Monday
We all congregated at the American Airlines check-in counter... but my frustration started mounting real quickly... it didn't seem that any of the AA employees knew where we should go. I started in line #1 and was told I needed to move to line #2... then was redirected to line #3, and brought back to line #2. At that point an AA employee oversaw our group since he was Haitian (and lived in NYC for a number of years, so I sucked up to him as much as possible) and helped expedite our check-in process. We had plenty of time at our gate so we got our lattes and bagels... or whatever before we boarded.
We got on the flight just fine and had an uneventful flight and landed in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti on time. The trip through customs was interesting and having our custom green Espwa shirts really helped keep our group visible and together... we rented 8 carts with three of our 50 lb. totes stacked on each cart, and had this train of carts going through customs. (We were hard to miss!)
We had a misstep of paying a guy to 'handle' us in customs and Sue paid him $50, but it was the wrong guy. we found the right guy and paid him to 'help us' with our luggage and were able to start getting processed. They started going through the first few of our group's luggage, but they got bored real fast, so the last three or four of us were waved through without a notice.
We wheeled our carts about a 1/4 mile to the parking lot and found our drivers, so we started loading the vans. Our group was able to fit in one vehicle (13-passenger van) and the 24+ bags were loaded into van #2.
We finally departed the airport at 9:15 am and the trip from Port-Au-Prince was a 4 1/2 hour drive with a short stop for gas (200 Haitian Gordes = $4.75 USD per gallon). While they were filling up, we took a restroom break (I opted not to experience that activity since I didn't have the urgent need!) and a quick purchase of bottled water for most of us.
We arrived at Espwa (in Les Cayes) at 1:45 pm and started getting settled. We unloaded the luggage and found our personal belongings and chose our rooms. The guest house is beautiful, nicely decorated and well protected by security guards. We met Deacon Peter, Natalie the finance person, Jean Lexima (Director) and his wife Willeta the house manager (and dietician who plans the meals) in addition to the many young men (who are housed at Espwa) who work at the house in the kitchen by serving the meals and whatever else the guests need.
The usual pace is pretty slow, but at 4 pm each day the pace slows down even more and the guest house turns into happy hour, and we choose our drink of choice and sit around chatting and anticipating the dinner bell at 5 pm.
My plans (as the IT guy) were to get working on configuring the twelve laptops we brought... just the way Deacon Peter wants them... and to take a look at the broken laptop I was warned about two weeks before.
It gets dark real early (at least it seems so) and my body is ready for bed earlier than usual. I think I was ready for bed at 7:30 the first night, but was awoken at 9:30 when we had additional guests arrive. Doctor Jerry is a Pediatrician who came from Achorage on his annual 3-week trip and the coordination and communications must have gotten crossed and he did not have a ride to get him from the airport. He somehow managed to get a cab ride from Port-Au-Prince to Les Cayes and then came across a gentleman who knew of Espwa and he escorted him to our place. They put this gentleman up in our room (since we had three beds) and Doctor Jerry got his room assignment.
I went back to sleep only to be awoken by the rooster who crows at several times of the morning... usually 4:00 and several times throughout the morning. Some mornings, he would crow continuously... I started using my ear plugs on day 2, but the rooster actually helped me to wake up in time for morning church service at 6:45 am.
I will post again in the morning...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment