MAR-B-3
WITH DEEPEST REGRETS, I EXPLAIN TO IHMEC
HOW IT IS THAT I AM NOT IN CUBA ON THE BASIS OF THE FAILURE OF MARAZUL TO
DELIVER TICKETS AND DOCUMENTS AS PROMISED
Dear Fellow (non)-Travelers:
I am all packed up, with no place to go! I am very sorry that I am not with you now, as I had planned to be, in Havana. It certainly is not for lack of trying, but for very trying circumstances.
I had seen in my emails after arrival this weekend from my Malawi medical mission that there were some complaints about the incompetence of Marazul Travel, including from my medical student Christi Pena, who had reported by email (attached) that she just now had finally got her tickets after having a great deal of difficulty with Marazul. I am the one who had encouraged her to accompany me to Cuba, as a “homecoming” for her, with an introduction to IHMEC, which referred her through Marazul. Well, she is now ahead of me!
I suspected there might be difficulty in completing all the travel arrangements when I made my own reservations for the IHMEC meeting in Havana over six months ago. I called, emailed and faxed the recommended Marazul agency several months ago, and after several delays through each method, had finally contacted Gina Mosquera and several co-workers to explain to them the early securing of the itinerary, tickets, visas and accommodations, and was assured that all of this had been (note: not would be but had been) taken care of, and when I called to confirm all of this before taking off on the first of my remote medical missions, I was met with annoyance, repeating what I had already been assured: that the tickets, visas and arrangements would be mailed to me at my home in time for the Sunday takeoff.
I had explained that this was especially important for me, since I am often gone, but in these instances, I would also be remote and out of contact through any means of phone or fax, but I gave them the complete itineraries (Jan-B-2, 3) of where I would be able to be reached at the airports or air carriers for messages and through several mission organizations email addresses through which I would check if they were in operation. I had made my IHMEC advance registration payment of $300.00, and sent by fax and mail the credit card authorization to Marazul, for the itinerary arranged by phone and was assured that all had been received.
I then took off for Mindanao in the remote Southern Philippines, where I operated in the Tboli tribal region of Southern Mindanao (South Cotabato) under the heavily armed military escort assigned to escort me in my surgical clinics in that area, and then flew up to Malaybalay, Bukidnon for an additional week of intensive surgical care and clinical teaching, before returning eastward to Washington for a very brief touchdown, at my office only, to pick up the other boxes of medical and surgical supplies and my two GW senior medical students to continue eastward through Europe to Malawi, Southern Africa. Although only in Washington for a few hours of this month, on February 18, I included in this brief transition another call and email to Marazul, who assured me that everything had been (again, NOT would be) taken care of for my trip to Cuba, in which I have several people expecting me, not least of which is the medical student accompanying me.
I then flew off to Malawi, knowing I would have only a matter of hours to connect with the Cuba onward travel upon my return to Washington, if I left Africa early.
I entered a period of intensive clinical work with the local health care workers being instructed as well as my accompanying GW medical students, with a strong request from the remote Embangweni Mission Station Hospital that I continue working there for an additional two weeks as my medical student would be. Because of my commitments to go to the IHMEC conference in Cuba, however, I declined these requests and left Africa early, leaving John Sutter, my GW medical student in Embangweni, and flew back through Nairobi, Amsterdam to Dulles airport in Washington on Friday afternoon, March 8 at 4:30 PM. As soon as I had landed, and before I picked up my baggage or cleared customs, I went immediately to a phone and called Marazul, knowing that they would be impossible to reach on the coming weekend. After several tries on a phone recording a busy signal, I did get through to Gina Mosquera, and asked her if all was in order for me to simply proceed on through Cancun to Havana. She assured me that my tickets were at my home address and not to worry, that all arrangements were in order.
I checked my office mail, where there were no tickets, but I did find an email and a voice mail from a Hilda Ruiz of Marazul, and a fax asking for authorization of payment, the same from I had sent by fox and mail several months earlier. I answered the emails and voice mails with the same message I had just been assured in confirmation from Gina Mosquera, and went home to find no tickets in my home address mail. I then made a rather complex series of trips through my local post office and express mail channels on Saturday, when, of course, the Marazul phones were all on answering machines and would not be listened to until well after my Sunday takeoff. I also phoned IHMEC to leave a message that a portending derailment was coming up in the tradition I had seen already reported for Marazul. I called several others of the voice mail numbers on the Marazul answering machines, and got no responses to messages left there, and the post office here was going to notify me of any incoming mail from Marazul.
And now, as I write this an hour after I should have taken off (one does not simply go to the airport and standby for a trip to Cuba, as you know, since I have to be carrying the travel documents under the visa license that Marazul holds as its sinecure for my travel they have aborted), I have been blown off my IHMEC participation by the incompetence and continued reassurance of the monopoly travel agent that has so mismanaged these arrangements. I insist that Marazul refund my entire registration for the IHMEC meeting. In calling around to see if any other place than my home or office had received the promised tickets and arrangements according to the most recent instructions emailed from IHMEC (see attached), I have been “discovered” upon my return from my two remote international medical missions, and my presence has led to a series of meetings that now preclude my trying to get a late start to join the meeting in progress—the reason I was trying to transition directly from the other remote medical missions to Cuba.
The reports for the first venue in Mindanao (Feb-A-series) and the second in Malaybalay (Feb-B-series) or the first week in Embangweni (Feb-C-series) or the final week in Malawi (Mar-A-series) are attached, as they might have formed a basis for discussion in the conference as I had promised for IHMEC’s meeting. The further plans for other medical missions this coming year with medical students are also attached (“Welcome to the World of Wonder….”) for any of the IHMEC members who wish to have such similar experiences for their students or others. I am sorry I did not have the chance to share these with you more directly.
With deep regrets on my part, and best wishes for your conference in Cuba!
Glenn W. Geelhoed
Attachments:
Jan-B-2
Jan-B-3
World of Wonders
C. Pena email
IHMEC instructions for carrying Marazul-supplied documents
Feb-A-series Tboli, Mindanao
Feb-B-series, Malaybalay, Mindanao
Feb-C-series, Embangweni station, Malawi
Mar-A-series, Malawi, final week, Southern Africa