Arrival in Haiti

We're here. Yes.

I couldn't stay asleep last night - woke up at 2.30, which was fortunately post-time change so I at least got my extra hour of sleep before I woke up. Wake-up call was set for 4 anyway (that's when they started serving breakfast, and I love CWP breakfast time), so I got up and played on the iPad. Turns out I wasn't the only one, breakfast started early and went long.

I met a couple on the elevator yesterday who I had breakfast with - she's from Niagara Falls. He - it turned out - was long-time fishing buddies with the cousin of the man who sat down next, Irving. "President Carter calls me Irwin, though." Since President Carter is his elder by two years, Irv puts up with it. Turns out Irv is on my house, so I have someone who will do the work-out-the-cot exercises with me. Had so much fun at breakfast I was almost late for my bus.

Have you ever seen the pilot clean
the windshield before?

Travel to Haiti was uneventful, although it was hard to be patient. Jeff Carter was on my shuttle bus, so we sat together on the way over and made devious plans for if the rumor that no alcohol was being served at the bar turned out to be true. I also became the first person to lose my name badge - arm bands just don't work for me, I explained to he person who found it in the sidewalk outside the bus. Waiting for the bus, waiting for the bus to leave, waiting for the bus to get to the airport, waiting to check in, all so that we could wait three hours for the plane to leave. Do I sound like I'm complaining? If you know about my travel anxiety, you'll know that arriving three hours before a flight is a fantasy of mine. Also gives you plenty of time to shop at the Duty Free. The Carter flight left first, in a specially-decorated Habitat plane. We left on a regular Delta flight, but charter flights feature fabulous hot measl, from first class to the back of the plane, so who's complaining?

Speaking of the last row, I was in the window seat in the last row. Me, who kind of needs to be the first person off of a plane, was destined to be the last. I pondered this, and tacked on the phrase, "just the way I like it" — it works. Come time to get off the plane, it gave us time to use the plane's facilities before our 2-hour bus ride. As we patiently waited. Chatting with the other passengers, we watched groups of 50 before us cram onto coaches for the drive. But when it came to our turn, they were a bus short. Wait some more. For an air conditioned coach that only 15 of us had to share. We were in heaven at our good fortune. We put our carry-ons in their own seats to give us more room. I was sure I wouldn't get a window seat to take pictures - I ended up with a window seat on each side of the bus if I wanted it. Last seat on the plane pays off.

Haiti wasn't as shocking as I'd expected, mostly because I'd been to developing nations before and have seen the slums of Mumbai. The earthquake destruction was visible from the air as we landed - neighbourhoods we're dotted with naked foundations. Colourful encampments could also be seen, as well as obvious developments by builders who came before. I the drive, it reminded me of India and Guatemala. Brightly-painted signs belied the depressing wares they hawked. Geto Bank. Philip Barber. Any number of religious sayings on buses crammed unsafely with passengers. Christ Capable. Thank You Mother. I Love You Lucky. Different religion, that.

When passing the encampments, each tent was identified somehow with the group that brought it. US AID, Shelter Box by Rotary, etc. I thought Shelter Box were he nicest of the tents. OxFam had an enormous camp. Red Cross has begun transitional housing. Livestock co-existed - pigs foraging in the drainage ditch, rooster watching over from the roof. Everywhere we went, children on the sidewalk blew kisses and waved. Men waved, too, but a few of them gave us the finger.

Market

Streets were mainly cleared and passable, but here was rubble and debris on the side of he outside lanes. I began to wonder if it were garbage day. Many places I saw people pushing cars, not looking as though they were trying to start it. That's really the only explanation, though, when you see someone pushing someone else on a motorcycle.

Because so much time had elapsed that there was substantial plant growth, I was having a hard time distinguishing between earthquake damage and decay, and at points realized what I thought was falling down was actually something new going up.

Meal Tent

Arrival at camp, the very last ones, was delayed by President Carter's motorcade and apparently also by Tricia Yearwood and Garth Brooks' arrival. Grabbed my suitcases and headed to tent 75, where not only was I the last to arrive and had very little room left to me, but where there were only three cots for four people. Just the way I like it. I tried to request a cot, but you had to go to the meal tent, through the front entrance, and all the way to the ba... This is air conditioned? I'm just going to sit here for a spell... My new-found friends from registration came in - Lisa Nickerson and Jan Eliot - with their friend, Traci, who did not have work boots and was hoping to avail herself of one of my extra pairs, donated by Sue Campbell. They were staying in the Canadian tent, an enormous structure with 14 people in it. Or was it 13? It was, because now its 14, because rather than torture the three women in my tent, I moved into theirs. I mean, it's already Canadian...

Beautiful things started to happen. On the way to dinner, we encountered Scott Lyle carrying a bottle of wine and a stack of cups. The dinner line that had been halfway around the block was only about 25 people long when we finished our wine. Rice pudding appeared out of nowhere for dessert just when I'd decided I'd not had enough carbs. And after chatting with Chip and Jeff Carter for a while about the lay of the land, I stepped aside for the Carters' encourage, only to have Jeff grab my hand and say, "Watch how easy this is." He just brought me along with the family, seating me with them in the front row for the evening's speeches and preaches and dancing. I don't know where the Coke bottle full of wine came from, but it was delicious. Just what I needed to nudge me off to a sweaty sleep to recover for tomorrow. I just have to learn that you can let a mosquito net touch you - it's not like the side of a tent in the rain. Then I can relax.

Jeff, Rosalynn, Jimmy, Chip

(and yes, I couldn't sleep, so I wrote this at 2am, to be proofread at a later and less-sleepy time)