The Final Week and the Big Helicopter Transport Challenge

The final week of our time in the aid post has arrived. We will be closing the clinic and leaving Pheriche on Monday, May 20th and heading back to Kathmandu. As we prepare to close up the clinic, we have several tasks. First is to update the medicine and supply inventories, finalize patient records, and count and organize the money made over the season. We have started several electronic documents such as excel spreadsheets of the medicine inventory, the patient visits and diagnoses, the lecture attendance, and financial records. In addition, each of us has to write a report on our time here with comments on the experience and suggestions for improvement.

Chris has been the Excel-master making graphs and statistics which I doubt anyone considered calculating before. He has lecture attendance based on location and date, patient diagnoses, and a host of other graphs to insert into his report.

The HRA is a non-profit, non-government organization which barely operates in the black each year. Any "extra" money on good years goes back into the clinic to make repairs, update the power system, and get additional equipment or supplies. The season we have been down by at least 20-30% of patient visits, so we are likely down in income as well.

Once the money is counted, the books have to be balanced and then the money has to be transported to the Kathmandu office. This is a challenge. The money needs to take the most direct route to Kathmandu possible with a reliable and trustworthy person. Arjun has previously taken the money down by himself through Namche and Lukla. The money has also sometimes traveled by helicopter. The problem comes in that we want to trek out by the scenic route over Cho La and Renjo La, two more mountain passes which are beautiful but require 6-7 days verses two days (see map in previous post for the route.) Arjun has never been that route and would like to go with us, but we cannot bring the money with us. While it is likely nothing would happen since it has been many years since Maoists bothered trekkers in this area, it has happened and besides, it's actually a lot of added weight to carry on our backs.

In addition to the money, we have three laptop computers and the research blood samples which would benefit from expedited helicopter transport back to Kathmandu rather than the week of traveling with us or the shorter 55 km trip by yak or porter. Yet, we still must determine that the helicopter pilot is trustworthy and that it would make it to the HRA safely. Several other items we have tried to send down by helicopter with less worth have been lost along the way. The main source of concern is that the helicopters often stop in Lukla and people and cargo must often change helicopters or planes to continue to Kathmandu. We have been trying to find a direct helicopter flight to Kathmandu with a good pilot for about a week without success.

Yesterday some of the researchers from the Italian Pyramid stopped by on their trek up to the pyramid near Lobuche (see previous post for picture and description). One of the lead investigators, Peter, offered to try to help us with this task as he knows a few pilots coming up soon. One of these is a film crew for a movie featuring Reinhold Messner (arguably the world's greatest mountaineer who has summited all 14 of the worlds 8000+ meter peaks and many of them solo.)

With the possibility of this lead, we sorted and counted all the currencies and triple checked the books. We also packaged the money, the computers, and the blood samples into a small backpack to be ready at a moments notice which is often all we have for helicopters.

Today the film crew came with Reinhold Messner. Chris Hill was actually able to meet him during the filming, but we were busy with patients. Unfortunately, the helicopter was taking a longer route back than we had anticipated and was also stopping in Lukla, so our bag could not travel with them. In the meantime, Chris sewed a HRA patch onto the bag which took him about an hour.

Maybe we will find a helicopter tomorrow. We have about a week to figure out this logistical challenge.

To be continued...