The plane is 90 degrees inside, I’m soaked in sweat, and battle weary from the day…yet I’m thrilled because we are actually taxiing to the runway. Let me detail what traveling in Haiti can be like.
My flight from Cap Haitian to Fort Lauderdale was scheduled for 10:00am. I was up at 5am to finish some financials and planned to leave at 7. The drive to the airport is one hour to go the main road. This way can also be a disaster as there can be massive traffic jams. The other alternative is a long way on back roads that takes about 90 minutes. This is reliable other than the 80-foot-long ponds in the road that can be nearly 2ft deep. When it’s dry it’s tricky as the driver has to avoid ruts and obstacles in the low spots. When it’s full of water, they can only guess. We chose the back way so that we could drop off chairs to Madam Tabitas orphanage.
The team was a little slow to move this early in the morning, so we only left at 7:45. Now I was stressfully late. 20 minutes into the drive I happened to check my email. There was a message that stated my flight was delayed to 21:00 hours…. that didn’t even make sense. Planes do not come or go from Haiti in the dark. So now we were no longer in a rush. We encountered the huge water filled holes again, where last night a pick was hopelessly stuck. We lent them our emergency strap, and they hooked it to a passing dump truck. They were having some success when the entire back bumper ripped off. It’s all on video in the attached link.
We drove into the Orphanage and dropped the chairs off. The kids came running and gave me big hugs …then waited for the candy to come from my pocket, which of course it did. Tabita wanted to take a picture with the kids in the chairs. I unknowingly set up the chairs on top of a colony of red ants. The kids swatted off the stinging ants without even getting excited. I gave some of the kids airplane rides in the chairs and pushed them on the swings until I realized they have become REALLY good at “pumping”…. going maybe a little too high.
We said goodbye and were off to the airport. I was ready for the usual disorder, but this was going to be a special kind of chaos. Arriving I realized all the entry doors were blocked. Hundreds of people were waiting outside in the growing heat. I found my line and took in the situation. Most of the people had already been there for 2 hours, not receiving the mysterious delay notice. After 30 minutes the yelling started. People thought they may not get inside because there was no communication. Richecard stayed with me to translate the yelling. The line boss pleaded with the crowd to stay calm, reminding them that he was not the cause of the delay. I decided I wasn’t getting out of Haiti today.
After an hour they started letting people inside. It was shoulder to shoulder with some tolerable pushing, but we were in the AC now!! After an hour I had a ticket and was in the main waiting area. I started thinking I may get home tonight, but still with no information being communicated. I thought I may also miss all connections in Florida and have to stay the night.
After consuming my usual goat sandwich, I sat next to a man from the United Nations. We had a very interesting conversation about the situation in Haiti. He was trying to get to Miami, then France, so he was equally unhappy about the complete lack of communication. As time passed, I saw the window close on making my 3 o’clock flight to Philadelphia. I thought maybe they would give me the six o’clock flight, but then that window was closing too. I found a cheap Frontier flight at 8pm and bought a ticket as a backup plan.
The area meant to host one flight at a time had 3 flights all crammed in. Even the staircase to the cafeteria was full of people! At 4 they finally announced our flight. I waved goodbye to my new UN friend, I’m not sure if his flight ever materialized.
Everyone rushed and formed a Haitian line…which is not a line at all, but a mass of people with no daylight in between all pushing towards the same small entrance point. It was peaceful for about 30 minutes…. then it wasn’t. A girl balanced a large box of food on her head through the crowd to get up to the cafeteria. On three occasions a large person would decide they need to be up front and aggressively pushed their way forward…this caused some yelling. Then people started yelling at the employees. They let a few people out, then stopped again. The yelling intensified.
A tall American/Haitian woman in the back near me screamed “Get out of my way!” and started pushing and cursing at those around her. Just when it felt like the crowd was going to burst, they opened the gate and people poured past the attendant in quite the disorderly way.
While boarding up the steps from the tarmac they started taking carry-on bags for checking under the plane because the overhead bins were full already. I’m still hoping that waiting for this bag doesn’t cause me to miss my 8 o’clock flight. Once on board everyone was confused. The MD-80 plane was a completely different seat configured than the Boeing 737 that the seat assignments were issued for. “Just find any seat” was the rule, but now it wasn’t clearly communicated, and people were arguing again trying to claim the seats on their tickets…. more yelling….
In these moments I question my sanity coming to Haiti each month. On this my 52nd trip, the increasingly chaotic, expensive, and unpredictable travel is wearing me out. I’m thinking about the 4-day IOCH teacher seminar we just had. Nearly 700 school directors and teachers attended in total. I really feel they were blessed and encouraged entering this new school year. I think about the relationships with my team. On Sunday I shared at a church that Richecard has started his first junior pastor position. He was just a teenager when we met 6 years ago….and of course I
think about the children, those i see regularly in my house, the neighborhood and the beautiful children with Madam Tabita….and I’m encouraged to endure this journey God has called me to. I’m landing in Fort Lauderdale now. If all goes well, I’ll be in Philadelphia by 11 and home by 1am. Thanks for your prayers and support.Please check the picture link below for a WINDOW into Haiti, because it’s easier than traveling there!!
With much gratitude,
-IOCH Founder David Garman
“UNITING THE PEOPLE OF GOD TO WORK FOR A BETTER HAITI”
PS -thankfully the Frontier flight was delayed until 9 so I could make it to Philadelphia by midnight, and home by 2am. Home sweet home!
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