Days 92 & 93 (1/16/12 & 1/17)

Monday – I left Sacramento at 6:00 PM PST yesterday; had a 2 hour layover at LAX; arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 6:30 AM EST; had a 7 hour layover and arrived in PAP at 3:40 PM EST. I was back in Haiti for the 4^th time in a year, already sweating (my blood had thickened up at home) and ready to get back to work.

As soon as I got through Immigration, Customs and found my bags, I stepped outside the terminal and heard through the throng of porters – “Meester Beel”. It was our “special” porter “One-armed” Jackson. He pushed through the crowd and grabbed one of my bags (the small one) and escorted me out to the parking lot where Spana our staff driver was waiting for me. After getting a big bear hug from Spana, we loaded my bags into the D-Max and headed for the Guest House in Petionville. As we started out I said “I’m really glad to be back”. Spana turned to me and said “You really love Haiti, don’t you”? I immediately replied – “Yes I do” – and was rewarded with a huge grin from my friend.

When we got to the Guest House, I was immediately greeted with “Meester Beel, Meester Beel” from the Haitian staff – mixed with lots of hugs and hand-shakes. Ysamus, who is smaller than me, put one of my 50 lb. bags on his head, grabbed one more in each hand and carried them to my room in the Manse (about 150 lbs. of bags). I went upstairs to the office and got hugs from Tom, Sarah and Mario. I was back home with my Haitian family.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and late into the evening catching up with everyone and getting a briefing on what was going on. We had 6 teams in country and would have from 30 to 50 people at the Guest House almost every night this week. There were several meetings scheduled for the next few days. It was apparent that I would have to hit the ground running. I went to my room and fell into bed at about 11:30 PM – happy but exhausted. At 2:00 AM my cell phone woke me up. Linda had “butt dialed” me from home. I vaguely remember talking with her for a few minutes before falling back to sleep.

Tuesday – I woke up at about 6:00 AM; had my first cold shower and headed for the Guest House and my first cup of Haitian coffee (love that stuff). I got more hugs and hand-shakes as drivers and interpreters started to arrive. Tom asked me to accompany the first team to start on our new site at Delmas 33. This was Mama Lou Lou’s church that I had surveyed just before leaving in December. (Last night at around 10:30 PM there was a terrible accident at the intersection of Rte. De Delmas – the main road from Petionville to the airport – and Delmas 33. A large dump truck loaded with sand lost its’ brakes and crashed into several cars, motorcycles, vendors and pedestrians – killing 26 and injuring 65. Fortunately, Eric, our driver, knew a way around the scene and got us to our work site without incident). At the church I got the team oriented; conferred with the site boss and then went to the airport with Eric to pick up a team returning on a “puddle jumper” from the island of La Gonave in the Bay of Port au Prince. We got back to the Guest House in time for lunch (Eric doesn’t like to miss meals) and I spent the afternoon trying to get my desk reorganized and my head into the game.

After supper the staff had a cake for Tom and Wendy who were celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary. I chatted for a while with some of the visiting team members and then retired to my room to unpack and start building my nest for the next 3 months.