Haiti Homecoming

I had an early departure from chez Edwards yesterday morning--4AM.
Father Alan met me at the airport a little "en ritard" at 5:20; this made me a bit anxious, but I held on. There was a bit of difficulty with my heavy trunk--it was one pound over the maximum of 70. They had already sent my other bag down the line, so it was going to be difficult to repack.

I failed, at the early hour, to remember the wise words of my mother: "If it's too heavy, take out the wheel rack and carry it on the plane."

1 lbs over = $100 extra. Strike number 2 for the day. But I tried to have faith.

The flights themselves were fortunately uneventful. The plane from Miami is always crowded and always crazy. Many of the Haitians have failed to master the ticket number/seat number thing, but probably because no one has ever pointed it out to them. The plane becomes a jumble of people sitting randomly wherever they want, which leads to some problems.
It is gives one pause, as usual, to see the ever gracious flight attendants filling out customs paperwork for the passengers who cannot write. Education is something we all take for granted in the US, and it is not always available for the Haitian people. The situation seems to be improving on that front.

My formerly-favorite new trunk was locked somehow on arrival, so I couldn't get the wheels out to get it to the car; this meant paying a skycap $10 to carry it there, though he earned it.
Strike #3 for the day.

Or maybe not strikes, but opportunities to go with the flow and have some faith in the plan unfolding in this adventure.....

Damn trunk.

Father Alan managed to pry it open with a screwdriver without damage to the clasp. F
Faith rewarded?

Port-au-Prince is really hot and humid. I seem to be keeping a fine layer of sweat on my body at all times. The mosquitos seem to find any small patch of real estate that hasn't been covered in bugspray. I was hoping to avoid worrying about that all the time, otherwise it will be a long month. If I can just project the feeling that I am not a tasty snack, nor that I want malaria....

We arrived at Matthew 25 House. The city transformer had blown in the last 24 hours, so that means there is no water-pump, no electricity generally (it all comes off an inverter and a diesel-powered generator), and, most sadly, no fridge. One has to readjust one's standards of sanitation down here, but there has always been at least something cold to drink and a place to stash milk and things. It was quite a nasty task cleaning out what had been left in the fridge, but now I can at least put my open box of soymilk somewhere....getting warmer by the minute. Again, sanitation laws, not unlike gravity on the moon, seem to have no effect here.

The first order of business was to clean up the office where I will be sleeping. There was seemingly a year's worth of dust collected, but I know it is only from the last several weeks--Haiti is a very dusty country due to the environmental breakdown. We arranged furniture and got rid of extraneous sapce-waste, reorganizing not just for ourselves, but hopefully for all the other temporary housemanagers that come and stay here. Having had so many different people in and out, it is difficult to keep things organized around here, I think. This is understandable--everything, including people's health, is so unpredicatable. I am not sure the proprietor, Bertony Domond, the Haitian man in charge of keeping the house running, appreciated our services so much, but the space needed more than just better feng shui.....

Father Alan repaired some screen windows that had come down so we could keep out at least one more mosquito.

After Father fixed an amazing salad, we were treated to what Domond called the worst storm of the year. It was all manner of thunder and lightning and torrential rain. Pipes from the upstairs drains were forcibly shot out of their joints creating a great pouring faucet from the downspout. Father and I realized what a boon this was for us without electricity and therefore water. We quickly donned bathing shorts and, one at a time, ran out into the deluge with soap in hand. It was one of the most refreshing showers I have ever had. It was probably not so wise for us to have been standing in standing water in a lightning storm, but....

I prepared for bed by unpacking and then tried to tuck into a sheet of the heaviest humidity. No actual cloth was needed.