Trip of a lifetime...for this tourist

Kev Crosby told me this would be the trip of a lifetime. So far it has been that and then some. My problem now is that this is going to be impossible to explain.

I finished packing around 1AM on Sunday morning. We got up to go to the airport at 350AM. Not the ideal way to start a trip. I flew from Atlanta to Miami; at Miami I was supposed to fly to Port-au-Prince (PAP- Haiti). I was supposed to leave Miami at 2 pm and arrive in PAP at 4pm. Of course, while I had emailed GHESKIO my flight information I was still yet to hear confirmation or what to do upon arriving. I figured it would all work out fine.

While I was waiting in the Miami airport, a cute “European looking (and sounding)” woman asked me if she could join me for lunch. Of course, who am I to be rude? Turns out she was polish. I told her I was part pol (she rolled her eyes..is that some line?) She told me she lived in NYC. I told her I was moving there this fall! (she laughs and rolls her eyes aging…these lines are terrible!). She told me she was a physical therapist, I tell her my partner is a physical therapist (I think at this time she realized I was not hitting on her). At any rate, as I tried to keep the conversation going, I asked her “So what are you doing in Atlanta”….(of course I had slept through my first flight and we were now in Miami)…the reply “I hate to tell you, but we are in Miami” (Imagine this with a strong polish accent and a table of ladies snickering next to us.)

In Miami the flight gradually got pushed back further and further. Finally, we boarded the plane around 430 pm. I was sitting next to what looked to be a Haitian (as most of the flight was), so I thought I should begin using my Haitian Creole. I said “m konprann Creole Haitian tu piti” ("I understand haitian Creole a little"). Mistake. He spoke back to me for about 45 seconds before I could cut him off and try to explain that I really only knew 3 sentences in Creole…I felt like an idiot. So we spoke some in English. I asked him when he learned to speak English. He said he was 17. I asked him if he learned while he was in Haiti. He replied “Yes, I learned it in Haiti all alone talking to myself”. I paused for a minute and then realized the sarcasm. “Oh, I see, you being the funny guy huh?” I said to him. He let show a wide grin and a hearty laugh as he smacked me a high-five. “That’s right!” He said, laughing. Apparently Larry David has nothing on the Haitians.

Suddenly, we were told to get off the plane; it had been canceled. Because US flights are not allowed to stay overnight in Haiti, the flight was too late. We would try to fly out the next morning. We filed off the plane while people spoke in Creole, French, Spanish, and English. I found a few English speakers to find out what was going on. As we paraded through the airport, we ended up waiting in a huge line for hours. In this melting-pot line I joined in the only English conversation I could find; thus I met Chris (visiting her grandson in Haiti), and Wedly, a Haitian coming back for his father’s funeral).

Luckily, Chris and Wedly and I stuck together that night as we were shipped to Fort Lauderdale to stay in the Hilton for a night. The next morning we landed in Haiti.

On the plane ride in I sat with another new friend I had met – Danielle (an argentinian man with a huge gray beard and pony tail twice as long as mine). He lived in Eqcuador but was traveling in to look at some data (he had a PhD in something but I forgot what!). Talk about sitting next to the right guy! As we were given our customs card on the flight I wrote “research” for “why are you here”. He saw this over my shoulder and immediately told me to get a new one and write “tourism”. Confused, I argued a bit to get an explanation. He said that if I say research they may want to see government papers or hassle me; "what research? Was I going to say bad things?" Etc. So I took his advice; I am now officially a “tourist”.

Upon landing we were informed that although it was 10am, our bags were coming on different flights, to arrive at either 2 or 4 pm. I CANNOT emphasize how bizarre the PAP airport is. I had heard a lot about it – but it truly was bizarre. There were so many little things I simply was not prepared for. For example, upon landing I was concerned with baggage claim- I could not read any signs. Yet, there was only one small belt running.
After filing for lost luggage (and being told come back this afternoon), we walked outside into the hot fog. My friend Danielle called GHESKIO for me but there was no answer. Outside, no GHESKIO member was waiting for me (although the first thing I heard was “I am your ride friend”…of course I thought “what” and then said “no, you are not”. They are very aggressive outside the airport to transport people for some money). Danielle offered to take me to the GHESKIO unit, but no one knew how to get there.

As we were standing in confusion, Chris (my mom figure thus far) came back to find me to introduce me to her son Eric. Eric is in Haiti with his wife and 5 kids running an orphanage about 1.5 hours north of PAP. We met and he offered to bring me up into the countryside and see the kids and eat rice and beans with them. HOW could I turn this down? It was amazing, after all the hub-bub about safety, etc. here I was jumping at the chance to experience “real” Haiti. So I slide 100 bucks into my boot and tried to put fears of losing my laptop out of my head. Chris road in the back with her two granddaughters and I rode up front with Eric (all of us VERY white). As we got in I asked Eric if this was safe with my laptop – to ride up into the hills, etc. He smiled at me and locked the doors. Ha!