford
Team journalist

6-9-08

Hello friends and family!Our team is still doing well, and we are more than half-way through our mission so we will see you soon. My first stories have been approved for distribution, so here is a description of our first day; more tomorrow. Karen Bradfordteam photojournalist
Arrival: ¡Bienvenidos a Venezuela!


“This mission to Cumaná is in the top one percent of what actually happens on Rotaplast missions,” complimented Mission Director Ted Durant during the first team meeting on the day after our arrival in Venezuela. “With our first few hours as an example, we all are going to be fine!” (His prognostication proved to be true.)

Unlike airport regulations in the United States, members of the Rotary Club of Cumanagoto greeted our group at the top of the Caracas jetway; we appreciated their warm welcomes after dragging in from various parts of the United States and funneling through Atlanta, where we first met as a team. Quickly escorted by the Rotarians’ arrangement through the customs arrival line marked “diplomats,” we retrieved our luggage and climbed aboard a shuttle, mercifully air-conditioned from the oppressive humidity. As condensation formed and dripped down our cooled windows, we realized the funny comparison to being inside a giant sweating glass of iced tea.

Plan A for transfer to Cumaná, about 250 miles east, indicated a hop via military transport plane; the Rotarians’ Plan B --- for “big bus” --- was an unappealing but very potential eight-hour ride in case the government could not accommodate us.

We were delighted to see the camouflage-painted Aero Fuerza Venezuela C-130 transport at our service, pallets of our boxed medical supplies already being loaded under bright spotlights. On mighty wings attached at the top of the fuselage, the plane’s four huge propellers would hardly get a workout from ferrying our supplies and team of 26 medical and nonmedical volunteers. We walked up the airplane’s rear deck fuselage that lowered as a ramp; the jump-suited crewman with headphones and a flashlight pointed us past cargo and into the cavernous dark to find our seats.

After figuring out how military aircraft buckles snapped shut, we gleefully looked around in our E-ticket ride: rudimentary webbed seating attached to center posts and padded airplane walls, a few stretchers fixed over our heads and the wires, cables and ducting of the aircraft in full view. The people who brought earplugs soon stuffed them in place as the props whined into furious spinning. We taxied and flew off into the starry tropical night.

After an hour of flight, more jump-suited and beefy-looking military men directed us from our solitary landing as we emerged under the plane’s tail to bright lights on a deserted tarmac. Pointed toward a terminal with peeling paint, we waited for the cargo.

Well past midnight by this time, we piled into a bus, our cargo and suitcases loaded on trucks behind us. Two policia escorts on motorcycles roared into the lead toward our hotel as we took our first look at the moonlit streets of Cumaná.


Karen Bradford