... it is the year 2019 and these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, err, sorry: the IOWA MOST mission 2019. Our continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
In all seriousness and Startrek aside:
Here we find ourselves again with pre-trip giddiness and excitement, last minute supply orders arriving and being distributed in our luggage, our fearless mission leader Deb already on her way to brush up on her Spanish before the mission (Ay, caramba !). As every year our prayers go to the gods of weather and lost luggage: With our team members travelling from different locations in the US and some layovers we all hope for smooth travels on our soon upcoming main travel day: By the end ofThur 1/31 we hopefully will find ourselves all reunited at Guatemala city airport and in a chartered bus rumbling through the highlands towards Huehuetenango…. Fingers crossed, this would not be the first time some more or less concatenation of hair raising mishaps would occur…
While this will be my 8th trip with the IOWA MOST mission, I will also go boldly where I have not gone before: After being PACU nurse, outreach coordinator, emergency anesthesia assistant, highland guitar player and lately even quartermaster, this will be my first time as blogger and photographer on the mission (ready to drop the camera and pen at any time when other help is needed). I will do my best to update you all in a hopefully entertaining manner about what is going on this year … I hope you bear with me and will forgive me some style errors as English is not my first language…
Stay posted and the next and first official blog entry will then (hopefully) be on 1/31 when we have arrived – until then – hasta la vista –
very cordially yours, Reinhard
