Day 1

February 22, 2011

Day 1

5:30am Fredericton to Montreal

9:30am Montreal to Port-au-Prince

3pm airport to Karibe hotel

6pm supper and orientation with Paul Emile Cesar

I am tired after a very long day of travel but I wanted to stop and take a minute to remember the day. In many ways I can’t believe that we are finally here again, on Haitian soil. It seems like it was a life time ago that WV staff were evacuating us out of the city to safety, leaving the horrors of natural disaster behind us. And yet in some ways it feels like just yesterday. Today and the last few weeks of preparation have brought many images back to my minds eye and my heart. I am more aware again, of my experience last year.

It was a great day of travel really, no complaints or hiccups. Some of the anxiety and fear I’ve been feeling from time to time, especially in cramped quarters, wasn’t anywhere to be found-thank God, more than anything I felt a calm, peaceful assurance that God was with me, directing my steps.

I had the fun of flying on a larger plane than has been my limited air travel experience from Montreal to Port-au-Prince. I laughed right out loud at a man closing the gate on his little sci-fi pod at when walking through what I didn’t realize was first class. Now THAT is a luxury! Movies on board kept me entertained and amused. I felt like an illiterate slob, but decided to embrace it and enjoy!

We arrived in Port- au-Prince pretty close to on time. Not knowing what kind of chaos we might be faced with we were pleasantly surprised by the order and efficiency of the airport staff in getting such a large amount of travelers through in such a limited space with extenuating circumstances. After collecting our luggage (it seems everyone traveling to Haiti is bringing loads and loads of luggage with them!) we headed out for the usual race to the vehicles, so many young men adamant they could help us with their luggage. After loading our vehicles up with all of our luggage we headed through the city to our hotel.

This was a different drive on a different route then the route they took us to evacuate us last year. We bypassed the worst of the damage from the earthquake but it’s effects were still everywhere. We sat, mostly silent, absorbing all of the sights and sounds, but unable to process them. Rubble, and garbage, piled up along the road in neat piles, an effort at cleaning, but no where for it to go. Everyone cleaning something it seemed, pots, pans, bowls, feet, legs. Plastering walks, road work. And then there are the tent cities, rows and rows of tents, I don’t know that you can even call them tents. More like torn and worn tents, and tarps pieced together. I see a baby boy sitting in a pile of dirt outside his tent home, playing with a piece of metal-his dumptruck. I see so many children, playing alongside obviously contaminated water. I feel the helplessness, but also the awe that they have managed to keep going. People are amazingly resilient. These people are amazingly resilient. I see a young girl and her mother, the young girl stares at me through the car window and I smile back at her. She pauses for a minute and then smiles back, her face, beautiful and radiant.

The streets are so busy, and lined with merchants, tents, clothes, people. I comment that I would never drive in Haiti, and then that it would take some major getting use to to even walk the streets in Haiti. There are no street signs, and no rules to the road. Hills, so steep, streets so narrow and broken, people jumping in and out of traffic, bikes jutting in and out between vehicles. The most aggressive driver wins-HOW are there not pile ups of accidents everywhere! I laugh that Paul Emile likely thought our Canadian drivers so cautious and boring when he visited us in September.

The rubble seems to be lessening, the houses more stable as we crawl up the hills to our hotel and suddenly we are upon it. I can’t believe it’s beauty! The lobby is gorgeous and the patios, restaurant all seem to be the same-gorgeous! We are shown to our rooms and they are massive and beautiful. I have my own balcony, King sized bed, sitting area…it truly is wild the accommodating, especially juxtaposed with the devastation just moments away.

From the stairwell I can see houses upon houses built into the mountain. It is incredible to see and Paul Emile tells us that 20 years ago none of them were there. We briefly go to our rooms and I get a skype chat set up with Chad and my beautiful girls. It is great to see their faces and be able to report home this time that we have indeed arrived safely. We then gather together in the lobby to go to supper. The restaurant is beautiful, the food is amazing and the company is great. I catch myself wishing Chad and I were experiencing all of this together—this so fits—Paul Emile fills us in on some of our scheduling for the next day, talks to us about life in Port-au-Prince and the ADP’s, the boys crack bad jokes and we call it a night. Tomorrow morning we fly out of Port-au-Prince at 6:30am for Hinche and then travel from Hinche to Cobocol, to finally, a year and nearly 2 months later, meet the people we are partnering with through Freddylink and see the projects, one in stage 1, one in stage 2 UDICH and one in stage 3 COBOCOLL. Tomorrow will be an amazing day!

Paul Emile tells us that poverty has a different face outside of the city, that we will see, and feel joy and happiness even in poverty, whereas that is so hard to find in the city. It registers with me in my chest as I remember God putting it on my heart Tuesday night that last year I had prayed “God, your heart, your hears, your eyes”, and it had been hard, so impossible to explain, deeply hard, but this year, he was going to show me joy, joy in hardship, real joy. I’m so excited to see just that!

That’s it from me, 5:30am comes way too quickly—now lets hope I can get to sleep with that much bed to myself!~

~H