Return from Haiti--Jim Made it Home

Well, I am home after an unbelievable two weeks in Haiti. I flew out of the Port au Prince airport on a “charter” flight into Santo Domingo on Saturday morning. Charter flight sounds way more luxurious to me than it was. When I had worked my into the airport several days earlier to find out whatever information I could about my options for leaving, I talked with the one “charter” person from Carib Air and she said $275 cash (no credit card electronic thing). I paid her and she asked me if I had a pen so she could give me a receipt. I didn’t have one, but she came up with one in 10 minutes or so and handed me a cash receipt which was to be my “ticket” (no etickets here). I just had to trust that it would work—it was so Haiti.


When I got to the airport on Saturday morning there were several people in front of me being screened by the Haitians who were still in "control" of “security.” Just as I approached the baggage x-ray everything shut down. Apparently there was a shift change and one of the Haitian security personnel took his extension cord with him leaving no power to the x-ray machine. About ten minutes later another Haitian arrived with his extension cord and plugged it into a socket hanging from the ceiling and power was restored and my bags went through the machine—another totally Haitian thing.

The Port au Price airport, which is being run and controlled by the US military, was a busy place. Relief planes from all over the world arriving with supplies, helicopters moving supplies out by air and trucks moving supplies via the roads. It was great to see the world sharing and working together to help the hungry and homeless in Haiti. Speaking with the various relief workers was another great experience—sharing stories of what we all doing and how things were progressing. One Israeli woman that I talked to had also been there two weeks. She told many stories. The one that sticks in my head though is the one about a little boy who had recently died, she did not know how, but suspects that he had recently fallen from a roof or was hit by a car. Nonetheless his body was lying on the street corner for the last three of four days, decaying, dogs eating the flesh—and people going about there business and walking around him—apparently he had no family in the area and no one was going to take the initiative to bury him. A tragedy that is probably not a result of the earthquake—or perhaps it is.

The Carib Air flight was full with twenty passengers consisting of relief workers, CNN crews, Germans, Israelis, Canadians, Swiss, all going to the Dominican Republic to return home, all with several hundred pounds of luggage which was jammed into every available space in the hold, aisle, and in the cabin. I really wasn’t sure we would get off the ground but we did. Then, after landing, I had to get a cab to the “real” airport and that cost me $50 which was hard to part with knowing that across the border it would pay 10 men to work all day with sedge hammers breaking a concrete building into dust. Oh well, I didn’t have a choice. I ended up in Miami Saturday where I spent the night “sleeping” in a chair at the airport. It was OK though because there were no bugs, it was air conditioned, I had a roof over my head, and a pizza joint and an ice cream shop only a few steps away (California Pizza Kitchen and Hagen Das—I couldn’t help myself).

I was somewhat surprised by the news I saw at the Miami airport—I was back in the US. The media headlines, and even deeper within the newspapers and magazines, and on the CNN TV screens—there was nothing mentioned about Haiti. I guess living in Haiti for two short weeks and seeing the tragedies of people lives and hearing their stories and just living with them in their world caused me to believe that the whole world must be as interested as I was. I guess it is just not news anymore. But I also did just see the world at work in bringing much needed supplies to those in the greatest need so I know the world has not forgotten the Haitians. I hope and pray that we do not forget them and that we keep them in our prayers and continue to provide for them until such time as they are able to recover. Several million people living in tents will require massive efforts both now and in the future. Please keep praying.