Wow! I was fine until it was time to say goodbye. I choked up! I passed the security checkpoint with a lump in my throat and then tried to find my gate terminal with blurry vision. I thought I'd be okay, but in a split second, I realized that this was it...I was not going to see my girls for three weeks!
Nonetheless, I did find the gate and the boarding went well. There was a slight delay walking up to the plane on the tarmac, but that was fine. Turns out they had to strap in a Cello. My seat was the last one at the back of the plane (a turbo-prop plane, like the one we had ridden from Trinidad to Tobago). I was sitting next to a teenager that said not one word. Hey, that was okay, I didn't feel like chatting.
The layover in Montreal was okay also. Nothing to write home about, yet I just did. Hmmm.. ;-) That flight was more interesting, shall we say. The plane was a 2 3 2 configuration (2 seats, aisle, 3 seats, aisle, 2 seats). I was sitting on the aisle seat in the middle section (where there are 3 seats). My neighbour, a peculiar Haitian, opened up his sealed duty-free bottle of rhum and began sharing it with some other Haitian passengers. He did offer some to me, but I declined. By the time the plane landed, his bottle was gone and the people were merry. ;-)
The airport in Haiti was a new experience for me. I was expecting something similar to Trinidad or Tobago, but reality begged to differ. There was a shuttle to take us from the airfield to the airport, but it was not a shuttle like in Paris. ;-) The aisle separating both rows of seats was so narrow that even turning sideways, I barely fit! Okay, I'm no small guy, but experience wise, that was something different.
The shuttle brought us to the immigration section, which appeared to be in a hangar. The line-up was okay and soon, I was hunting for my suitcases on the carousel. Luckily, I got both my suitcases rather quicly! Yeah! I then made my way to the customs and then soon stepped outside where someone offered to help me with my suitcases. My collegues had warned me of this, so I had an american dollar bill ready. On the way, my helper asked for 20$ as a fee, to which I replied that I would pay him only a dollar. He then dropped his price to 10$ and shook his head when I said I would only give him a dollar. I then asked him to stop right there and took over my suitcases (I was by that point about only 50 feet away from the main gate). A woman then approached me offering her taxi, which I declined, explaining that I had a driver from the embassy picking me up. Next time then, she said. Sure, I thought, no problemo, next time it is.
Through the crowd of people waiting at the gate, I saw a gentleman holding a sign with my name on it. Within a minute, I was sitting inside the nice air-conditioned embassy car. Aaaahhh, that was nice! I realize now that I failed to describe the wall of heat that hit me as I stepped off the plane. Which reminds me, as the plane was taking off from Montreal to Port-au-Prince, the captain announced over the speakers that the weather was a nice 24 degrees Celsius. This caused a lot of my fellow passengers to look at each other with a very puzzled look. The captain then came back on to point out his error, that the weather in Port-au-Prince was actually 34 degrees Celsius, to which my fellow passengers breathed a sigh of relief. ;-)
Now, back to me sitting in the embassy car. Well, its a SUV, not a car, but, ah well. ;-) I had two fellow passengers joining me in the shuttle. I took close to 45 minutes for them to have their luggage and join me in the car. Now that we were all there, off we went.
On the ride over to my SQ (staff quarters), I was able to witness many building in rubble and large groups of displaced people living in tents in the parks. The first one was not that far from the airport. The other two were a little bit farther in town.
One of my fellow passengers asked to stop at Eagles, a supermarket. I went in quickly to take a look (I know Stephanie would have loved it) and got myself 2 bottles of water. I did not have any local currency on me, so my fellow passenger offered to pay for them instead of me converting some of my American money on the spot. That was really nice of her.
I really appreciated that the vehicle was a SUV. Some portions of the roads are in rubble and some of the roads are steep, so, by the time I got to the apartment allocated to me, I was very glad the driver could shift to 4x4 when needed.
Getting to my SQ, the driver gave me my welcome kit (which includes 2 military food rations, some sheets, pillow, towels and cell phone). First things first, I got the laptop out to see if I could connect with Skype to speak to the girls. And don't you know it, the internet connection is down! CRAP!
I then went to see my collegue Marou which is on the top floor and asked if I was able to send a text message from the cell phone allocated to me and if so, how do I send it. I managed to send a quick text to let the girls know that the internet was down and then stopped over at Luc's appartment on the way back to my appartment. Luc is part of security at the embassy and after greeting me, invited me for a beer, offer with I gladly accepted. That Heinekein tasted so good! We chated a bit and I went back to my SQ. Having not received a text message from Stephanie, I proceded to call her. I was so glad that I called. She had not seen the text message I sent and was relieved to hear from me. It was so good to talk to them! God, I miss them! Stephanie, Melodie, Cadence, I love you girls so much!
There was such a thunderstorm! It was far away, but the lighting was just amazing! What a light-show! I put all my stuff away and went to bed at 21h45 local time.
The next morning (today as I'm writing this), I got up around 5h20 and started to get ready for work. The shuttle was picking us up at 06h30. The ride to work was fine and Marou proceeded to give me the tour of the mission. Fridays, we finish at 12h30, so the day went by quickly. On the way back home, we asked the driver to stop over at Eagles and I did a bit of groceries (had no choice, had next to nothing foodwise at hom). A quick shoppinng sprint and 83$ US later, I got some food, so I no longer fear dying of hunger. ;-)
Which brings me to now, sitting in my SQ, drinking a Prestige beer (not bad beer, I like it) and writing this down. If the internet connection comes back online sometime during this weekend, I'll see about positng this online for the girls.
Until then, I think I will go open a 2nd beer. Its actually pretty good!
;-) LIL
