I’ve realized in going through all of my media from our trip to Haiti that no amount of pictures and video can even begin to describe what it is like there. It’s one of those things that you have to experience in person to really understand, and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to do so! Our trip was awesome and we were so blessed to have no sickness or injuries for anyone in our group. Our team of 18 people was beyond amazing. Everyone had such great attitudes and I heard no complaints the entire week! Despite all of the things that could have brought us down, our team was flexible and went with the flow.

We knew right from the get-go that this trip would be interesting. When we arrived at the airport we found out that our flight was overbooked and two people from our group would not be able to get on a flight out until the following morning. We begged and pleaded with the airline to not separate our group (I even offered to fake cry), but nothing could be done. Since we were flying to Miami first, the majority of people on our flight were leaving for cruises and so we couldn’t get anyone else to give up their seats. James ended up being one of the ones to stay behind, so I was quite nervous the whole first day of the trip.

We sat on the runway for a while and eventually found out that the plane was too heavy. Rather than remove people from the plane they decided to remove bags. Our bags. We sat in the plane watching almost all of our team’s bags being taken off of the plane (I think they left maybe one on). Right away I was thankful that I had followed the packing list and put 2 days worth of clothes in my carry-on!

Our flight arrived in Miami late that night and by the time we got to the hotel it was almost midnight. We had to be up at 4:30 am, so we all headed to our rooms to get to bed. I was sharing a room with the other 3 ladies on the trip (only 4 of us total) and we opened the door to our room to find only 1 king bed and a recliner. We figured it must be a mistake, so I called down to the front desk only to find out that it was no mistake, and the majority of our team’s rooms were set up this way! Needless to say, no one got much sleep that night (maybe 1 hour for me if you add all of the minutes up).

The next morning we were up bright (except it wasn’t exactly bright yet) and early to hop on our plane to Port-au-Prince. I was able to sleep for a while on the plane and somehow stayed awake enough to function throughout the rest of the day. It was cool to see the country of Haiti from the sky and get a feel for what it was like. I’ve gotten so used to living in the flat cornfields of Indiana that I almost forgot what mountains looked like!

When we stepped off the plane the heat and humidity hit me like a pile of bricks. I don’t even have asthma and I was struggling to take full breaths! It was such a drastic change from the air conditioning on the plane that it took me the rest of that first day for my body to get used to it.

The town where we were going to be staying was a 3 1/2 hour drive from the airport in Port-au-Prince. Since the other 2 team members that got separated from our group were going to be arriving later that afternoon, we decided to explore Port-au-Prince while we waited for them to arrive.

Our first stop was Emmanuel Church. RoRo, one of the missionaries behind Haitian Christian Outreach (HCO), started this church back in 1984 with 7 people. Since then HCO has  planted numerous other churches throughout the country. The day that we visited the church RoRo’s younger brother, Gerard (who is the co-founder of HCO and a fellow CCU graduate) was preaching to a full house. Even though we couldn’t understand most of what he was saying (he was speaking in Creole) it was neat to worship with the Christians there. The music was my favorite part of the service. The musicians in the band have some serious talent! We had the opportunity to get to know them more throughout the week and find out what a great group of guys they are.

Here’s the band jamming after church was out…

And here’s RoRo and Gerard…

After the service Gerard gave us a tour of the whole church, which also functions as a school.

What’s amazing is that there really was no structural damage during the earthquake. We saw a few cracks in the walls, but that was it. Because of this, over 800 people stayed in the church after the earthquake! They used the upstairs as a medical clinic and people were crammed together sleeping on the floors everywhere else. I can’t even begin to imagine what that was like. Gerard also told us of how he was on his way to church when the earthquake struck. He had literally just left his house before it was demolished.

View from the church…

This was our trusty dusty shuttle bus. You wouldn’t believe what this thing can drive through!

