It has been a month and a half since our team of 11 set out for Haiti. On February 15th at 10:30am we all met at church with our friends and family all there to support us and to help see us off. It was such a great feeling to know so many people supported us and cared for us, and that they would all be praying for us while we were gone. After a group prayer and a picture we loaded up in the 15 passenger van and headed to St. Louis to board our jet plane. After a brief stop for lunch at Chick-fil-a we made it to the airport and boarded our plane with no major speed bumps. Even though the lady that checked our luggage in could have been a tad nicer, but I'm sure if she would have known our purpose, and if she would have known how green we were in international travel she would have let up on us a little bit:)
As the air turned on in the cabin the plane started to fill with the smells of Haiti. Quite honestly they were not as bad as they had been described to me but they were not pleasant either. The best way to describe the smell is that of burning trash. Everywhere you went it smelled like burning trash, which I got used to after a while. There was another group there with us that had been to Haiti and to the mission, Sonlight, where we were going as well. They kind of showed us the ropes and helped us through the airport. It was a relief to have them with us, made our first impression of Haiti not as overwhelming as what it could have been. Trust me when I say it was overwhelming enough. We went to another "terminal" of the Port au Prince airport which we had to take a short bus ride to. There we sat and waited for our puddle jumper ride to Port de Paix. We waited, and we waited, and we waited. We waited so long that we had to break into one of our totes that we were bringing with us that had food and supplies in it to find some kind of sustenance to get us by. Luckily the first tote we opened, right on the very top, was a Sam's Club box of assorted chips. It was like God had placed them right there for us because he knew we would need them. We were quite grateful for these chips, and we were not selfish, we shared them with the entire terminal.
Hours later it was finally time for us to make our final trek to our destination. I had been dreading this trip since I found out we were going to have to make it. I'm fine when it comes to big commercial plane rides, but the small "puddle jumper" plane ride terrified me. Needless to say my fears were confirmed as we flew over the mountains to get to Port de Paix. If you can try to imagine driving down a gravel road in a truck too fast. You know how your back end fish tales as you go? This was the exact same feeling I had in this plane. We were fish taling while shaking and dropping, it was awful. Thank God my good friend Emily was by my side to help me through. As we approached Port de Paix I looked down and saw some kids playing and running around on an open strip of land. It took me a few minutes to realize that this strip of dirt and gravel they were playing on was actually the runway where this death trap was going to land. I started praying and I was praying fast. As you can tell from reading this post that I did survive that plane ride, both ways coming and going, but it was definitely my low of the trip. Apart from the sickness I felt from the plane ride and the gasoline smell that filled the plane we were all there safe and in one piece.
We were greeted by missionaries that are teachers at Sonlight and they helped us to get our bags and our bodies onto a flatbed truck. This was our mode of transportation from the airport to the hotel. Interesting doesn't even begin to cover this experience. We were all so crammed onto the back of that truck that I thought for sure we would lose someone along the way, but we didn't. Getting to drive through the streets of Port de Paix and trying to process all that we were seeing made it real at that moment. All of the pictures in books and magazines, all of the news clips from tv and the internet were there in real life. I was seeing this devastation with my own eyes and it was something I'm not sure I can fully explain in a blog post. I have posted some pics to give you a glimpse of what we saw.
We made it safely to the hotel with no one falling off the back of the truck, which was a huge relief. As we unloaded our stuff in front of the Holiday Beach Hotel I was once again struck with anxiety because I had heard some horror stories about the accommodations. When we were showed to our rooms I was pleasantly surprised by how it looked. It wasn't near as bad as I thought it was going to be. I pictured the worst of the worst but this wasn't bad at all. There was running water and electricity at night time what more could a girl ask for. Plus I had two great roommates that made that first week stay that much more memorable. Love you Trisha and Emily:)
So after a long day of travel and experiencing Haiti for the first time we were all beat to say the least. We got to experience some wonderful hospitality from the Alexanders, the founders of Sonlight, and put our first day in Haiti to bed. We had to get rested up because the very next morning we had to get up early for our first church service in Haiti.
