We met 4:30am at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Ct and it’s now 8:45pm EST. It’s been a long but productive day.
We took a van service to JFK and then a flight onto Port au Prince. We were the only non-Hatians on the flight. The flight was uneventful.
I had been told about the chaos at the Port au Prince airport. Descriptions don’t do it justice. You have to experience it to believe it. People are pushing and shoving, there’s no baggage carosel and everyone is hustling you for your bag carrying business.
I am very fortunate to be this trip with an amazing group of seasoned Haiti veterans. They helped keep the situation under control and we moved through the airport quickly.
We then took the 30 minute drive the the Outreach to Haiti house that we are staying in. We passed tent cities and lots of rubble but also many well kept shops and well kept people. It reminded me a lot of the poorer sections of Tobago that we’ve been to. I did get the feeling though that it’s not what you see that’s the problem, it’s what you’re not seeing. If you peek down the alleys, you can see much more distruction.
We got to the mission house, which is lovely, settled in and then had a delicious vegetarian dinner. After dinner, we sorted the medicine that we brought with us. We then had a team meeting about plans for tomorrow and plans for the clinic on Monday. We are going to be holding an eye clinic and a dermatology clinic in addtion to the reguarly scheduled primary medicine clinics.
I am so blessed to be here with a great group of women. I still wait in anticipation of what’s to come. I imagine it only gets more difficult from here. But, for now, I am happy to have day one under my belt.
(pictures to follow; computer is being difficult)
