Thursday, March 17, 2016

Get Me Outta Here!


A big thank you to my dear friend Sandy.
After parking at her place I was given door to door service.
Thus the light weight wear on what would be the coldest day of the year.
Once inside the terminal it was good to see our flight was on time.

I sat myself down to await my travel partner flying in from San Francisco.
Dairne Ryan, a Board Member for  Fix Our Ferals was with us in 2012.
That was when we held Cuba's first mass TNR for cats.

Fix Our Ferals is a community-based non-profit organization that promotes trap-neuter-return (T-N-R) to humanely reduce outdoor cat populations in the San Francisco East Bay.
Dairne is also the Latin American Program Director for Animal Balance.
Animal Balance does wonderful work on islands around the world.
As on two of our other Havana Campañas Animal Balance are
our invited guests.

A big thank you to Air Canada for having a generous baggage allowance on their Havana route.
I packed a 23kg bag for each team member flying out of Toronto

Well that "on time" status did not last long.
We finally departed at  9:09 PM on the coldest night of the year...

-31C
 .... arrival 12:18 AM - Sun Feb-14-2016
Perhaps next time I should check on-time performance for flights.

AC 1598 On-time Performance Summary

  On-time Performance
  Delay Statistics
On-time Arrival Performance for this Flight

On-time
19
31%
Late
15
24%
Very Late
8
13%
Excessive
19
31%
Canceled
0
0%
Diverted
0
0%
Total Flights
61

*Due to rounding approximations, values may not add up exactly to 100%

AC 1598 On-time Performance Rating Details

Overall Rating
0 of 5
Very Poor
On-time:
Avg. Delay:
31%
54 min
FlightStats Rating is a merit measurement considering both on-time performance and delay severity. The score, 0, shows that this flight has on-time performance characteristics better than 0% of all other flights in the FlightStats database.

On-time Performance
0 of 5
Very Poor
On-time:
31%
This flight has an on-time performance of 31%. Statistically, when taking into consideration sample size, standard deviation, and mean, this flight is on-time more often than 0% of other flights.

Delay Performance
0 of 5
Very Poor
Avg. Delay:
54 min
This flight has an average delay of 54 minutes with a standard deviation of 65.51 minutes. Statistically, when taking into consideration sample size, standard deviation, and mean, this flight has delay performance characteristics better than 0% of other flights.

*This flight has an average delay of 54 minutes with a standard deviation of 65.51 minutes. Statistically, when taking into consideration sample size, standard deviation, and mean, this flight has delay performance characteristics better than 0% of other flights.


With that behind us we did arrive happily on ..
 El Dia del Amor y Amistad.
My love affair with La Habana, it's animals and people continues.
We had a smooth entry thanks to the wonderful preparations by collaborating 
Cuban structures namely....
Oficina del Historiador
Instituto de Medicina Veterinaria
Grupo Exportación e Importación - Oficina del Historiador
Cooperación Internacional - Oficina del Historiador
Sociedad Patrimonio, Comunidad y Medio Ambiente

Aduana was ready for our arrival.
They had all our paperwork lined up. 
It was great to see Spanky's face at Jose Marti Airport
Once we were cleared it was off to Habana Vieja and our Casa Particulares in Guillermo'sVW van.
Susana, Spanky Project's fabulous coordinator, arranged casas for the whole team 
on the same block as our clinic.

Our MASH Clinic by night.

The days ahead will bring TNRs, spay/neuter of pets, rabies vaccinations, and deparasitizations for  dogs, cats and horses.

This would be a trip of highs and some very low lows.
I will be honest.
 This was to be the first time I returned from a Campaña and was not totally filled with joy.
Perhaps when you realize, as I did years ago, that you can't save them all ... that takes it's toll.
Then, you beat yourself up for not "saving" just one more. 


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