We have arrived

Our home for the next two weeks

We have arrived. We are safely secured into our small but lovely hotel tucked away on a small street somewhere in Quito. We arrived after dark and in a light, 60 degree rain. As the clouds lift, I can see a thousand lights on the surrounding mountainsides. Quito is the capital of Ecuador, sitting right near the equator, but at 9,000 feet in altitude, so it doesn't feel like an equatorial city. It's winter here, moving into their spring as we move into our fall. The trip was mostly uneventful, if tiring. Christy Weiland, the pharmacy professor, picked me up at 4:45 this morning. We met up with the team members at DIA, and the eight of us were ever so happy to get nine 49.5 lb boxes checked without incident. We had them all weighed perfectly! I was so worried about having to repack at the AA check-in counter that I came prepared with packing tape in my backpack. After a four hr flight from Denver and short lay over in Miami later, we flew south for another 4 hours to the west side of South America.

 Immigration was a breeze, but the baggage area was complete chaos-- a tiny little space with 200 people and 400 bags. With our 9 boxes comically and precariously balanced on two small luggage carts, we made our way to customs. The boxes didn't tumble until we were steps away from the xray machine, making it easy to flip them from the floor to the conveyor belt for the customs folks to view. Nine, heavy white boxes crashing in front of customs officials do not escape notice. The questions were polite, yes I have a list of contents, no I don't have an official paper, but here is where we are going, here is where we are staying and our host is outside waiting for us. I speak no Spanish. He spoke no English. It was an interesting conversation with a lot of opening of boxes. Carrie, one of the family medicine residents, speaks Spanish well enough to accompany the very nice official to find Mari, our in-country coordinator. Next time talk to customs first, he told Mari. Next time we'll bring duffels, thought I. I'm so done with boxes. After only e-mails, how lovely to meet Mari and her brother Martin, waiting on the other side of the customs doors to rescue us.

We are their guests for the next two weeks. As we stood in the cool drizzle awaiting two vans to carry us and our load to the hotel, several very young children, 5 or 6 years old, darted amongst us selling little somethings from a tray hung around their necks. Cigarette smoke curled through the misty rain. Men elbowed to load our boxes for tips and then asked for more tips after they were tipped. Mari passed out more coins-- quarters I guess (they use US dollars here). I would have been handing out dollars. People were kind and helpful and at no time did we feel unsafe. Quito sounds like any big city-- sirens echo, cars rush by, planes fly overhead and faint music rides the airwaves. The shops were all shuttered and the streets mostly empty as we drove through the rain, so we shall see more tomorrow in the daylight, albeit not in the sunlight. Rain is expected the entire time we are here. Tomorrow Mari will orient us to our job, tour us around our neighborhood, and we must find some time to unload those infernal boxes and set up a mobile primary care clinic. Beunos nochas. I am tired and happy to sleep more than 4 hours tonight. I'll talk to you tomorrow!