After we left the church we went to lunch at a restaurant that served American food (or at least pretty close). It was an adventure trying to talk to the cashiers who did not speak English and trying to quickly convert Haitian money to U.S. money in our heads! I was super excited to find ice cream there (that had been shipped in from the States), which was such a nice treat after all of the sweating we had already done. We hung out there for a while in the nice air conditioning before we headed back to the aiport. :-)

When we got back to the airport to pick up our 2 stragglers we ended up having to wait in the bus for almost 3 hours! Remember our bags that got taken off of the first plane? Well they ended up NOT making it in on the next flight! We eventually had to leave with just our carry-ons and hope that they would come in the following day (which they did).

The drive to the house we were staying at in Jacmel was crazy to say the least. We got our first real look at the streets of Port-au-Prince, which were complete chaos…

Vendors lined the streets selling everything from food to paintings and everything in between. I mean, why go to the store when you can carry the pharmacy on your head? ;-)

From what I could tell, there are pretty much no driving rules in Haiti. People crowd the streets on market days and vehicles just barrel through them. Somehow people and animals get out of the way at the last second. Several times I thought for sure we were going to hit someone or run over a foot, but luckily it never happened.

While much of country didn’t look too different from before the earthquake (or so we were told), we did see some of the destruction caused by the quake…

The Presidential palace…

Some of the saddest things for us to see was the housing that many of the people live in, as well as all of the trash lining the streets.

One thing that we saw a lot of everywhere we drove were “Tap-tap’s.” These are essentially taxis that people pile into and when they get to their stop they simply “tap” the side!

When we made it through Port-au-Prince the remainder of our drive was through the mountains. I am not exaggerating when I say that that part of the drive was scarier than a roller coaster to me! We went through so many twists and turns, up steep hills that I never imagined a shuttle bus could make, and dangled on the side of cliffs (or so it felt like). I ended up having to keep my eyes closed a majority of the time so that I could somewhat relax!

It gets dark very early in Haiti this time of year, so we drove in darkness for a good portion of the trip, which didn’t help my nerves any more. It probably was a good thing so that I couldn’t see how high up we were. ;-) The one part of the drive when many of us got nervous was as we passed through some small towns high up in the mountains. We came upon a couple of large groups of people that were singing/chanting and dancing in the middle of the street. They surrounded the bus and made it difficult for us to drive through. Some of the people just watched us as they continued to chant while others appeared to not be so happy and yelled things at as. We came to find out later that these celebrations, known as rara’s are primarily a voodoo tradition. Needless to say, God protected us and we made it to our destination safely.

The house that our group stayed in in Jacmel was very nice, especially for Haitian standards. Ginny, a nurse who works with HCO, and her daughter Odessa, who she is in the process of adopting, live in the house full-time. They have groups stay with them quite frequently and employ a Haitian staff to cook and clean.

The house had electricity for just so many hours a day and then would run on a generator when it got turned off. We were careful to not leave lights on or fans running to save power. Showers were military style, but with the heat it was no big deal. We had toilets to go to the bathroom in, but had to throw all toilet paper in a trash can rather than flushing it down. Flushing a toilet would only occur when absolutely needed, if you know what I mean. ;-)

Odessa is 2 years old and full of energy! See that adorable little dress she’s wearing? That’s her school uniform! WAY too cute. We all loved getting to know both Ginny and Odessa, as well as the Haitians that stayed and worked in the house with us.

The house had several rooms with bunk beds and a ton of air mattresses. The first couple of nights I slept inside, but by the middle of the week I had joined half of our group sleeping on the roof! Despite all of the noise from the neighborhood roosters, goats, donkeys, and dogs, I slept better up there because of the cool temps at night and breeze from the ocean.

The neighbor’s yard…

The view from the roof was beautiful!

We used the courtyard in front of the house for eating, devotions, and just hanging out.

In the next post I will be sharing about the work that we did, the people and kids that we met, and the beautifulness (is that a word?) of the country. So come on back ya’ll, ya hear?!?

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