L'Arrivee

I can't believe I'm in Haiti. It's exhilerating, wonderful, exhausting, distressing all at once.

Blanchard, the school/church complex run by Haiti Outreach Ministries (HOM) where we are staying is wonderful. We have bunk beds with air mattresses and malaria nets (not the most comfortable, and I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable sleeping on an air mattress anywhere but on the floor, but it's a bed) as well as working bathrooms and showers with cooler water, not cold, that feels glorious after hot dusty rides in the tap-taps. Tap-taps are pick-up trucks with benches on back, that serve as the go-to Haitian public transportation. Our tap-taps belong to Blanchard, so it's only us that ride on them.

Rooftop dining at Blanchard

Skeeter nets for the beds; air mattresses and bunk beds...sort of mix

Traveling in style in the tap-tap

As I write, music is filling the air from the church as it has since 6:00 am this morning. Nights come early (we went to bed at 8 last night) and mornings earlier (we rose at 5:45) as church began at 7 this morning. It feels natural though, and our bodies reset last night after our exhaustion from traveling all day. We left our hotel in Ft. Lauderdale at 4 am and arrived in Port-au-Prince at 9:30, then proceeded to have a full day traveling to an outlook over the city and some tourist attractions. Just a first taste, so to speak.

Church this morning was an experience. We attended the original HOM church in Cité Soleil, one of the poorest parts of the city. There were about 500 people, and at some point we rose and had the ushers pin ribbons to our shirts, to honor our presence I suppose. The readings were in French and some of the hymns, but most of the rest was in Creole. I understood quite a bit more than I thought I would, enough not to get bored during the 2 hour service. Everyone was dressed to the nines, whatever their nines happened to be. For some it was a full suit, for others a t-shirt and a skirt. Many of the elder women wore lace caps as well. Wedding rings and glasses were few and far between, though to the people standing and waving their hands in prayers, these are frivolties, even though I suspect more than a few wouldn't have been able to see the readings had they been written in front of them. A choir of women about my age sang with hand motions, to much applause. Applause was encouraged at many points in the service, which would have garnered many a gasp in church services at home. These people come together and honor God with their hearts full of love, even though they are in need of so very much.

Cité Soleil Church

Sortons pour servir: we go out to serve
Je suis avec vous: I am with you

We visited one HOM site after church where the church and other buildings were mostly destroyed by the quake. Plans for reconstruction are underway, though, and we were there to help move pews under a replacement temporary tent with enough room for about 500 people if I had to guess. The work was quick as we aided members of the community, and I had some disjointed conversations in French and English with some young men near my age. I am glad to be able to communicate at least some of my questions.

We rode through the inner-city of Port-au-Prince this afternoon, to get a better flavor of what the city's like. Some parts smell from the piles of rubble and trash and raw sewage in the streets, while people pack the sidewalks selling food and goods. Tent and shacks fill what look like former city parks. We passed by a cholera center, and one of the Haitians sitting with us explained about what problems 80% unemployment brings: drugs, gangs, and alcohol. The presidential palace is a broken symbol of a broken government and a broken country: it's dome sits precariously, threatening to fall in any minute. We stayed only a minute, as we were under seige from peddlers asking for money and for us to buy some souvenirs. A similar scene was found at the Cathedral: it was almost like visiting the Roman Forum, except in a a building not meant to be falling apart. Signs of its former grandeur are evident in the rich tiling now cracked and filthy and the stone windows lacking their stain glass. Beggars carrying young children asked for money for medicine and food.

National Cathedral

Presidential Palace

And then, we ended up in this sanctuary of an old hotel fairly well preserved that serves as a sad reminder of what Haiti could have been. It had rich detailing and a wonderful veranda where we ate lunch looking through the tropical vegetation at the sea. We could have been in Costa-Rica or the Dominican Republic, not Haiti.

I have much more to say and many pictures that I wish I had the capability to share, but suffice it to say I willl not forget Haiti. Leon (the head of HOM, I think) thanked us for coming here,  telling us that those who come come because they have hearts full of love. But we must have patience, be flexible, and share Haiti with those when we return. I'm going to have a hard time leaving this place, and an even harder time not finding ways to come back.