Lapan Dentist

Dear Family,
I went to Lapan today and took the dentist from Waspam. He is a real nice man, but only free on Sundays. He works 5 1/2 days a week at the Catholic Clinic. The Catholic Sister in charge gave us permission for him to go with us on Sunday, we pay him $15, which is real good wages here for a day of work. He likes to help people too, which is nice. He is a tall man, quiet. He pulled 36 teeth, but then ran out of anesthesia. We need to buy more in Managua. We got everyone on the list.
The flight to Lapan was OK, scattered rain and I went to 6500 feet to get over rain. I had to deviate about 15 miles to get around the worst area, and was in clouds for part of the trip. We came out of solid clouds into broken clouds 10 miles before Lapan, and the runway was clear. They had heavy rain that morning, and the runway had 1 to 2 inches of standing water on it. It covered the plane in muddy grassy water from the struts all the way back. It isn't very muddy there, not like San Carlos, but there is still a little mud you sink into, and the runway is slick. It is a good thing it is level.
Trucks aren't running there this time of year since the water in the many rivers is too deep to cross. This makes it very hard for the villagers to get out for medical and dental care. They are asking if we could please bring a doctor sometime.
I went and got the dentist set up, everyone was happy to see him. Then I walked back to the plane, a 1/2 hour walk through deep mud. I brought along in the plane my chainsaw and 12- 1x8 boards 3 feet long to create edge markers making the runway more visible. The problem is when I land I loose sight of the edges of the runway, and running off the edge will flip the plane. I sent 2 men off 1/2 hour walk away from the runway to find some pine poles, and put them in the ground sticking up 2 feet using the post hole digger I brought. I nailed the boards on the posts and painted them a bright green. They help a lot, but I need to get a nice bright orange paint. That took me a few hours total. I worked on my school a little, and then it was time to go. I found the dentist done and packed up when I arrived at the house where he was working, and we walked the 1/2 hour back to the plane. Take off was challenging, I used 3/4 of the runway, glad I was light. I confirmed acceptable weather in Tronquera with Marilyn right a way, and headed into the clouds again, standard for this time of the year. I used my home made GPS approach to Tronquera and came out of the clouds and rain at 3,000 feet over Tronquera and then went on to Waspam and dropped the dentist off. I got Waspam manure on top of my Lapan mud, and had to abort one takeoff because of cows running on the runway.
I was able to visit with Willis in America while flying, and it is really nice to be in constant communication with Marilyn via 2-meter. Willis tracks me minute by minute on the Internet with my SPOT tracker.
The people in Lapan are happy, I'm glad we were able to make it today! Between the weather, getting the dentist to show up, having the proper medicine and supplies, and the runway, there are a lot of things that have to work out for something as simple as taking a dentist to a village. It costs quite a bit to make it happen too, but is worth it for how happy it makes the people.
Clint

Fun Trip for Airport Inspection

June 25, 2009
Dear Family,
I just returned from a trip to look at a new runway in Kukalaya. The people there said they worked building the runway for 10 days with the whole village, 700 people (I'm sure everyone didn't work, but even if 1/2 worked, that is a lot of people!). The the women and children worked hard too, completely volunteer. From a fly over last week, I knew it was close to ready. On Wednesday I flew to Lapan, and found a watchman for the plane. The local people said it was a 4 hour walk, but maybe a little longer depending on the rivers. I just had time, if I hurried, to make it back by dark at 6 PM, and planned to sleep in the plane. On the GPS, it is 13 miles. It takes 8 minutes in the plane. I left at 9:30 AM Tuesday walking from Lapan, with a younger man to show me the way. I took my SPOT satellite tracker. Anyone who wanted to check (link on the bottom of the front page of our website) could have seen every 10 minutes in real time where I was walking. The track will be there for 7 days. Since Marilyn doesn't have Internet, she is only able to get the e-mail messages. Before I left, we agreed that I would send a delayed message if I was spending the night. I am sorry for the confusion it caused. I need to change the subject of that e-mail.

I walked along a grass savanna for the first couple hours. One place the water was over my mud boots, so took them off and waded across. The mud was a slick black mud that took energy from every step as you slid around in it. There was a skiff of water on top of the mud, but it wasn't bad. We made it to the Kukalaya river after 2 hours of walking. Fortunately there was a person right there with a canoe and we paddled 20 minutes up that river and crossed to the other side. From there it was heavy jungle, and the trail became quite muddy. It was a thick mud that you sank in just over your ankles with each step. It held your foot tight with the suction of the mud and required you to pull hard to release each foot with every step. The jungle was very thick, you couldn't see more than 15 to 20 feet into it. The canopy over us blocked the sun, making it cooler walking. We walked as fast as possible. Once we came to a deeper swamp, and water was up to my chest. We carried our clothes and luggage over our heads and waded barefoot through the mud. On the other side, there was a submerged log we followed, it was about 2 feet deep in the water, very mossy and slick, and quite hard to stay on top. I barely made it over, wondering if I fell off how deep that part of the swamp was. There were mangrove type trees all over with those long roots that go way above the water. They said there are lots of crocodiles too (Cayman). I can't imagine carrying someone in a hammock with a broken leg across that, but they did it last month hauling someone out of Kukalaya.

