Team Roatan Day Minus One

World Vets Travel Blog - Wednesday, Sept 10, 2008
Roatan Honduras

Day “Minus” One”
I usually start with day one, but since this trip started out as such a “nail bitter”, I thought I might include a little of the pre-trip drama.

The World Vets Roatan Team will be heading to Honduras. Our goal is to spay/neuter over 300 animals. We will also be vaccinating and treating as many animals as we can during this one week project. For months World Vets has been coordinating efforts with local Roatan volunteers to launch this project. 6 veterinarians and 5 assistant/techs, many who have never previously met, will converge in Roatan to form this team. Dr Wally Diehl from North Carolina, Dr David Landers from Texas, Dr Jodi Arndt from Minnesota, World Vets Dr Cathy King from Washington state, along with Dr Harriet Brown and Dr Justine Shotton from the United Kingdom make up our team of veterinarians. I will introduce the assistants, techs and other volunteers as the trip unfolds.

This trip was conceived back in April on our way home from a project in Utila, Honduras. We had a 4 hour layover in Roatan. After seeing a stray dog begging for his next meal in front of the small airport, we asked if there was a veterinarian on the island. This led to our taxi ride to Animal Kingdom, Dr Santiago Soto’s small clinic not far from the airport. Dr Soto was very eager to hear about World Vets and before we parted we had agreed to send a team volunteers in the fall to do a spay and neuter project.

Our original plan was to leave on Friday Sept 12, fly into Houston, stay overnight and catch an early morning flight to Roatan on Saturday. But there is a huge problem lurking, Hurricane Ike is supposed to move into Houston on Saturday. After watching the news and contacting the airlines, Dr King decides we need to re-route our trip through another city besides Houston. After hours on the phone and internet, she can find no other feasible option but to go through Houston. So we decide the best option is to try to beat the hurricane. We will leave tomorrow morning instead of Friday hoping to beat the hurricane to Houston. If we don’t fly out before it hits, we could end up stuck in the Houston airport with all the medical supplies. Although the idea to leave early is great in theory, the reality is we still have a good two days of packing and details to take care of which we will have to accomplish in less than 18 hrs! I was beginning to decide that our plan to beat Mother Nature might not be so smart.

With new baggage restrictions we have to be more conscientious than ever about packing wisely. It’s 11pm and I am still at the clinic checking and re-checking our list of necessary medical supplies. If we miss one key item, the project could result in a failure. Only two bags per person means we must fit an entire veterinary hospital into 4 bags under 50 pounds. One ounce could mean hundreds of dollars in over weight fees. No matter what I do, I cannot possibly fit all the supplies into the 4 suitcases. Down to the last suitcase and I still have a heap of stuff that needs to go. I can’t get the last bag zipped. It’s like working 4 jigsaw puzzles with way more pieces than puzzles. As I heave the blue duffel onto the dog scale, it still weighs 52 lbs. I unzip it, take out a heavy pair of clippers and swap it with one pack of gauze and a bag of syringes from the silver suitcase. It works. Each bag now weighs right at 49-50 lbs.

Still late in the night, Dr Cathy is in her office in the next room. I glance in and see her labeling medication bottles and feverishly writing emails to inform other team members and organizers of last minute travel changes. Her printer is firing off documents that might help us get through customs. She has the phone perched on her ear and I hear her calling hotel after hotel trying to find us a place to stay in Houston. I thought everyone was evacuating Houston. Why are all the hotels full?

I have to remind myself what we always say “Half the fun is getting there!” I can only imagine all the stories we will be sharing when we finally all meet in Roatan about our adventure in just getting there!

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