poor rob

poor rob... the hotel gave away our big room to the Digicel bigwigs. Rob can touch both walls by stretching out his arms and the bed is a foot shorter than he is... luckily we have moved into a larger room now. still not the room i reserved but a midwifery volunteer cannot complete with a digicel exec.

digicel is selling cell phones for about $20 and include 1000 minutes and a free solar charger! they have blanketed the town in a marketing storm. people wear digicel bracelets, shirts and hats. the market and bus stops have been painted in digicel colors and lines at the digicel stores are long.

We made it!

We made it! the trip was relatively smooth and the only hiccup was the aborted landing in Vila due to bad weather. it does make one a tad nervous when the pilot says "well the weather was too bad to land so i am circling for the next 15 min and we will try again. Oh, and we have an hour's worth of fuel left..." (we were 1.5 hours from Fiji at the time) Funny how every person on the plane reflexively looked at their watches!

Guess which airport this picture was taken in... SFO, LAX, Nadi Fiji or Port Vila Vanuatu? If you guessed LAX you are right! Every other airport puts the LAX international airport to shame. The sunrise is from the Nadi airport in Fiji. Welcome to the South Pacific!

Vanuatu?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Vila
http://www.vanuatutourism.com:80/vanuatu/cms/index.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/auckland/4437922a22401.html
http://virtualvanuatu.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

so much generosity...

We are off to Vanuatu tomorrow. I have packed and re-packed and will still have to leave some items for my friend Olivia to bring when she comes next week. Rob and i have maxed out our 2 checked bags each. (Pretty much all of the checked baggage is supplies. the carry-on is our personal items.)

Because of your generous gifts i am taking 4 big bags of donated and purchased supplies for the mommas and babes of Vanuatu. I was given some great supplies from the midwives and purchased an additional $500 worth of supplies.

I am bringing...
chux pads
sterile and non sterile gloves
delees
syringes and needles
instruments
disinfecting wipes
gauze pads
alcohol pads
cord clamps
ultrasound gel
betadine
fetascope

and more...

now if only i don't throw my back out before i get there... less than 24 hours to go...

yikes! I have a blog!

Why does having a blog make me so nervous?