FEB-B-1

MALAYBALAY, MINDANOA

  1. Index to Feb-B-series, the second phase of Mindanao
  2. Arrival in Malaybalay, a Navajo flight in the co-pilot’s seat from Surallah to Nasuli, a tour by air, on foot, and jeepney of the SIL retreat and Bethel mission hospital, Malaybalay: rainy day jeepney view of the Kaamulan Park, and a disastrous investment in an afternoon’s exasperating futile effort in an Internet Café. 
  3. Our outing day from Malaybalay to the mountain plantations: “going bananas” in a very big way. 
  4. OK, try as I may to overcome the greatest exasperation of this trip: I will make a fifth attempt to send a message from my concluding the intensive surgical mission in Tboli land, Navajo flight from Surrallah to Nasuli, and arrival in Malaybalay—and this time to see if the new Internet Café does not erase it completely for the fifth consecutive time of futile effort with zero yield in communication or recorded summary of events on my ONLY half day off from a very intensive non-running work schedule. 
  5. First operating day in Bethel Hospital at Malaybalay, Bukidnon, Mindanao. 
  6. In full swing at Bethel Baptist hospital on the second full day in Malaybalay OR: doing goiters, hysterectomies, a seminoma, and a staff lecture on tropical surgery. 
  7. A great and glorious day in Bethel Baptist Hospital: beginning with a run around Kaamulon Park! Then followed by a full or day with goiters, hysterectomies, and a giant splenectomy for hypersplenism all accomplished without a hitch,  in time for the celebration festival of the host hospital staff. 
  8. Valentine’s Day: recapping the events of last night’s lechon feast and BBH’s farewell program and MMI celebration, beginning with a run through Kaanulan Park, the final operating day in BBH, a day of still further email frustrations, seeing off the Tboli reconstruction patients, completing the last general surgery cases, and a quick tour of the Benedictine Monastery. 
  9. Final morning at BBH, and pack up from Malaybalay, for transit to Cagayan de Oro and seaside overnight, before packing up to leave the Philippines via a long lavyover in Manila tomorrow. 
  10. And away I go!   Up through central Mindanao from bottom to top, overnight in Coconut Bay Beach Resort  on a dark rainy day in Cagayan de Oro, before the flight to Manila, where there will be a very long layover to begin a much longer day (times two!) racing the sun in its eastward course toward San Francisco as a port of entry, for an even longer layover, before a two-step red eye home. 

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