Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

At 4:15 a.m. Florida time, 3:15 in Mo, we woke up to the phone ringing. (We'd asked the night before that we receive a wake up call) After groggily getting ready and eating breakfast we headed for the MFI airport. Arriving at 6:00 we weighed our luggage and waited with two other groups of people for departure. The MFI has three planes. We flew in a DC-3, which was a WWII cargo plane. Our pilots were named Joe and Ray. The plane was, of course, smaller, louder and hotter than the commercial jets on which we'd flown...but the seats were more comfortable and reclined farther back. There were 14 passengers on the plane. The fun thing was that the other group was seven people, five girls and two guys, and they were going to Pignon too. But not only that, they would visit the orphanage on Sunday were we were staying! We taxied out the the runway and sat for awhile with the pilots running the engines at different speeds. Then, to our surprise, we taxied back to the hanger! We were unloaded from the plane and waited. One of the motors was running roughly due to moisture or something and they had to fix that. Turns out both planes taking off that morning had to come back for that. We did watch the sunrise in Florida though. It was beautiful. Back in the plane I loved the take-off! It was just so thrilling! I was sitting by a window and being a smaller plane I could see the propeller on my side AND the ground below. The first part of the flight was amazing! I know I've seen pictures but you always wonderf if they've been edited. But with my own eyes I watched us going over the brightest, clearest blue and green water I have EVER seen! Most of the rest of the gang slept much of the time, I couldn't though I tried. It was so cool though because I got to go up in the cockpit and sit directly behind the pilots. You got a headset and microphone so you could talk with the pilots or listen to the people in control towers in the islands we flew over! Ray told me about a lot of the different gauges, etc. and their instruments that show their direction in degrees. Up front you could see far out to the side and ahead of you in a big panorama. Most of the way it was clouds around and above. But I was up front when we flew over Paradise Island, where I saw a cruise ship in port, and Nassau...where I saw the airport and listened to the control tower guys! Then we flew over the Exuma Cays. We landed in Exuma for a short refueling and we unloaded and went into a shop. I can actually say I've been to the Bahamas...for about 20-30 minutes. The water around the Bahamas and Haiti was the most magnificent I've ever seen. It was colors of blue, green, teal and turquoise that I could never describe. The sand was pure white and the water was crystal clear. But the bad part about Exuma was the landing. I had no trouble on the commercial flights, but from when we began our descent to when we landed I got the worst motion sickness I've ever had. My stomach felt twisted and ready to heave, and it was terrible. It was cool to get off in Exuma but I didn't feel well...light-headed and queasy. It was a total of probably five hours between Florida and Haiti. From Exuma...which Hannah nicknamed Excelsior Springs because she forgot the name, we went to Port-au-Prince. We were supposed to go to Cape Haitian but due to circumstances had to refuel in Port instead. This was a God-send though because we wouldn't have been able to unload our boxes of sports stuff in Cape. It was rough landing at Port too, but I ate as we descended and wrote furiously, some of which random scribblings I may include here, and that helped, but oh it was still bad. At Port we had to go into the hot, stuffy airport and get our passports checked and then waited around under the wing for awhile while the refueled the plane. The breeze was nice there. While we were embarking an Italian plane came in. There was a fleet of UN vehicles that came around it and two or three soldiers at least with weapons. I'm not sure what it was, but the person(s) mush have been important! Port was on the other side of the airport but from what I could see there were houses on top of each other (literally) and all smashed up against each other. The didn't look like our kind of houses either. Oh, I forgot to tell you. The flight between Exuma and Haiti was really fun. We spent the first part of it playing hangman, random phrases like auxiliary exit, smoking is prohibited, Haiti or bust, keep feet off walls, etc. The rest of it we spent much of sitting or standing on the floor and looking out the windows. The islands were beautiful as we flew over them. The mountains were covered in trees and the landscape was amazing. Some of the water around Haiti was a rich deep blue. Back to flying... when we got into the plane in Port it was pretty hot. We started sweating right away. I was weary and tired so I decided to make another attempt at sleeping, though all my past attempts on the trip had failed. Well, I was successful and was blissfully unaware of the fact that we were coming down into Pignon until the wheels hit the runway. It was bumpy but not anything like the other landings as earlier. I wasn't sick at all! I was quite surprised that I got to sleep (that part of the flight was only 15 minutes) but quite glad I did! We unloaded and there was a group of Haitians and several white people waiting. The other group headed for the hospital and then Bill and Jennifer Campbell and Pastor Francois took us to the orphanage in their trucks. The windows were open and the seat I sat on had been in the sun and was so hot that I burned myself! I had to sit on the very edge until it cooled down. Behind the airport, which was one small building, there were several donkeys and horses wandering by trailing long straps behind them. A girl was leading two and one of them had its rope caught in the other's legs. The road through Pignon was a mess. It was huge mud puddles in some places and hard and rutted in others. There were huge rocks sticking up all over. There was a barrel in the road one place and a truck broken down on the side. In the U.S. driver yield to pedestrians. But in Haiti animals, people and motorcycles yield to trucks! There were scrawny dogs everywhere and people rode by on heavily loaded donkeys and horses, goats everywhere, and a couple oxen. There were people everywhere. Some were working, others were playing or just sitting around doing nothing. They had a great variety of clothes, a lot of them dirty. There was at least one baby that I saw sitting on a chair and it didn't have clothes on. The buildings were unlike any houses I know in the states. They were small and a variety of colors. Browns, tans, reds, blues, yellows. They were squarish buildings all close together. Some had solid doors, others were just sorta open. There were some with screens or patterns of iron over the windows. There are hardly any wooden fences, they just grow cactus hedges. They plant the cactus in rows and then trim them to make a fenceline. I sure wouldn't try to get through one of THOSE! It was strange though, riding in the truck we pasted just feet from these people and they were watching us. But even though I know I was there it didn't seem real. I knew it was happening but seeing something like that was so different and yet it was more real and personal that other things I've seen. The orphanage compound has a cactus hedge and trees around it, with a locked gate. Mt. Pignon stands behind it. The orphanage has several buildings, and a work crew is working on a new kitchen for the kids. The workers make the cinder blocks themselves. There is actually quite a bit of grass in the orphanage...and fruit! There are fruit trees all around. The kids were standing around watching us as we arrived but they kinda hung back. The girls in our team stayed in the Campbells' house and the guys stayed above the old library, which is currently doubling as temporary housing for some Port orphan girls. We washed up and had lunch. It was rice, beans, cashew and onion sauce, fresh avocados, mango and pineapple! There was citron (lemon-lime) juice to drink. After lunch Hilary and I went out to see the kids. Wesley came over to say hello and so did Maudeline. The others played and watched us. We had a tour of part of the compound and then went back to the house. We had a praise time after awhile (Hannah had her guitar) and then talked about the first chapter of The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney. I was so tired that I was falling asleep. The others had of course slept a ton while in the air, but I'd only gotten those fifteen minutes. After that we talked with the three interns (Jodi, Danielle and Mia) and played with Lina, Chrissy and Benji. They are the Campbells' girls. All three of them are 7 years old, but Benji looks about 5. (Due to her conditions before coming to the orphanage) The Campbells are in the process of adopting Chrissy and Lina. Lina they've had since she was a baby...the funny thing being that she was the first orphan and what they had planned as an "all boys-no babies" orphanage! That changed! Benji they've only had about 6 months. I spent a long time catching up on journaling and then we had PB'Js for dinner. We went to bed about nine.