Belize Escorts

This past week, I was able to participate in an Airline Ambassadors Escort trip to Belize.  It was to be a two day trip with an overnight in St. Louis.  I would be escorting a little boy named Albert from STL to Belize and then bringing two children named Tifara and Valdimir out of Belize and back to Dallas/Ft. Worth before handing them off to a flight attendant named Susan who would take them off to St. Louis.

I actually met Albert once before.  In December, I was working the flight out of Belize that he was traveling on with a pilot from my airline named Mark.  (See http://ronno1976.blogspot.com/2009/12/albert.html).

I flew up to St. Louis on Monday night and spent the night at a local hotel.  I met Albert and his host family at the airport on Tuesday at 6am. The local Rotary Club sponsors the clinic in Belize that refers these kids to Shriners in St. Louis and I also met a Rotarian named Charlene who brought two cerebral palsy wheel chairs for me to transport as my "checked luggage".  I made sure to mention I was a former Rotary Scholar to Spain in 1997 :).  After getting checked in we had some time to kill so we sat at a bagel shop and passed the time before boarding.

Albert got a little emotional when it was time to leave.  This was probably going to be the last time he would be in St. Louis since his hip operation was a success and he was real attached to his host family.  After a few tears, we made our way thru security and to our airplane.

Albert slept most of the way to Dallas.  We had a few hours before our trip to Belize so we walked around the airport terminal.  Albert wanted his picture taken with the Rocky Mountain Chocolate bear.  I took him to our crew ops and we played with Hotwheels cars and he colored in the Transformers coloring book I brought along.

Our flight to Belize was great.  The crew was very nice and for some reason Albert was ticketed in Business Class, so I got to sit up there too.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch of grilled Hailbut and got to watch The Fantastic Mr. Fox on the screen.

Since I fly to Belize a lot, I have gotten to know one of the agents down there quite well.  Her name is Shari.  I emailed her last week to let her know I was coming and would have limited time to get Albert dropped off and Tifara and Valdimir checked in.  She was scheduled to work that day, so she promised to be there when we arrived.  She got us sped thru customs and immigration.  Albert's family was waiting outside with some officials from the local Rotary club.  She had also already checked me in for my return flight and gotten us all seats together.

We had a little "photo shoot" as we exchanged kids and documents before making our way to the gate.

Valdimir and Tifara are both going up for a second round of procedures/operations.  Usually, the "goodbye" portion of the trip is hard on the kids and families, but I guess because these kids have been thru this already, and because they were a little older, they were pretty strong emotionally.

Since the flight was so light, the crew gave us an "upgrade" and the kids got to eat dinner and were a little more comfortable with a bigger seat.

We arrived in Dallas a bit early and made our way thru customs quite easily.  Susan, the flight attendant taking the kids up to St. Louis was waiting for us and she and kids made their way to their connection.