After an hour, we finally we made it out of the jungle to the savanna again. This time the grass savanna was much wetter, more like marsh savanna. It had standing water that sometimes went over our boots, and your feet sunk into the muddy grass each step. It was the slimy black mud, but didn't hold your foot like the clay mud in the jungle. After another hour of that, we came to the lagoon. It is a big expanse of water, crossable only in a boat. In fact, they had used boats in some of the watery savanna we had just crossed, but the lagoon was deep. Pretty blossoming lily pads grew on the sides of the little water trails. After 30 minutes waiting, some people showed up who owned the boats that were parked there. We rode with them 1/2 hour to the village of Kukalaya. White cranes were fishing beside us as we paddled along, and you could see fish in the warm water. We came out of the grassy channel to the rolling waves of the lagoon. The middle guy took off his rubber boot and bailed the water out as each wave came over the edge a little into the boat. It was nice to get out of the little dug out canoe without having to swim.

The village was thrilled to see me. We gathered a crowd of about 50 people as we walked through the village on our way to see the runway, 1/4 mile on the other side of the village. It is always interesting to walk in a place after only seeing it from the air. It looks different from the ground. The runway is not quite long enough, but still usable. There were a few holes that collected water. I directed them on the proper markers on the edge of the runway, cutting the grass shorter, filling the holes with gravel, and making it longer. Overall, they have done a good job. They have a new government clinic in the process of being built. They have both a doctor and nurse stationed there right now. This runway serves Kukalaya (700 people) and Laya Siksa (Black Water, 1,000 people). They have no roads, only lagoons and rivers to access Puerto Cabezas (Port), a very long dangerous trip in a small boat with a sick person. The village of Kukalaya has one boat a month that goes to Port. Many of the people in the village have never been to Port. After the walk from the nearest road (Lapan) I sure see their motivation for building an airstrip! This time of year trucks can't even get all the way to Lapan.

Unfortunately, there is no radio in Kukalaya for communication. I spoke with the government doctor and the town leaders about this. We are going to try to get the government to put in a radio for the clinic. I am connected with the government hospital network with a radio in my house, so that would work for us. The problem is the government radio network is not very dependable. We don't know if we could access the 62 miles with our 2-meter system because there are some hills between us and that area. We'll have to investigate the different possibilities. There are no generators and no solar panels in the town to power a radio so a whole system would be needed. The government puts in whole systems when they place a radio so we are hoping to get the government to put a radio there.

It was 4 PM when we came back from looking at the runway so I only had 2 hours of daylight, not enough time to walk back to Lapan. Thursday morning, I got up and was planning on walking back, but the whole village got together and used their some of their precious hard to obtain gas, their largest boat, and the one engine they own, to take me back a shorter way. I told them it wasn't necessary, but they did it anyway. It was a large dugout canoe that flew along quite quickly, almost tipping over only once when we hit a big submerged log. We crossed the lagoon and went up some picturesque little creeks just like I remember from our time on the river in Guyana. It was raining and I was very glad for the little bit of protection my rain jacket gave me. The boat took just over 1 hour, and cut off 2 1/2 hours of worst walking -- the part with the water up to our chests and the sticky jungle mud. I was completely soaked from the rain, and inside my boots was soaking again too. I was very thankful for moleskin on my feet as my boots had been rubbing the day before. Soaking wet in rubber boots isn't very good for feet walking long distances. With the deep mud, tennis shoes would have been worse since at least the mud didn't go over the boots. It rained all morning the whole rest of the 2 hour walk back to the village of Lapan from the boat.

That was the best my plane has ever looked, sitting out there on that soggy runway on the grass savanna in the drizzling rain! I carefully checked it over, being sure the wet, cold, tired me didn't forgot any details in the drizzling rain. Water splashed all around as I bounced along during take off, and then all became nice and smooth as it broke free of that slick black mud I knew so well. I was very thankful for the airplane heater. I circled under 800 foot ceilings and got my wife on the radio, confirming the weather was OK in Tronquera before I launched into the clouds. It rained all the way home through the clouds, but stopped a few minutes before I landed at home. It was so nice to get warm clothes, hot chocolate, and see my kids and wife.

It is encouraging to see the faces of the people light up as I came into their village. It encourages me to keep up the work when I see people living under such poverty conditions give enough to take me on the river to save 2 1/2 hours of walking. It is a pleasure working for people who are truly grateful for the help we offer.

Next we have to submit paperwork to the government to get the runway approved, then they will send an engineer to inspect the runway, and taking them will be my first landing on that runway.

It was an interesting trip. I am thankful we live where we do. I could have been born in that village.
Clint

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Wings Over Nicaragua Mission in Tronquera
Clint and Marilyn Hanley
Tronquera, Nicaragua, Central America
www.wingsovernicaragua.org
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