Dominican 2019 - Blog 1 - Linda Knight

Dominican Republic Blog Jan 27 – travel day
 
Well- the day has finally arrived. After a tough drive through snow and no plows on the roads,  the group all met at Pearson at 6 am. We “pony expressed” the 40 or so hockey bags to the airport to join the group from Wasaga Beach. Ray from facilities at CarePartners got up at 3 and delivered a lot of bags to the airport which was a huge help. The hockey bags of supplies are heavy and hard to move- each weighing 50 lb each but the team worked together and we got them all through.

We flew WestJet and they were amazing- they did not charge us for the hockey bags and even cut us some slack on the bag weight- if we were off by a pound or so – they waved us through- which is not always the case. We have had to pay $150 for that extra couple pounds in the past.

The plane left a bit late due to weather and de-icing and we arrived around 3 pm (there is a one-hour time change) - the warm 26 degree weather was such a nice change from Canada.

The HAART team was there to greet us along with Lori and Luke Hollinger who are came from Costa Rico to meet us and Lori is going to be a leader for the trip. We came thru customs with no issue.

We loaded the bags onto a bus and the team onto open air little trucks with benches and we made the 20 minute trip and checked into our hotel – Souza by the Sea - a clean, safe, basic hotel but with wonderful staff – it overlooks the ocean and has a pool- which will be wonderful after our clinic days in the hot sun.
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We had a great dinner and team meetings to get organized for tomorrow. The first day is always chaos. We are thrilled to have Joe Odumodu join us again – donating his time as the team pharmacist. Joe and Pharmasave have been supporters of our medical team for many years now…..donating time and supplies….and we could not have our international medical clinics without them.