First Impressions

I knew it would be interesting when I saw that tiny, small little plane we were going to take. 

The pilots have been taking people in and out of Haiti for the past three weeks they were super cool - two Americans from Front Royal VA of all places....it brought me a sense of comfort even though I was terrified to get on that plane.  

The plane worked and it took about 45 min to get from Santo Domingo into PaP.  When we arrived into the airport which resembles a military zone complete w/all those tents (like you see on CNN) I knew I had landed in a different world.  I chuckled to myself when we pulled off the runway on to the grass (never did that before).  There were Military guys all over the place.  I wanted to say "hey! I'm an American too!" but they seemed to oblivious to the Aid workers coming and going.  I'm not even sure they noticed us.

When we got through Customs (which was just a woman sitting at a desk on the tarmac at the airport), we then walked through the building which was condemned over to the other side. When we finally emerged through the door, my colleague and I anxiously looked for the WV person/car.

No sign of anyone.  We drew a crowd of anxious Haitians looking to be our taxi ride because our ride wasn't there.  I communicated with one of them in Spanish who then talked to the rest in Creole - who thought I'd use my Spanish in Haiti?  Anyway, I kept telling him someone was coming to pick us up but they all still stood there and stared at us. 

There were plenty of trucks from Doctors Without Borders, International Red Cross, Save The Children...but no World Vision.

Well it turns out that World Vision does have access to many vehicles but the radio signals to communicate between cars is still not up and running.  So we texted someone we know was already in the office and they sent another car to get us.  On the way over to the team house I saw probably about four World Vision trucks.  I wonder if one of them was headed to the airport to get us?  We had no way of telling them we were already here.

So as you can imagine, logistics at this point are still a challenge.  I hope I'll see a big improvement in the short time that I'm here.

I need to run they just brought in lunch for the team.  I hear food is "random" not sure what that means.  Also I saw so many buildings down on the way here, incredible destruction.  PaP is a city where the slums are on the sides of hills, and in some cases its all been just crushed in the landslides.  I have some pictures but they don't tell the whole story. 

The team here is in good spirits.  They are all working very hard.  We have a few desks and a few chairs.  The IT people have a wireless connection all hooked up.  Not sure where I'm sleeping but I know it will be at the team house.  It was great to see some friends of mine who are deployed. 

I just got my first bug bite.  "Welcome to Haiti" is what the mosquito said right before I killed it.

I'll write more later.  Bye for now!!