Haiti: First Thoughts, Feelings and Images

First in a series of posts on the author’s week in Haiti - her first visit Dec 29, 2018 to Jan. 4, 2019

I went to Haiti with few expectations except that it was going to be hot and humid with few if any creature comforts and the hope I would be useful and do some good.

After a two-hour plane ride to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from Fort Lauderdale, FL, with beautiful blue Caribbean water and the mountains of Haiti to entertain me, I was in the small airport - going through all the steps - entering the country as a foreign citizen (show your passport, pay $10 U.S.); go to the cart payment window, pay $3 U.S., show your paid ticket to the cart handlers and away you go to baggage claim; get your bags while avoiding the baggage handlers trying to get your bags for you for money (this involves acting like you know what you’re doing - I guess the fact I had managed to get a cart and looked as if dressed for camping or maybe field reporting worked in my favor). Also, it’s your basic baggage carrousel - nothing to be afraid of.

After this, I apparently was supposed to sit and wait for the team leaders of Second Chance Haiti - but I just kept going and made my way to the exit into the waiting area. Here I was asked for my passport, what I was doing in the country and if I brought anything to declare. And then I was out in a lobby about the size of my small-condo bedroom. There was no bathroom and a baggage/cab employee kept telling me my driver was outside. to take me to this man’s guest house. No, he’s not, I said over and over again. And I have a place to stay. I wasn’t confident of speaking French in a Creole-speaking country (I later became very comfortable as I found out most Haitians also speak French).

My team leaders were 20 minutes away on a good traffic day; today, it took them two hours. I sat atop the pillow I brought on the tile floor watching people come and go for about six hours. The team wasn’t leaving for about two hours after I arrived, I knew that, because there was another plane arriving with more of our group. Here are the observations I made that day:

I love airport welcomes. No matter what country, what airport, people are welcomed with love and affection. Hugs, laughs, high fives, kisses.

 A man of maybe 70, missing his left arm. In the gray uniform of the transportation employees. He approached me multiple times certain I was the student he was looking for to stay in his guest house. He carries a folded piece of white paper in his pocket with black letters with his name and the guest house with address on it. He called himself Jim. 

No thank you, I kept saying.

At one point he called a phone number and said he had my driver on the phone and he was outside. I don’t have a driver, I insisted. I’m waiting for a group. I’m waiting. I’m not going anywhere. 

Jim was very nice and approached me a last time about 3 hours into my wait to ask if I needed something to drink. I have water but thank you, I said. I didn’t mention that the only bathroom is on the other side of security and I was about to burst. 

People are friendly in this airport - to each other especially. Nice to me - but from me they were hoping for a payment. To each other, they were all smiles and hugs and handshakes and fist bumps - welcoming men and women back from the U. S. For Happy New Year and the country’s Independence Day - both Jan. 1

There are approximately seven chairs scattered throughout the studio apartment sized lobby - all occupied by employees. Two woman in yellow shirts who I believe work at one of the cellular stores, sat on boxes near an ATM eating their lunch around hour two.

I sat on the tile floor for about an hour next to my luggage then I got my pillow out of a suitcase and sat on that - it was a little help. I made my nutrient/protein/supplement shake with a Naked drink I bought in Fort Lauderdale. Hour four, I ate a Kind bar (sea salt and chocolate).

Senior leadership - two very friendly North Carolinians with strong southern accents and big smiles came running in and hugged me during hour 5.

They went to see about the 10 or so arriving just now and then we’ll all get in a vehicle and head to Croix-Des-Bouquets - about 12 km west. It took the pair two hours to get to the airport with some terrible traffic. Into hour 6, I am standing, leaning on one leg, then the next , trying to forget about my bladder.

What looks like hundreds of people stand outside the airport and I haven’t figured out why. Are they waiting for taxis, friends, buses? A woman and her baby were out there for more than an hour after leaving the airport. 

Two men in hard hats just walked in carrying a large medal pole. They are now staring at the pole and some wires hanging from the ceiling just outside the Banque Nationale de Credit. 

As in any airport in the world, there are men in suits, women in dresses. Some people wear shorts, some jeans. Some house slippers. 

Every 15 minutes or so, you see a person holding onto a security employee - onto an arm or a shirt. They are escorted inside - assume it’s some special privileged treatment.

I saw a tall, rugged American guy - military or a reporter (I know the look) - brush off one taxi-getter for another who he slyly handed some cash - one closed hand to another at their sides, while he pretended to throw something away. Then he calmly and confidently walked out of the airport - a greyish green backpack strapped to him.

My flight was at 6 am. I left my house at 2:15 and arrived in Haiti at 8 am. 

It’s 1:37 pm. Good people watching and reflection time. 

Though I hope we are on the move soon - I really have to pee. 

 2:04 on the road to Croix-de-Bouquets - no bathroom. 

There are 10 people on the bus on the mission, one driver and two security - both in front so we would certainly die if attached from the rear of the van, I think from the back seat. 

Figuring out personalities. A pair from a small town in North Carolina - they are amazed at everything they see but got quiet when the whole van wasn’t chiming in. I think they were embarrassed- they shouldn’t have been. “Well I guess they all know we’re from a small town”

We pass colorful tap tap trucks, goats and cows on cliff sides. A conversation starts on how you can buy prescriptions in a pharmacy without a script. We weave through traffic on unpaved rocky roads. The bumps and jostling aren’t helping my bladder. 

There’s a boy -Ethan - who is 12 who is with his mother Laura. She was here last year. It’s the boy’s first trip: he is humming and pointing out “doggies” and “cow-ies.”  We would become very close over the next six days.

In the Port-au-Prince airport. Wearing necklaces of the patron saint of writers and the deaf baptized in the Dead Sea by my friend Q’s sister’s wife. Kentucky home necklace from my always thoughtful sister Michelle.

Homemade airport breakfast