Day 2: February 14, 2010

This morning I was grateful to feel so rested before heading to Haiti. We had a decent hotel breakfast before splitting up once more into two cargo vans. One van held Jenny, Rachel, and two mechanics who joined our group. The other van held me, Janet, Lauren, and Sondra. We each went to two different airports. I have to pause and make a comment about our van driver. I am not sure he spoke English very well, but he thanked us for helping the people of Haiti and then gave us a bag of girls shoes to take with us. It was very touching.

Okay, the airport experience. This is going to be a slighly embarassing story. We arrived, unloaded all 12 bags of supplies plus our own carry ons.

Here was the plane..

Yes, the thing had a total of 5 seats. That is the pilot standing there who was so happy to be taking us because apparently he received a nice sum of money in his account that morning. That was a little reassuring because I took one look at that thing and burst into tears. Surely we were going to die on the way to Haiti. I asked the obvious question...where are all of our bags going? to which the pilot replied..you can take 6, including your personal bags. Okay..you mean to tell me we drug 12 bags of heavy supplies all the way from Roanoke, to Greensboro, to Raleigh, to Miami, to Ft. Lauderdale just to leave them at this airport? Yup..more tears from me who number 1 is not cool with enclosed spaces and number 2 is not cool with flying to Haiti without our needed medical supplies. Here is where I place a frantic phone call to Jenny Ma to see if they could take some of our bags in their plane. She tells the story best but I guess my voice was 8 octaves higher than usual (is that even possible) and the men with her overheard me and said "what is wrong with that child?". Even Janet was not happy about leaving all our stuff behind and flying on this ricketly old puddle jumper. Lauren was my voice of reason, and we all got on the plane with our carry ons and 1 bag of medical supplies. I didn't stop crying until we were in the air and I realized this wasn't so bad after all. I was calm and it must have been a God thing. The view was gorgeous... This was leaving Florida.

This was flying over the Bahamas. Yes, the highlight of the trip was actually landing in the Bahamas for fuel. I have never been there so I was so excited! To leave snowy NC and touch down in the balmy Bahamas was the lift I needed that day. This is a picture of the little airport.

Behind me in the immigration office the locals were giving me weird looks. Come on, I couldn't have been the first one to play on the bongo!

After this brief stop in heaven, we flew an hour and a half until we were finally over Haiti. I can't say that from the air there was anything particularly beautiful about it. There were jagged, dry mountains that didn't look hospitable to life, crumbling concrete buildings, and glimpses of tent cities. We landed in the hot and humid airport and were greeted by our leader, Dr. Sarbin, and Vanessa Carpenter, the founder of Angel Missions Haiti.

Customs was no problem and we made it through the airport and loaded into two vans. One van was going to the U.S. Comfort to get three patients for us and the other was taking us to our new "home". I wish I had taken some picture of the drive through the streets of Haiti. Imagine the worst road conditions, dusty, trash and rubble lined each side of the road, bunches of people walking around. By the way, Haitians drive worse than any New Yorker. You think surely the driver is going to crash into another vehicle or run over a stray dog or pedestrian, but no. Somehow it flows without accident, although still scary for someone who lives in Roanoke,VA. The driver laughed at my reaction to almost getting creamed a few times.

We rolled through the streets of Haiti, having no idea where we were going. We pulled up to a gate and the driver honked. The gate rolled away and we backed into this little compound where we would soon learn is where our new friends lived. We must have looked like deer in headlights, but Dr. Sarbin was there to guide us so we followed him down the steps, and down more steps and finally reached the outside of our home. Right through that green door was where we were staying. It's a soon to be medical facility with a surgical center on the second floor and a clinic on the first floor. One of the few buildings that survived the earthquake.

Thankfully, there were mattresses there for us to sleep on because our air mattresses were left in Florida. We secured our mosquito nets to the wall with duct tape and it was actually pretty comfy and clean. This is our bathroom which seems like a normal bathroom but actually has special "rules".

First, no flushing the toilet. Second, no TP goes in the toilet. And after years of doing this it was a hard habit to break. I think all of us had to go "fishing" for our TP at least once. Third, if it's yellow let it mellow. Ew. At times the water started turning green. You could flush manually with dirty water from your "shower". Showering involved standing in a bucket and pouring clean water over yourself with a cup. Not so easy, but at least we had the option. Just having a place to go to the bathroom that was not a hole in the ground was a blessing. Oh yeah, no door on the bathroom. Everyone knew everyone else's "bathroom schedule". Fun times.

Almost as soon as we arrived and tried to adjust to our new surroundings our first patients arrived. An 8 year old boy named Ois who had a head injury and broken femur from the earthquake. He had spent the last month on the U.S. Comfort and had not seen his family since. He couldn't talk and spent most of his time just staring. His method of communication was moaning, so it was a guessing game to figure out if he is hungry, bored, has to pee, or what. He loves hugs and seems to be content sitting on your lap with his arms around your neck.

We also had two babies. A boy named Christopher with hydrocephalus and another infant who had a congenital neurological disorder and was not expected to live a long or normal life.

These pateints would be our responsibility around the clock...something we didn't expect for those of us who don't work night shift. But we divided ourselves into shifts to take care of them the best we could, although it was new for most of us who take care of babies and not children with neurological problems. But we got to refresh ourselves on how to do basic nursing skills like pin care and taking care of a dependent patient.

That night we went up on the roof of our medical facility which is the "playground" for the children. Janet and I were sitting and talking, taking pictures and enjoying the air when a little girl named Nikah came up to us and gave us hugs. She quickly became one of my personal favorites.