another country to mark off the list

wow, haiti has now been bellingered. (i hope j.p. reads this) what a crazy experience. it was wednesday and marisol, romano, jackie and i took a cab early in the morning to hop a ride on Caribe Tours. it is supposed to be a very nice bus and we were going to take it the two and a half hour trip to go west to the border of haiti and the dominican republic. unfortunately caribe tours wasn't leaving when we needed it to so we took linear expresso. the difference was if you were planning on staying in a four star hotel and ended up in a one star, or possibly a two star. the biggest deal i was told was the linear expresso usually just packed people in so there was little space, but our bus wasn't too bad. the problem for me was that in the morning before we left i had to do a few chores at the last minute and didn't get breakfast. whatever, i'm a big boy.

john martinez, our leader, was bringing the team in the bus later that day.

our small group arrived in da jabon, a border city in the dominican, and we walked to arsenio's house. he is the pastor of the church in ouanamenthe, the city just across the border into haiti. we waited at arsenio's house for the team to arrive.

the team was from chicago and there were fourteen in the group. one of the team members, sarah, had lived in haiti for six months at some point and knew creoul, the language of haiti. she was a big help throughout the week. the team was going to do vacation bible school in the mornings and a soccer camp in the evenings, or the afternoons actually.

finally the team showed up and romano and i walked to a really small restaurant to order food for everyone. and i mean restaurant in the dominican sense. open to the ouside. looks like a buffet where you point at something and the workers put it on your plate from the other side then hand you your plate. we ate chicken and then we set out for the border. all our bags had been brought in the van and were transfered to a truck at arsenio's house and would be brought separate.

we made it to the border and after a small wait, which praise the Lord was a blessing, we went through customs. which is basically just a big stone arch which on the otherside is a bridge over a small river. the bridge has a gate on it guarded by men with guns, men in camo. then we all hopped on a truck, our bags were moved to another truck and after another small wait for the haiti customs we were driving through ouanamenthe (WANNA MENTH).

people everywhere would wave and smile when we waved to them. kids were running along the streets yelling "blanc blanc" which means white in creoul. we got to the churhc which is a compound surrounded by a chain fence. there is a small area inside the fence, a small school under construction and a two story building that was the church. the church was actually in the bottom floor. the ceiling wasn't very high. it was always very hot. and the pews weren't the greatest. just metal legs with wooden seats and a two by four for the back rest. a lot didn't even have back rests. but it was actually pretty big inside.

the second floor was open to the outside. there were a set of stone stairs with stone railings leading up the one side and the walls were about 4 feet high all round. this is where we ate and relaxed and talked and regrouped. the back half of the floor had about 9 foot walls which made the two dormitories. the celing of the entire second floor was a sloped tin roof and the walls didn't even come close to reaching it. the rooms were separted by an area that was supposed to be a kitchen that was all the way open to the main area. both dorm rooms had many bunk beds that were stacked three high. we all had to use bug nets. in the back of both dorm rooms there was a bathroom with three toilets, three showers and a counter with three sinks. the water in haiti is really bad and even the shower water smelled like feces. our water was pumped up to a container on the roof or someplace above us and so when the generator wasn't' working we had a limited water supply. we had to chose most of the time between flushing the toilets and taking showers.

all water that we drank was bought and brought to us. marisol cooked all our food down the road at the orphanage and that was brought to us.

so we settled in that first day and took a few min. to get adjusted and go over the rules then we got the stuff for the vbs together that the team had brought from the states and went to the orphanage.

the orphanage was just down the street maybe 70 ft. it had a big metal gate that opened and we went into the compound. we never really went inside the building but they had a space about 20 ft wide with a few trees and then a space on the other side of that which was sunken into the ground maybe a foot and had a cement floor. it was covered with a tin roof and had a chalk board and desks. this is where we did the vbs. the kids were precious. the team sang songs with them, they played games with them, they did a craft with them. it was great. then after taking picture after picture after picture we finally went back to eat dinner. i don't remember what we had the first day but all the food that we ate in haiti was really good. thank you marisol. then we debriefed with the team and prepared slightly for tomorrow. i believe we had plans to do something with the church but it ended up not happening. it gets dark there at around 9 and there are no lights anywhere. we didn't run the generator long so soon it was either go to bed or sit in the dark and get eaten by bugs. the heat wasn't that bad for me the first night. all in all, a great first day in haiti.