Dave & his plane

Here is a picture of the plane Dave flies for Wings of Hope with Ronya, a medic, sitting in the area for the patient--waiting for said patient.  They are parked on the San Pedro airfield.

Dave has averaged a trip a day since we arrived (one day without a call and one day with two calls).   We live about 5 minutes from the airport, but sometimes the call comes when we are out and about.  Brodies stocks pretty much everything a person could need, or get, in Belize, sometimes at high prices. We have made numerous trips there to pick up cleaning supplies and kitchen things.  On one such outing, Dave's phone rang, and we had to rush to the cashier and out the door for him to get to the airport!  He missed his 15 minute window that day!  One day he arrived at the hangar to find about a 3-4 foot long iguana, basking in the sun!  Dave startled him, and the iguana quickly dove under the hangar.

Flying is really challenging for Dave.  The Cessna 206 is slow, handles very differently from our plane, and needs some maintenance.  (He is taking it to the mechanic at the International Airport tomorrow for some maintenance, and at least a diagnosis!)  He seldom has to do a go-around on landing our plane, but is irritated with himself that he has had to twice do go-arounds in Punta Gorda.  The plane is not easy to land, and he doesn't have a lot of room to spare.  Did I mention that Punta Gorda also has two streets running across the runway, and the children/people love to walk on the runway!  Makes for a challenging approach!

Fields are also being burned.  With the high humidity, the haze is constant, complicated by the smoke from the fires.  Dave flies as close to the ground or sea as possible due to low visibility.  And he can't understand a word that the other pilots are saying (he doesn't speak Kriol)!!  Right now, Dave is meeting with Stanley "The Saint" (that is what he goes by), a young Kriol pilot, who is going to try to help Dave with identifying some landmarks, patterns, etc.  The whole country uses one unicom frequency, and if it is hard to understand what airports pilots are approaching, it is dicey knowing when/if one should be looking for them at the airport you're landing at!

Medics rotate responsibility, and only one or two absolutely hate flying--and refuse to do so!  Some of the others are silent, some more talkative.  Interestingly, they all have reported "loving" their job!  And they are paid no better than the EMT''s in the U.S.

So while Dave is transporting patients, I have been cleaning.  This apartment is so much more than I had imagined--very comfortable and pretty.  I think that it would seem less so if I placed it in the Airpark, but we really are living in comfort.  Plainly furnished and equipped, but very nice.  However, I know for a fact that only bachelors have lived here for the last year, and there are signs that it has not been cared for a lot.  So I have deep cleaned the whole house, moving all of the furniture, washing the baseboards and the floor, washing the curtains, cleaning the Levolors (yes, they really are Levelors!), etc.  I finished at 2:00 PM today, and now I can relax on that front.  The house is very livable, and since I have to go to work tomorrow morning, I don't have to worry about cleaning.  The only daily/hourly/minutely need is a Swiffer for the cat hair.  I have never seen two cats shed this much fur in my life!  I would think that they'd be bald by now, but no such luck for them or for me!

And for those classy, professional friends, who are as embarrassed by this as Dave is, the upstairs television works (the downstairs one does not)--and I found NASCAR!!!!   So I have been watching the race today as I clean and as I type.  Could be that my writing reflects my lack of attention!