Haiti - Day 1

In order to get to Haiti from San Antonio in one day, you have to take the 6 am flight out of San Antonio to make it to Miami in time.  So we were up at 4 am on day 1.  We had six bags packed and two carry-ons.  The carry-ons contained all of our clothes and the six bags (well, 3 bags, a pack n play, a baby carrier and stroller) were FULL of cloth diapers and clothes that so many of you guys generously donated for the orphanage our missionary friends are working with.  Did you catch that? SIX CHECK IN ITEMS and no baby with us so the carrier and stroller were not on the complimentary list = expensive!!  But these were all pretty necessary items that you can't get down there, I really didn't want to have to choose between them.  So lots of prayer went in to the bags issue.

We attempted to upgrade 24 hours prior to First Class since you get 3 complimentary bags each and it was only $110 dollars to do so.  Because our flights were mixed airlines (American and US Airways) and they are in the midst of a lovely merger, the long and short of it is after much hold time both airlines reported that neither of them were authorized to upgrade us to First Class.

Plan B - I asked both airlines if they have some sort of humanitarian waiver since all of the checked bags were to help an orphanage.  The outcome of those conversations was basically that the airport check in agents were the ones with authority on that and they couldn't guarantee anything for us. Hence our 4:45 am airport arrival.  We knew there would be some finagling to get the bags on at a decent price. I would have to dig deep and pull out my Central American Missionary Kid bargaining skills that I hadn't used since my trip to Peru in 2010.   

On our way to the airport I was perusing the options for a Plan C and remembered seeing that active military got some comp bags on American.  Well, we weren't technically "active duty" anymore, but Mike is "active reserve," so we thought we'd just throw that out there.  We arrived and placed our ID's on the counter.  I knew she was missing something on the website but could tell it was useless to argue, and it was a slight relief to me b/c despite the agent's recommendation on the phone and a few other opinions that it would be ok to use our ID's to get that allowance since he was active reserve, it still felt slightly dishonest to me.  And as it turns out, it gave God a chance to show up.  

So on to Plan D.  I explained that all of the bags were for an orphanage and asked about a fee waiver for humanitarian aid.  She said she didn't know and proceeded to type on her keyboard.  Then she said that she would give us the first two bags free.  Which after the fact, apparently is the new policy, but it is nowhere on the website.  So that was a surprise, but what about the other four check ins?  She typed away again and after a while said the computer was giving us a total of $700 for the other three check ins!!  Excuse me?!?!  We all kind of choked, event the agent.  She called someone and talked a long time on the phone getting confirmation about that price.  She got off and in a relieved tone said it would only be $380 for the other four.  She might have been relieved, but we were not!  Mike got on the phone and began to call my dad to circle around b/c we were going to have to leave two of the items.  I pushed again and asked if she could waive the fees for humanitarian aid, particularly since two of the items would have been checked for free if we had been traveling with an infant.  "Can't you just pretend I have a baby with me?" I asked.  She said she wasn't authorized but thankfully got her supervisor.  The supervisor came over, I explained what we were doing, asked about the humanitarian waiver and reminded her that they would ship the carrier and stroller free if we had a baby.  In a very business-like manor, she approved it and told the lady just to charge us for the second bags, which were 40 bucks each. 

We waltzed through security having paid only $80 for six check ins!!  This was less than we were expecting to pay even if they waived the car seat and stroller!!!  An hour into our trip and we had already seen God do something pretty amazing!!  

We arrived in Haiti about 6.5 hours later.  I was quite impressed with the airport.  You can always judge the quality of an aiport by the cleanliness of the bathrooms, and they had a full time bathroom attendant.  So that was a surprise and customs and baggage collection went down surprisingly orderly and with no hassle. When we got into our friends' car, another miracle had just taken place.  They had fit all of those bags into their small SUV, along with five passengers.  

 As we drove an hour and a half to the town we would be staying in, getting to know the missionary friends and taking it all in I was surprised by how similar it was to, well, every other country south of the border.  I sometimes forget how odd the United States is in comparison to the rest of the world. We really do live in a bubble in America.  The driving was the typical "every man for himself" gig with lots of honking to let people know you are coming.  When the car slows down you are bombarded with people trying to sell you stuff through the window, mostly food.  The scenery was beautiful, ocean on one side, mountains on the other, dotted with trash here and there. The country is very colorful, with most stores and vehicles brightly painted and random names written on them. People don't drive with their a/c on in the car (if they have it that is) b/c gas is 8 bucks a gallon so we quickly became accustomed to the smells and heat of Haiti. Think humidity coupled with lots of smoke, diesel, random stinky smells -standard south of the US border smells. Of course with all the similarities at first glance, as you get to know a country, their culture and values a little better, you begin to see their uniqueness.  One of those things that stuck out to us right away is the respect the Haitian culture has for elders.  They are very respectful and actually listen to them when an older person asks or tells them to do something.  I found that really refreshing.  Sometimes I think because of America's obsession with staying young looking, it carries over into a lack of respect for people that are old and the wisdom that comes with it. Another blog for another time. :-P

We arrived at our resort (think 2.5 star hotel in the US with amazing scenery and food) sweaty and exhausted.  Before checking in, we tried to call our Haitian World Vision contact.  His phone went straight to voicemail.  That would happen every time we tried to call for the next 36 hours.  We did a little snorkeling and swimming and waited about an hour for our dinner to be served.  If we hadn't been so tired, it would have been quite relaxing and entertaining b/c we were serenaded by a local band playing Haitian style music.  I'm going to upload a video of the band.  I never would have expected a banjo to be typical instrument used in Haitian music.  They also use accordian (which wasn't as suprising), electric guitar played like a bass, some fun percussion instruments and shakers.  I really enjoyed the joyfulness of their music.  We scarfed our food and passed out on our hard beds.    And that was day 1.  

