Kay, Me, Mee and the forklift driver.

It began innocently enough. A quick email to DHL letting them know that I’d be happy to work from their offices to complete this project…if it would help to wrap the project up.

They jumped on the offer and by 4:30 p.m. I was at the airport and working my way through cargo security. I made it through the first gate with a nod. The second gate, I had to wait at for Mee to get me and escort me through the gates.

When security found my computer and camera, Mee had to fill our a rather complex form which I then had to sign basically swearing that I’d bring it out with me the same day. (No problem!!!) DHL Express International is sandwiched into a building next to TNT and FedEx. Apparently DHL was to move into the building – and bailed at the last minute.

Once inside the building there were two two additional security points to get into the cargo bay. (Apparently they don’t want people walking in & out with random packages…). Once inside the office next to the cargo bay, I asked if I could take photos and got a resounding, absolutely NOT. They were surprised that I managed to get my camera through security…

So for the next three hours I verified inventory. This basically meant scrambling on, over and around pallets and counting the boxes…through the shrink wrap in a muggy, open warehouse. Not so easy as it sounds, but we managed to all concur that we were missing only one box. Oh, well.

From there it was up though more security to the DHL offices where I worked on customs documents until midnight. Got all of them done, printed and then went back down to the cargo bay to label each pallet.

Donation of relief supplies to Myanmar.

It wasn’t until midnight that I discovered that they were going to de-palletize the load for transport to Yangon on commercial flights. They basically take all of the boxes off the pallets and put them in huge red bags. I’ll be shocked if they didn’t run out!!!

The first seven pallets arrived in Yangon today! Still haven’t heard if they cleared customs, but with any luck our staff will be able to begin distributions to partners in the next couple of days.