Finally in Haiti - July 10, 2010

I'm in the process of catching up on my promise to update my blog with stories and pictures from the mission trip I took to Jacmel, Haiti in July.  I am using the journal I kept during the trip as the primary material and will add in thoughts when I have them.  Thanks to everyone who has shared kind words about my recent updates. It's nice to know people are reading and that they are actually interesting and/or meaningful to someone else!

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July 10, 2010
7:30am Eastern (4:30am "body clock time")
Hotel in Miami, Florida

Fell asleep watching Titanic last night.  Even with the Ambien I woke up a few times, but more because I was nervous about oversleeping. 

I'm a bundle of nerves this morning.  Got up early enough to have a "relaxed" getting ready time.  Enjoyed my shower.  Keep thinking my next stay in this hotel (on my way home) will be much more relaxing!

My bags are packed and I'm getting ready to catch the shuttle for the airport.  Honestly, I'm not looking forward to meeting the team and making small talk.  That is hard for me when I am nervous.  I actually delayed going to the airport and then putzed around after I got through security so that I wouldn't arrive at the gate super early and feel weird about standing around meeting strangers. How grumpy am I?

My anxiety is really general right now.  I'm not scared specifically about the flight, danger in Haiti, or really anything. It's more like I'm really keyed up. 

OK, so I'm also a little nervous about my stomach today. There I said it.  I will be fine.

Please God help me not to be afraid.  Help me remember why I am doing this and keep me focused on being a servant, instead of focusing on myself.

July 10, 2010
10:30am-ish Eastern
Sitting on the plane in Miami

Made it to the airport on time and not too nervous.  I needed to walk to stay calm though.  I called Eric and texted my parents. Started to feel sad. I met Gina, Aubrey and Patti and we talked until boarding.  There are a lot of relief teams and military personnel on the plane. We actually boarded on time and it looked like we were ready to go, but we've been sitting on the plane at the gate for more than an hour.  Apparently someone on the "No Fly List" boarded the plane, so they removed the person and now they have to search all the baggage to remove their bags.  It sounds like now we can go.  It's been a wait, but here we go! That was actually very ridiculous. First we boarded and then waited. Then they said the thing about the "No Fly List" person/people. Then we waited. Then they said we could take off. Then we waited. Then they said someone on the standby list who didn't get on the plane had luggage checked and they had to get that luggage off too. Then we waited. In the meantime, I called and then texted Eric and my parents for awhile. My least favorite part about flying is actually boarding the plane and waiting to take off. Once we start moving, I am usually fine. So this was an extra test for me, the "waiting for an extended period of time without taking off".

July 10, 2010
6:30pm Local Time (which coincides with the US Central time zone even though Haiti is southeast of Florida)
Jacmel, Haiti (!!) - Roof of the Loving Light Hotel

WHAT? I haven't "done" anything today but I'm pretty wiped out.  The drive to Jacmel wasn't conducive to writing, so I'm going to try to explain as well as I can what has happened and what I've seen.

When we landed in Port-au-Prince (PaP), the first thing I saw was tent cities and military vehicles (parked at the airport).  You could see the blue tarps all over the place as we flew in - tent cities, but everywhere.





View of a small tent city as we flew in to Port au Prince

Military barracks set up at airport

Airport terminal

My seatmate was a scout for a medical mission (secular) and had been to Haiti two prior times.  He asked how I was feeling about going and I said, "Nervous and excited." He said, "You should be." I said, "Which one?" and he said, "Both." That kind of freaked me out. 

Prayers have been felt - I haven't had an anxious stomach all day!

When we left the plane, we were herded into an "immigration" hallway.  We had to take a small bus about 1/2 mile to the immigration area.  From there, again herded, this time to submit our entry documents.  The building was a giant shed/warehouse that was very hot and smelled like sweat. 



Waiting in line to present entry documents



The craziest part of the airport was baggage.  It was extremely crowded and people were just ramming into each other and pushing and shouting (mostly in Kreyol, some other languages).  My hand got smashed - hard! - by an irate CNN cameraman who was slamming down his equipment and yelling at someone. We later learned that Anderson Cooper was reporting live from Haiti the day after we got there, so maybe this was one of his camera men. I would much rather have met AC, that's all I'll say about it.

Yes, somewhere in this mass of people there is a baggage carousel

Patti, expressing the craziness in the baggage area

It took awhile for all of us to get our bags. Because there is only 1 baggage carousel -- really I have no idea what the "because" is, this could just as easily say "because we were in Haiti" -- some of the airport workers were putting some bags on to the carousel and putting some in a baggage area roped off on the side. There was no system that we could understand for which bags came around on the carousel and which were pulled to the side. And the ropes made us think that those bags were somehow "off limits" - it looked like the little rooms they have near baggage claims in the states for when someone misses a connection or a bag gets lost and they set those bags aside to wait for the owner.  So after waiting and being pushed for probably 15 minutes, I realized that one of my bags was in this roped off area. That solved a mystery as many of our team members were still missing bags and it was because they were off to the side. I still have no idea if I was supposed to go to the roped area or not, but I couldn't reach it anyway (crowds) so I ended up pantomiming to a guy who lugged it over the rope and to me.  Patti, pictured above, ended up waiting about a half an hour for both of her bags.  It was really starting to look like they were not going to show up and she got really nervous that she would be in Haiti for 8 days with NOTHING. But, God was watching and her bags showed up eventually!

We went through customs and gathered inside the fence.  This was the part of arriving that I was most worried about. Given the travel advisory and comments from a few friends who went to Haiti on missions before I did, I knew that "once you exit the airport, you are in Haiti". So it was with some sense of dread that I walked through the doors with my two gigantic bags to come face to face with whatever reality was out there.

View out the doors of the airport. In my head I kept hearing, "Don't let go of your bag. Don't let anyone take your bag."

Of course the very first thing that happened when I got to my group, waiting inside the fenced area, was that some random guy started taking my bag. I was seriously ready to start punching people if it made the difference between losing and keeping my bags! But Gary [Our team coordinator] told me we needed porters, so it was fine.  The porters loaded our bags and then argued (loudly) in a way that I found hilarious about who was the "boss".  It turned out to be a good thing we had porters for our bags. It was about a mile walk from this spot to where we met our vans and I had 100lbs of baggage and a backpack. The hardest part was that there were 5 or 6 porters and my 2 bags ended up on 2 different carts, so I was trying to appear relaxed but keep up with my group and keep an eye on two different carts with my bags.  I was really surprised how quickly I switched into "St Paul mode" and the street smarts kicked in.  I felt those personal safety type instincts almost immediately when we walked through the fence of the airport.  For those of you who aren't familiar, I taught elementary school for 2 years in one of the poorest, high crime neighborhoods in Chicago. Anyway, I introduced myself to our team coordinator, who had been in Haiti for about 10 days at that point and knew what was going on, and stuck right next to him from the point we left the airport fence until we got to the vehicles.  I figured, stick with the guy who knows what's what. 

The porters kept flashing badges at each other and shouting.  Apparently the "boss" receives the tip and is responsible for dividing it up, so there is financial gain to be had if you are the boss.  While that arguing was going on, some of the porters who were clearly NOT the boss were making the rounds asking for payment for carrying our bags.  They would pretend to get angry when we said "no", but then would move on to the next person.  A couple of the ladies actually started going into their bags right next to me and I seriously almost tackled them to get them to stop. We had explicitly been told by our team coordinator not to tip the men, that he would handle the payment to the porters. 

Discussing who is boss.

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Tomorrow: The CRAZY drive from PaP to Jacmel, my first impressions of the town, and some details about our accomodations as our first day in Haiti comes to a close