Friday, December 28, 2007

I made it to the airport and got checked in and to my gate in plenty of time to be able to get some breakfast and relax before my flight so I made some phone calls before I became international. Once on my flight I tried to go to sleep but the gentleman beside me felt the need to wake me up every time the stewardess walk by or had something for us or whatever, which I was not thrilled about because if I am sleeping obviously I do not need anything. I made it to Port-Au-Prince just fine and found myself at the airport still by myself. I was ok with that it just seemed weird that I did not see anyone else. It took me an hour to get my luggage because my carry on snuck passed me and I did not see it again until later. One of the Haitian men that work with the mission at the airport found me and took me to the buses where Jose, Roland, and 50 or 60 Americans were waiting to depart for our bus ride across the country. We finally started our 120ish mile drive to Port-de-Paix at 1245 and arrived at the mission at about 7. The roads were a mixture of paved and dirt/rock/puddles, but it never was uncomfortable. I got to ride on the roof of the bus for the last 2 and a half hours of the trip which was amazing especially because it took me the first 4 hours to convince them to let me on the roof. Once we got into Port-de-Paix we hit a couple of traffic jams and it seemed that it took a really long time to get to the mission. We arrived in St. Louis and the bus driver did not take us all the way to the mission so we had a little bit of a hike at the end of our ride. As soon as I got to the mission Janeil recruited several guys to go with him back to the bus to gather the entirety of luggage and pick up the Americans. That took us almost an hour and a half and was taxing on the back and legs but not so bad because there were a lot of us to get the job done. Finally at the mission it was time to sit down eat and visit with familiar faces and new faces. We chatted and got organized until about midnight and then hit the sack. Have a great tomorrow. Peace.