Headed for Haiti

February 18th 2012: 5am - I leap out of bed to answer our wake up call, and we pack up and head down to the lobby. It was a wonderful surprise when the continental breakfast that opened at 6 was conveniently already stocked with donuts and yogurt and apples. Due to our 19 pieces of luggage (not including carry-ons), our airport shuttle had to make two trips. The girls and I took round one and began chatting it up with out shuttle driver. Wouldn't you know it, he's from Haiti. I guess you can read into that as little or as much as you like, but we just enjoyed chatting with him about our trip, and his growing up in Haiti. It was a good start to the day.

After a smooth check in, and some early morning gellato we boarded our 757 to Port au Prince. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of flying...especially the descent, so I took lots of pictures on the way down to distract myself :)



During our 3 1/2 hour flight we learned that there was going to be a Carnival going on in Haiti while we were there....apparently this is a typical thing that happens in Southern countries right around the start of Lent. We weren't going to be in the same area that the carnival was taking place, but people on our plane were PUMPED! Lots of excited French and Creole chatter as we arrived, and musicians serenaded us as we disembarked on the tarmac.

If you ever fly to Port au Prince, I have one piece of advice for you - BEWARE RED SHIRTS. These men may claim that its their job to look after your luggage, they may try to rip the luggage tags out of your hands...they may even call your sweetheart of a roommate a bitch, but whatever you do HOLD ON TO YOUR BAGS. On the other hand, some of the airport employees were super nice, and we chatted with one man who was showing us pictures of his kids, and I got my first taste of what the Creole/French/English language barrier would be.

By the time we made it to the school bus provided by Mission of Hope we were already sweating. While we waited for the other group that never arrived we snapped some photos of the airport still damaged from the 2010 quake...



....and we listened to the sounds of Haiti, including car alarms, car horns, car horns, car alarms, and car horns.

On our drive to the Mission of Hope campus which was about an hour out of Port au Prince we all were surprised by different things. In 2005 when I was in Oaxaca, Mexico teaching English I had my first experience with the Third World. The tarp and tin houses, the colourful buildings, the crazy driving, the markets, and the smell I was "used" to. Not that I was at all desensitized to it, rather I was prepared for those aspects. I was however surprised by a few things. First: Holy garbage! The streets are lined with it, the banks of the rivers are covered in it. There is no government funded waste disposal system, and the Haitians don't quite understand the idea of a dump, so the entire city is a dump.



As we got more outside of Port au Prince the country opened up around us, and I realized I also wasn't expecting Haiti to be so beautiful. It's an island in the Caribbean, its attached to Dominican Republic, but I've never thought of it as scenic. Well it is....



It really is...



In the middle of our trip, our bus driver pulled the bus over next to a mountain. He pointed to a little cross in the distance. He told us that the cross marked one of the mass graves just over the mountain that was filled with bodies from after the earthquake. Our stomachs churned a bit as we thought about that. Its only been 2 years, there are reminders everywhere of it. This is still a country that is mourning.



As we rolled into the MoH campus, we were still really uncertain of what to expect. we had no details on our work projects, or on what our living situation would really be like. We unloaded our extra suitcases in the donations room. We were so thankful to Ray of Hope in Waterloo that Julia and I have been fortunate enough to connect with this year, for their generous donations of clothes and shoes, as well as Grantham MB Church in St. Catharines which provided a lot of toiletries and 3 cords supplies.

On to the guest house. To our surprise, the accommodations were way more luxe than expected. Pillows - what?! Screens on the windows - what?! Working shower and toilet - WHAT?! So with our minds at rest about a few things, we went and explored the base before settling down for our first meal -- Lasagna made with tortillas, and the picky eater in me said "Alright...we can do this" :)