Day 6: Leaving Haiti and Back to Miami

We enjoyed a later breakfast this morning, the standard fare: Haitian bread (a flat, oblong biscuit), peanut butter, mango, banana and of course Haitian coffee. Our flight time was a bit of a mystery since the website indicated a 1:55pm departure and the app listed 12:55 pm. Patrick was planning to pick us up at 10am but we told him we would be ready at 9:30 in case he could come early. As it turned out, he arrived at 10am so we spent our extra time relaxing on the patio,

taking in the gorgeous view. More stories from the grand moto adventure came to light (read Ben & Eli's post for the juicy details.) Later we learned that the sitting president decides whether or not the country will observe daylight savings time. The previous president did not observe DST, but the new president who recently took power does. We think this might be part of the glitch in the flight departure times.

After a group photo, including Will, Patrick, Meliana, Johnny, and Cristella, we loaded up the cars for our last trip through the bustling streets of Port-au-Prince. Will and Christopher lead the way with a car full of luggage because Christopher wanted to record the journey (video to come later). Patrick asked to take 2 cars so he could rent a more powerful SUV in order to make it up the hill to the guest house. Per tradition, the boys pointed out the goats along the way, interesting signs, the really narrow door, and other sights which

caught our attention as we bumped and jostled down the rocky dirt road. Pavement provided some relief, although speed bumps, water ditches and giant potholes prevented traffic from moving too quickly. At first traffic seemed light when we reached the main road, but soon we were stopped and boxed in on all sides. In Haiti, there's a new meaning to the warning, "Keep all hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times." If you don't you will certainly regret it! Vendors weave their way through the traffic gridlock selling water, soda, food, and charcoal. Some also offer to wash your windows. We even saw one guy run about a quarter of a mile in order to complete the job of washing all the windows on a car.

Patrick said the fish market was part of the reason traffic was so backed up. Tomorrow is Good Friday and many of the shops will be closed, so today people were busy shopping for meals planned for the Easter weekend. We also observed a few large trucks stopped in the middle of the road, and unoccupied. This certainly creates a traffic disturbance. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes to go the 8.5 miles to the airport. I wish I had a GPS track of our journey. Our drivers were adept at using backroads and shortcuts which gave us even more perspective on the different neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. We saw simple structures made of cement block and tin roofs as well as nice banks, gas stations and car dealerships - even Porche and Land Rover. We went through a large central market and saw some new sights, including a live turkey and a pig. The piles of garbage seem to be more intense in this area, partly due to the rains that wash the trash from the hills down to the flat area along the main road. We had a very interesting conversation with our guest house owners about trash in Haiti. It's hard to wrap your mind around the issue. We don't want to impose our American perspectives, and yet, we know the collection of trash and human waste perpetuates disease and other challenges for this city. Not all areas are covered in trash. Some streets are almost trash-free, and we saw one man sweeping the area in front of his house gate. The road with the school is quite clean. Last time I was here, we stayed within the walls of the school and only ventured out into town on two occasions, once to the beach, and once to a nice restaurant. Traveling to and from the guesthouse each day provided more insight into daily life, step especially street-side vendors, traffic and trash. Daily we saw people relieving themselves along the side of the road, and once right in the middle of the road in front of us. It was a reminder about the simple daily conveniences we take for granted. While it is important to drink bottled water, seeing hundreds if not thousands of plastic bottles littering the road is heartbreaking.

Airport check-in was very easy, as was security screening. We initially found seats on the bottom floor, but then realized the American Airlines gates were upstairs. After climbing the stairs, we noticed the

air conditioning was stronger and there was an additional passport and security check for those gates. It was an interesting example of what felt like a difference in social class, the downstairs gates filled mostly with Haitians, older furniture and hotter air. The upstairs area had a higher proportion of caucasians. We wondered if the second security check with something installed by the US, possibly due to the desire for a more detailed security screening process. The situation reminded me of the conversations we had about social class in Haiti with both our guesthouse owners and the owners of the T-shirt factory. They told us it was very difficult to move between social classes in Haiti. There is basically no middle-class. The layout of the airport gates and the nicer environment upstairs seemed to be a physical illustration of class differences.

Once again, we were able to have exit row seating for this very short flight to Miami. Customs processing was a breeze, almost hard to believe how quickly we went through. For some reason, I was prompted to do some research in the morning and discovered a mobile app for our phones that allowed us to scan our passports and answer the standard security questions in advance. When we landed in Miami, we submitted our travel information and were given a QR code for each family member. An agent directed us to a line for mobile passport holders that only had three people in front of us. The lines for standard entry and Global Entry, a paid status, were quite long, possibly with 100 people waiting or more. While I joke about princess parking and princess seat assignments, this seemed far beyond normal princess treatment! (For those of you who don't know about this joke, my husband has teased me for years that things just happen to work out for me, such as finding great parking places. He calls this "princess treatment.") Kathy decided I need to come with her on all her trips :-) Everyone was happy to be back safely on US soil. Christopher remarked, "Everything is back to normal. Did we really go to Haiti? It is a surreal experience."

After stopping for dinner at Chili's, we made our way to the condo in Sunny Isles, northeast of downtown Miami. The boys quickly settled into their pullout couch sleeping area and thoroughly enjoyed watching America's Funniest Home Videos. We are grateful the boys had a chance to experience Haiti together. The shared experiences, inside jokes, and questions prompted by such an experience are better explored together.