Saturday Night in Haiti

After a long day of travel yesterday, and a long day of counting and packaging pills today, we are enjoying a relaxing evening. Some of us are agonizing about the GA-FL game and others could not care less!

Our travel from Miami to Port au Prince via American Airlines was a disaster. The two hour trip morphed into a more than 12 hour ordeal due to mechanical problems with first one plane and then, another. The first plane had a cracked windshield. After trying to fix it all afternoon, the airline found another plane for us, but by then we had lost the crew. After the crew finally arrived, we loaded onto the plane, only to be told we could not  take off because someone had not gotten onto the plane, but their luggage had. So, all the luggage had to be removed from the plane, the errant bags found, and the remaining bags reloaded. Finally we were ready to go. By now it was after 7:30 pm. (Our flight was scheduled for 1:00 pm.) When we arrived in Port au Prince, we had a bumpy landing, and came to a stop. The pilot then announced that we had lost the nose steering gear and that we would have to be towed to the gate. After waiting for that to occur, we arrived at a gate, to be told that the hydraulic fluid had leaked out of the plane, so we would exit from the rear of the plane. Those of us in the back were happy about that! When we finally arrived at baggage claim, the bags did not arrive for a really long time because they could not open the baggage compartment of the plane.

Happily, Vundla at the Diocese of Haiti had arranged for someone to meet us to expedite our travel through customs and our drivers were patiently waiting for us. We were a little nervous traveling through Port au Prince at night, but no traffic made the trip much faster than normal. When we arrived at the hospital guesthouse, the usual porters were there to haul the14 large bags upstairs, and amazingly Janine had dinner waiting for us at midnight!

Today, we spent the day packaging meds. Throughout the day, various members of our Haitian team, including Frantz, Emmanuel, and Evens came to greet us. It was wonderful to see everyone.

Tomorrow morning, we will go to church for All Saints Day at St. Phillippe and St. Jacques, and then finish up the meds with the ever popular pouring of the liquid meds and creation of the STD and Prev Packs.

Now, some of us will play Bananagrams, before hitting bed early.