Eleven Days in Haiti: Part 2 – Arrival In Haiti
This is part 2 of the “Eleven Days in Haiti” series that started here: https://fbcbridgeport.org/eleven-days-haiti-part-1-series-intro. Be sure to get caught up if you missed the prior post!
PROLOGUE, part 2
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2010-ARRIVAL IN HAITI
The men stayed at Ed’s place, right next to Dan’s at the lake near Roxboro. We were up at 3:00am and left for the airport at 3:45. We were checked in, drinking Starbucks by 6:00. Jackie Green met us there. We left promptly at 7:00 and had a five hour layover in Miami, which we used for bonding, walking, exploring and enjoying the exquisite airport cuisine. TSA is very effective at screening, so we felt very secure, until the Cuban restaurant served us silverware….fork, spoon and serrated knife which I considered stashing in my carry-on just because I could. The flight to Port-au-Prince was uneventful, but the airport is chaos, making it very challenging to connect with the authorized folks from NCBM that are there to guide you and load your luggage. There are the others who latch on to your carts and bags because they just want to “help”. We were somewhat lucky in that our extra “helpers” were satisfied with just carrying our stuff to our vans, but of course there was a price to pay. Scott Daughtry, one of our hosts and a missionary on staff with NCBM was able to appease our helpers with a fistful of dollars and they mostly scurried away. The whole airport experience reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie. I felt a certain relief as we pulled away from the bedlam at the airport, but that was replaced by a shocking possibility that perhaps the whole nation, still reeling from the effects of the earthquake nearly a year ago, would be more of the same. I rode in the back of a pickup truck with Dr. Daub, who was on his sixth mission trip of the year and enlightened me as to some of the customs of Haiti and what to expect in the days to come. The drive through Port-au-Prince was hectic, but seemed to be the usual state of affairs—lots of traffic, dilapidated vehicles, horns blowing, shouting and small fires burning everywhere. The drivers seem crazy, using horns more often than brakes, but there are surprisingly few crashes. I guess you adjust. I was to find out later that the usual route from the airport was deemed too risky because it was nearly dark when we arrived, so we took a longer, supposedly safer route to the secure 60-acre compound that would be home for the remainder of the trip. Earthquake damage is still evident but life goes on.
People are walking the streets everywhere, but it is not clear where they are going.
Perhaps they have been in the city for the day and are returning to the tent cities which continue to grow on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, quickly becoming a way of life for the estimated 1.3 million persons still displaced by the earthquake.
Scott and Janet Daughtry, volunteer missionaries assigned by NCBM to lead the Haiti project are amazing hosts. Scott is a retired state park superintendent from North Carolina and Janet is a retired kindergarten teacher. They manage the teams that come in weekly by providing food and shelter as well as organizing the work for both the construction teams and medical teams. They see that all teams have adequate local staff which includes drivers and translators. They oversee maintenance of the vehicles and the house that NCBM rents on the Global Outreach compound, also shared by Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide Christian relief agency run by Franklin Graham. Samaritan’s Purse houses their medical teams there as well as assembling the kits used to construct shelters for those without homes after the earthquake.
Soon after our arrival, we met with Dr. Vladamir Roseau and his fiancé, Dr. Merline, both Haitian natives, working for NCBM to run the mobile medical clinics. Dr. Vlad is the medical director for the project and he was thrilled to see the medicines and supplies we had brought. We talked and organized some of the meds for Day 1. After a short time, the doctors left and our team prayed and most were in bed by 9:00pm. It had been quite a long day.
