HAITI!! DAY 1

INTRODUCTION-Haiti, the poorest of poor

The principal at my school and her husband, both MD’s, have had a vision of opening a Medical University in Haiti.  However, before doing this, they feel it necessary to start a free clinic to help those in need; a clinic that the University students can work at to build hours.  Therefore, the Hispaniola International University (HIU) was formed.  HIU asked me to go along and help open the clinic.  The group I went with consisted of 6 people: Mr. Beauregard, a Haitian man named George who lives in Miami, a Cuban man named Harold from Miami, Alicia Janzen, the administrative assistant at YLC and myself, as well as a Haitian-American woman doctor from NYC named Alexandra.  We all arrived in Port au Prince, Haiti early on Sunday morning to officially start the week.

 

A little background on Haiti before we get started.  Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  Medical issues seen that we knew we would be dealing with was mainly parasites, which come from their water, and malaria, spread by the thousands of mosquitoes that live there.  The average income per person per day is about two American dollars.  The national language is Creole, which is very much based off of French. 

 

Sunday, October 25, 2009  Day 1

 

The sound of music coming from my phone wakes me at 4:30 in the morning.  I slowly drag myself out of bed as I brush my teeth and go to the bathroom.  Everything was packed allowing me to sleep as much as possible and get the airport by 5 to meet the group.  Alicia stayed the night at the DOOR house, as we live very close to the airport.  My room mate Julie was kind enough to wake up and take us, getting us there in perfect time.  When she dropped us off, we were met by everyone except Harold, the man who planned the whole trip.  Time kept ticking by, but he was nowhere to be found.  Finally, at 5:30 George decided to call him.  Harold answered, revealing that the call woke him up.  He sprung into gear and got to the airport immediately. 

We went through the airport, getting scanned about 300 times it seems and showed off our awesome pictures on our passports the same amount of times.  Seems like showing the first person would be good enough.  Guess not.  As we sat in line for customs, we saw the parent of one of our children checking in line too.  She also was going to Haiti for the week and was on our plane.  Finally, we all got through safely without getting frisked or anything, and walked to the gate.  Mr. Beauregard went straight to a man and started talking like crazy.  He told us to come over and introduced us as the man shook each of our hands.  We later found out he was the President of the Senate in Haiti.  The fourth most powerful man on the island. 

As we boarded the plane, the flight-attendant said the typical, “Watch your head!” as if I didn’t know I was tall.  Why does everyone think they are the first person to discover this fact?  People passed and passed but no one sat by me.  I kept waiting for someone to plop down beside me, however, the announcement of the closed door came and the seat next to me was empty.  Perfect!  I closed my eyes and passed out.

While sleeping, a bright light beamed right through my eyelids, waking me quickly.  The sun had just come up over the horizon, came right through my window and woke me up.  I look out to see what was going on, and saw the eastern tip of Cuba going right below us.  What an amazing sight!  I wish I could be half the artist that God is!  The rest of the flight went as directed and we landed in Port au Prince, Haiti about 8:40.  This was the last time that I knew the correct time for the whole week.  We never knew what time zone we were in, but finally, on the last day, discovered Haiti was on Central Time, even though it was east of Miami.  Didn’t make sense to us either.

As we successfully made it through customs in Haiti, we went to the exit doors, but sat and waited until our chauffer arrived.  When we received word that he was outside, we wheeled all our backs out the door, revealing our first real glimpse of Haiti.  People EVERYWHERE.  And everyone thought their responsibility was grabbing our bags and running with them.  Talk about putting up a fight to maintain ownership of our bags.  However, no one was trying to rob us, only help.  However, any help they gave meant we owed them money, or so they thought. 

We get to our car, which long story short, ended up not being “nice” enough for us, so we sat an waited about 2 hours until they found a better one.  In the meantime, the beggars outside the fences started yelling.  One in particular was about a 6’5” man dressed in all navy with a navy stocking hat on as well.  Why he wears a hat when it is 235 degrees outside I will never know, but power to him.  This man loved to yell!  “Hey boss!  Big Boss!”  I look up, but quickly glance away.  “Yea, you!  Boss!  How about some money!”  I soon learned as I sat and listened that this was the only English he knew.  I continued to ignore him and he kindly hopped away on his one leg and one crutch. 

While we waited, the men that carried our bags also waited.  For a total of two hours, they sat there just staring, waiting for as much as a quarter to be thrown their way.  Other beggars would walk by and say, “God Bless” just trying to get a conversation started, which would lead to money.  It was unreal. 

Finally we got the car situation figured out, loaded ourselves in one and our luggage in another, and took off.  Before we left, Mr. Beauregard instructed to lock the doors and keep the windows up.  He pulled out his wallet, rolled the window down an inch, and stuck out a 20 dollar bill.  All the men had gathered around the car, tapping and hitting on the windows just trying to get our money.  At this sign of money, they all snapped and went crazy trying to get it.  Instantly the window went up and we got out of there. 

We went directly to a Haitian restaurant and got lunch.  We all got a baked chicken with tomato sauce, fried plantains and rice.  It was a quiet lunch as everyone was still very tired from waking up so early.  We then loaded the cars and took off across the country to Jacmel.  Driving through Port au Prince was an amazing experience and something I never thought I would see.  Poverty everywhere as everyone wanted money.  We saw pigs eating trash in dirty ravines and people digging right beside them.  Many dirty markets lined the sides of the broken roads and people walking everywhere.  Streets were lined with litter of every color.  It almost seemed to be a new art form that was arising in Port au Prince, but we all knew that it really was just an environmental catastrophe in the making.  Painting the perfect picture with words is almost impossible.  The road takes us through the city, small towns, horrible road conditions, beautiful mountains, views of the ocean, small villages supported only by traffic on the road and finally to Jacmel, the sight of the clinic. 

When we arrive, it is dark outside, so the view is very select.  The few street lights illuminated reveal just a portion of the city, but the lights of cars and mostly scooters fill the streets.  The nighttime is the life in Haiti.  The population of the streets seems to double.  We arrive at the house where the clinic is an unload everything.  We settle in for a short bit, getting a tour of the house, then take off for the beach, which is the place to be at night.  Bands were playing and people were lounging, having no worries in the world.  Or so it seemed.  We got food, which was not approved by the FDA, along with everything we ate for the entire week.  It was delicious, but visions of me hovering on the toilet danced through my head for the remainder of the evening.

When we got back “home,” we blew up air mattresses and drug them out on the balcony on the third floor, under the stars.  Being this high surrounded by a locked gate with razor wire, we were “guaranteed safe” or so we were told.  With the temperatures still staying around 85 degrees, we brought two fans out on extension chords, which would be a necessity for sleeping in the harsh conditions of heat and humidity, as well as mosquitoes.  We used about 4 cans of OFF, climbed under the blankets and tried to sleep.  However, huge, heavy blankets on a hot and humid night is not your best friend.  Yet, they were protection from mosquitoes and malaria, so we deemed them as necessary.  Considering all this, I closed my eyes with a smile, for I was sleeping in HAITI!

While I thought the day was over, it really wasn’t.  I could not sleep well.  Waking about every hour do to heat stroke, I would try to cool down by getting out from under the blanket, but didn’t stay long as the humming of wings and bites of pain surrounded my body.  The deadly mosquitoes were out and hungry.  I also noticed the fans were no longer working and everything was covered in water as the due levels are very high.  I looked into the heavens to see the most beautiful sight.  The stars were brighter than anything I had ever seen in my life.  Millions of them shone above.  Even the ones millions of light years away that are never seen were very alive and brilliant in Haiti.  Once again I closed my eyes and smiled.