Typhoon Haiyan: Leaving Port
The other team left this morning for Guiain so we loaded their supplies and got them off to the airport first thing. The area that they are going to has been very underserved. When they got to the airport, they found out that the military is servicing all their planes today so all the flights had been cancelled. So the team decided to stick around for a while and just "go with the flow". After about a hour and a half, a flight became available for them as long as they didn't exceed 600 pounds of supplies. Their total supplies came to 558 pounds! God opened the door and they were on their way.
Back at our Base Camp, we loaded the new truck that IMC (International Medical Corps) bought. The truck was hilarious. It came up to my chest and was about as long as I am tall. When they bought it for $2700 new, they had them add extra springs. We loaded the truck with boxes stacked four high and then secured the load with a rope that I brought. I taught Dan and Rob how to do the truckers knot and changed their lives forever. We had to leave most of our personal belongings behind. We were each given a tote box and told to load most of our stuff in it to leave it at base camp. I am taking an extra pair of pants, two shirts, some socks and a couple of pairs of travel underwear that are easy to wash and dry in no time. We need to pack lightly just in case we have to hike.
After loading the truck, we drove it down to Pier 5 to load it onto our ship, The Asia Indonesian. The Pier is quite an experience. There were tons of vehicles and shipping containers everywhere. Andrew, our host, has connections and was able to help us tremendously. In fact, without his help, we would still be trying to negotiate passage to Tacloban.
After loading the truck and our supplies, Andrew and Ian took us out for lunch. We had chicken, crab, rice and the most amazing Mango drinks ever. I'm not sure if I can paint the picture on this for you or not, but one of the waiters was a cross dresser that wore a large stuffed chicken on his head. I suspect it will be our last normal meal for a while.
Once on board the ship we had to wait for a couple of hours to have our room unlocked. Wondering around the ship we walked by a stack of cardboard boxes and then did a double take. There were live birds chirping in the boxes! Strange.
We got settled into our room for our 16 hour voyage. The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed.... just kidding.