Another Busy Day

Well, its been another extremely busy day at the MAF Hanger in Port au Prince, Haiti! Since I arrived here almost 2 weeks ago, I have been working tirelessly 7 days a week! My role here has been coordinating the distribution of food and medical supplies throughout Haiti to the various organizations we work with. I have been making contact with close to a hundred organizations throughout Haiti, trying to determine what their immediate needs are. MAF now has several large tents with pallets of food, water and medical supplies, but I need to make sure that they get to the right people. Additionally, I have been making many of the flights to deliver the supplies as well as doctors, and medical teams into the hard-to-reach areas!























Earlier this week, a pilot flew in 50 large pizzas from Little Caesars for us, and together with some of the military guys, we watched the super bowl game on the side of a transport trailer via a large projector. It was a great time to take a step back and relax for a few hours!

















Today I started with organizing a doctor to fly to Ouanaminthe so he could perform several quick surgeries, and then I headed out to Fond des Blanc (a new airstrip we just opened up earlier this week) This 1900 foot long strip is currently our most difficult airstrip in Haiti, so it was a good challenge practicing some take offs and landings there! The west end of the strip has approximately a 6 % slope, and then it goes to a 3 % slope back up the east end - making it a bowl! It is surrounded by high terrain and very tall trees, making it even more difficult to access! This area has also been very cut off, and desperately in need of food and water filtration systems!



Fond Des Blanc Airstrip








Unloading 100 water filtration systems in Anse Rouge









This afternoon I hung out and chatted with Michael W Smith for a while in our MAF hanger! One of our Kodiaks picked him up in Puerto Plata, DR., and flew him to PAP. He spent a bunch of time talking to all of us individually, expressing his interest in the work that we are doing in Haiti.








At the end of the day I had a meeting at the UN headquarters with the WFP to try and get more food delivered to our warehouse facility. We have been noticing tonnes of food and supplies just sitting on pallets for weeks, and we learned that part of the reason is because they do not know exactly who to all give it to. Since MAF has been in Haiti for over 24 years, we have developed great relationships with the organizations and people we serve. I explained that we have more requests by these organizations than we can handle, and that we could definitely assist in distributing the food to organizations we knew and trusted. The WFP has agreed to start by giving us 40,000 lbs of food to distribute - that's close to 25 loads in the Kodiak!! I now have my work cut out for me!!!