Twenty-nine dedicated people met on Thursday morning at LAX for a 20 + hour journey. Doctors, nurses, medical professionals, and non medical volunteers, mostly Rotarians, all came together for the Rotaplast medical mission to Nagamangala, India.
The first leg of our journey was on Cathey Pacific Airlines, 14 hours to Hong Kong. Everyone got acquainted at the airport, and during the flight. We had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Hong Kong before our 5 hour flight on Dragon Airlines, to Bangalor which had a 1:30 am arrival. A group of Rotarians were there to meet us with beautiful flowers for each of us and a van and a bus to haul the team and our equipment for a 3 hour drive to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at around 6:00 am. We then got settled into our rooms. The 2 married couples are staying at a school guest house about 4 miles away. Transportation for us, back and forth from the guest house is a problem.
We reported back to the hospital at 8:00 am to start a full day of meals, meetings, and move in. Today is Saturday and we haven't had much sleep since Wednesday night, but it doesn't matter. We all know we are here to do a very important job so we catch some sleep during the day, an hour on some wooden benches, an hour or so on the concrete floor, and then we found couches in a hallway where the team is staying at the hospital so the 4 of us sacked out there for awhile. It is now 7:00 pm and we are socializing before dinner. The team is starting to gel and tomorrow we should be ready to start our jobs at the pre-op clinic. Everyone is excited to get started.