Arriving in Haiti

I don’t have internet access yet, but decided to write anyways and post when I do.


It’s Saturday 6 AM. Day 3 about to begin.

I found our arrival to Haiti very symbolic of the situation here (as much as a newbie can understand it).

Plane lands, deplaning in a normal modern way directly into the terminal. Terminal air-conditioning weak, but existent. Walking through the corridor towards a ‘welcome band’ playing live music (Recommended for every airport to make arrivers feel welcome). At the end of the corridor there’s an escalator that goes down towards a door where a bus is waiting to take us to the real terminal that holds immigration. The only problem is that the buses are slower than the flow of people so when the escalator ends it pushes you on top of the people before you that are waiting for the bus. There’s a person at the top of the escalator for crowd control, but he only stops people from getting on the escalator, when he sees folks running up the wrong way to avoid hitting the crowd.



More about the landing:

- The US army base at the airport with its helicopters is just enough to raise the association of ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ arrival scene without really being scary.

- Getting out of the terminal - it was quite hard to push away the folks that wanted to ‘help’ push the trolley.

- It’s hot. But not unbelievably so. Humidity is not a problem as long as I stay within 2 meters of a fan. Preferably 1 meter. Otherwise – will still need to adjust.

A city street. We still don't have a picture that really captures the feeling.

Friendly face at the airport, excellent lunch at ‘the office’ (avocado salad is all I need to be happy), meeting the entire team of workers (except for those that were busy preparing our home), basic grocery shopping at the supermarket, drive to the village. Arriving home.