Haiti - The idea and how it came about

I have been so surprised by the interest in our trip to Haiti and I was so surprised at how much I gleaned from the whole experience, not only while there, but the craziness leading up to it and even today, the opposition I faced after the fact.  It's so much that I decided I would blog about it.  First a disclaimer on the blog itself.  It's super old, I got the brilliant idea to begin blogging and quickly found it is NOT for me.  I don't enjoy it at all.  Most of the previous posts are from when Adiya was a baby and I was basically just blogging for the family.  So don't say I didn't warn you, they will be boring.  But I think the blogs about Haiti will hopefully inspire and incite you to action, if nothing else to get you praying for the country, the people and the work being done there.


So back in April, Mike and I decided we wanted to do a second honeymoon somewhere.  We had been looking and considering locations and one night, while packing some small gifts for the children we sponsor, out of the blue it popped into my head that we should try to visit our child that lives in Haiti b/c she is 17, about to age out of the program I assumed.  It was like God spoke to both of us in that moment and we were like, "yeah, let's do it!"

We looked into it, found we needed to give 3 months notice.  Guess what, we were 3 months and two days out from the dates we had set aside for our trip. We knew the organization (World Vision) would only take care of us in country while we were actively visiting our child but wanted to make a trip out of it and spend several days there, since it was birthed out of a desire for a second honeymoon.  We contacted a few of the missionaries my parents knew that work in Haiti.  The basic gist of their responses were that they don't recommend us coming if we don't speak the language or know the country.  It is a very difficult and quite dangerous in places country to navigate.  I figured as much, which was why I wanted to get some advice from them and find a local contact.  None of them lived in the area we would be going to so we continued praying, not feeling we should throw in the towel.

About five weeks from our trip date, we discussed it with my parents and decided that if we didn't have a local contact that would be able to help us get around and kind of keep tabs on us, it probably wasn't very wise to go.  We didn't feel comfortable proceeding with the trip, but yet I didn't feel like I should just give up and tell our World Vision that it was not going to happen.  So we waited.  We made the decision on Saturday and I remember sitting in church on Sunday and something that was said in the message jabbed at my heart, as saying it wasn't over yet, even though it basically looked impossible, or if nothing else, foolish for us to proceed.

That afternoon, my dad calls me all excited.  He says as he was sitting in church that morning he got a message from one of the missionary families in Haiti.  They hadn't given me their information b/c the wife and daughter had been recovering from an intense bout of Typhoid and a few other illnesses. Well, she was fully recovered and was contacting my dad asking when they were coming to visit.  My dad mentioned they wouldn't be able to come for a while but that Mike and I had been looking into coming.  He also mentioned that our trip was going to be quite complicated b/c we had heard back that in order to see our sponsor child, we would have to make an additional trip, but this one by boat to cross 14 miles of ocean to see her b/c she lives on a small island off the coast of Haiti.  Guess what!  The missionary guessed the island we had to visit.  Turns out, she lives right next to the port we would have to go to catch the boat.  And they had a place for us to stay and would love to pick us up at the airport (and hour and a half away) and help us get around.  CRAZY!!!  And more "non" coincidences kept appearing.

So it became quite clear that God was in this trip.  We started connecting with the amazing missionary couple (ok, just us wives, you know guys don't do that sort of thing :-P) and were able to fund raise hundreds of cloth diapers for a couple of the orphanages there that don't have anything, the kids literally just pee and poo on themselves.  That shocked me how many of you guys gave and still want to give, cuz I know cloth diapers aren't cheap!  We were also able to get lots of clothes donated for the children and some toys for the babies, which are really non existent in those orphanages.  So we were all loaded and ready to go.

ONLY ONE PROBLEM!  I hadn't heard back from our local World Vision contact that was coordinating the visit with our sponsor child.  The logistics seemed complicated and the US office recommended I call him in Haiti since we were getting a slow response from him confirming logistics.  So I did. He was awesome, but we had a bad connection.  He told me to begin emailing him directly.  So I did. And that was the last I ever heard from him.  So here we are, a week out, tickets bought, bags packed.  But thankfully, we had our missionary couple we had been connecting with over messenger that had stepped up to help us out while there.  So we weren't too worried.  We would go and hope the wheels were turning on the Haiti side so we could meet our child.  I will blog about all the craziness that went down with trying to get a hold of the visit coordinator and how the visit ALMOST didn't happen!  We really couldn't believe it!