As the plane taxied toward the runway, the captain came on and announced that there was a technical problem and they were working on it. Yikes. We sat for about 45 minutes on the tarmac, he came back on and said that they had solved it. It seemed to be a routing issue, not equipment. So we were nearly 1 hour late in departing. Flight time was 3hours, 39 minutes. Amazing how close Haiti is to JFK. I'm not really sure how it happended with leaving so late, but we arrived 10 minutes early!! he must have taken a shortcut.
Kelsey and Shaun were there waiting for us in the hot baggage claim area, fans move the hot air around us. We finally got all of our bags and head out into the gauntlet of porters. I was looking for a familiar face, but saw none. I left the others with the moountain of bags and ventured out with one porter who said he would help me find my driver. I didn't remeber that it was such a long walk but as we moved along insude the fenced area, a one armed man came toward me calling "Roget." I didn't recognize him, but he seemed to know me. He said that my driver had sent him. I trusted him, how else would he have known my name. He also knew the name of the white woman, Julie, who I had read about in one of LaFleur's posts. So, we went back to gather the others and the bags. It all sent quite smoothly, except when we got out of the fencexd area, the driver was nowhere to be scene. I didn't have a phone number with me, so Jackson, the one-armed man, assured me that he had probably gone to get food and would be back soon. We had little choice but to wait. Robin struck up conversation with an elderly porter in French. Jackson was perturbed, saying that the man was trying to get our money.
After about ten minutes, I saw a familiar face, it was Jean Marie, one of the young men from the church with a white woman. They said that they had been waiting for us and didn't see us come out.
We loaded our gear into the van, and started our trip to Jacmel. The roads getting out of Port au Prince are still in horrible shape, traffic is heavy and the road is extremely rough, yet passable. It is good that we are going slow though, it is a good way to see all there is to see. The trip went quite well, arriving in Jacmel just before 5. It did seem a lot longer that the 2 1/2 hours largely because of the massive amount of visual stimulation.
At one point, somewhere up in the mountains, the driver stopped to go to the bathroom. As he disappeared into someone's yard, toilet paper roll in hand, we all decided to get out and stretch our legs. I wandered up a path and saw a group of boys playing soccer with what passed as a ball. I knew that
Robin and Camilla had brought new soccer balls to give away, and I thought this was a perfect opportunity. here we were way out in the country, pretty sure that these people were not on anyone's radar for help. I went back to the van, proposed the idea, pulled out the ball, and took the needle out of my pocket that 12 hours earlier I had used to deflate the ball. I blew it up as best as I could with lungs alone, and we all headed back up the hill to pass it on. Robin was very chatty with the boys, encouraging them to make sure that it was properly inflated. What a sight to see, their old thread bare dusty ball next to the new shiny red one. Within seconds, it was on the ground and the game continued. As we turned to go back to the van, one of the boys yelled out, "hey, you!" We turned and saw them all waving to us shouting "Merci."
Our arrival in Jacmel was so wonderful. We were greeted warmly by the staff and LaFleur. After the rooms had been sorted out, I went and got cold beers for everyone, a 7 up for Camilla. She was amazed at how big the bottle was. As we drank, a procession of food arrived, we went up on the roof and had a yummy stew, unfortunately, it had meat in it, and Kelsey didn't eat. She said she wasn't all that hungry. By the time we had finished eating it was dark, yet just 7 o'clock. We were all very tired, so all turned in, getting a good night's rest before our early start tomorrow. LaFleur wants to meet us at 7:30!
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