Home!

Bonswa friends and family! We are home! With so many stories to share......I'm not even sure where to even begin. I guess at the beginning right?? haha. Well let's see, it was such a long time ago but I'll try to do my best to capture everything.....

June 5th/ 6th

We met at the Chapel at around 2am to head to Detroit airport. We were all so pumped! On our way it started raining pretty hard, actually we found out that earlier there had been a tornado in Toledo, so we were driving through the remainder of it. It was kind of nerve wracking but we made it through :) We got to Detroit around 5am and immediately got in line to get our boarding passes. After that we went through customs and security and all that good stuff. By the time we got to our gate to sit and wait for our plane and grab a bite to eat it was probably around 6:15 am. Our flight to Miami took off around 7:45am......and landing in Miami was so cool! We saw the weee little island that in January we were riding scooters down those Miami streets on our Campus Focus Florida trip......haha who woulda thought I would be in Miami 5 months later en route to Haiti??

Miami airport was so hugeee and there was so many little shops and restaurants......it was like a gigantic mall. It felt like we walked forever to get from the terminal where we landed to where our gate for our next plane was. Once we got there we put all of our carryon stuff in one area. At that point, many of us were hungry, and some just wanted to sleep. So some of us stayed with our stuff while others went to find food. The next four hours were filled with sleeping, journaling, talking, eating, playing cards, and of course, anticipation!!!

Our flight to Port au Prince got delayed about an hour and a half....so by the time we boarded we were just ready to be there already. But once we got on the plane, we sat on the runway for probably a good half hour. That put us into Port au Prince probably two hours behind. Landing in Port was so cool though!! There were mountains everywhere and if you looked out the window you could see just all of the destruction from the earthquake. It was like looking at a picture from Google maps......it just didn't seem real yet. I wasn't able to get any pictures because I actually wasn't sitting by a window, but from where I was sitting I could still get a bit of a view.

When we walked off the plane through the terminal you could immediately feel the heat. We had to walk to another sort of warehouse building to claim our luggage. We were all kind of nervous, because we heards stories about how crazy the airport was from those of our friends from Campus Focus who had been there before. But actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was crazy hot, and a bit chaotic, but overall everything went rather smoothly. Baggage claim was a bit crazy too.....they throw all of the luggage in a massive pile, and you have to get a cart and try and pull your luggage out quickly. It sort of reminded me of that scene in Disney's Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan where she tries to get her luggage out of the heap.

Haha anyway, so once we all got our luggage we had to make our way outside the airport to find our ride. While we were walking, Haitians would try to come up to you and help you carry your bags so that you would give them money, but we were instructed to say "no, no" if they tried to grab it from us. When we walked outside there were people everywhere. I can't imagine being by myself, it would be kinda scary. But Kim and Stephanie and Caleb knew who to look for since they had been there before, so we all just followed them. Once we found our guy, "Big" was his name, he yelled in Creole at all the haitians who were tryin to help us, and so they all left us alone after that. Haha. Next task.....crossing the street.

In Haiti, you have to be super careful when crossing the street, because I guess the rule is, if you hit someone when you're driving, you're supposed to just drive away. Cars apparently have the right of way, and nobody is shy when they drive. People just sort of push there way through, so theres a good chance of accidents occuring, but its every man for himself. There is constantly honking going on and traffic everywhere.....its madness, sheer madness. I would never be able to drive there.

We all safely were able to cross the street with all of our luggage and we made our way to this giant white bus that would be our transport to our camp to Grand Goave. It was a nice bus....I think it was donated to Mission of Hope. We all loaded our stuff and got on the bus. First impression.....SOO HOT. We were all dripping with sweat. It was starting to get dark as we were driving to Grand Goave. It was only like 545pm but it gets dark around 6pm there. So we really didn't get to see all that much of Port au Prince from the ground since we had gotten in pretty late and it was getting dark. But we saw enough.

It was hard for me not to drop my jaw at what we saw.......there were some parts where it was like you couldn't tell where the rubble stopped and the tent shelters began. Everything was just so packed in, like sardines. It was hard not to feel sad at what we were seeing. There were so many thoughts running through my head.......how did this country get like this....so impovershed...even before the earthquake? How in the world is this going to be cleaned up?? And what the heck am I doing here? How in the world are we supposed to help this??? Where do we even start? So many thoughts, and emotions. I was mostly sad, but angry too....I don't understand how the rest of the world could let this country get as bad as it has.

And I couldn't help but feel hopeless for this country. I remember thinking how could anyone live like this??? But after living there for two weeks, there's still just something about Haiti, it's the joy of the people, that make it possible. I've never experienced so much joy from people as I did from Haitians. It makes you think.......here in America we have everything we need, and are packed full to the brim of just stuff. And yet it seems like we are never happy, like weare always wanting something more than what we have. In Haiti life is so much simpler. People aren't even fully dressed, and some don't even know where their next meal is coming from and still you see so many toothless grins and laughing children. Every haitian you pass greets you with a friendly "Bon jou" or "Bon swa" depending on the time of day.....ha. you would look like an idiot if you said "Hi" to every person you passed here in the United States.

Well thats all for now......more to come later!! By the way.....our team leader, Kim Conrad mainatained a blog while we were in Haiti and brought her laptop so she could update frequently......its kimconrad.blogspot.com........she did a good job at giving the details of our days......her and four others of our team are still down there until July 5th.....so please keep them in your prayers!!!


Peace and Love

Sarah