A Quest for Haiti: Reflections on a Year in Haiti: Up, Up and Away!

On Wednesday, August 27th, at 5:30am we really started our adventure. We left the house and headed to JFK for our 8:30am flight to Port-au-Prince. Put simply, we had a lot of stuff. Not only did we have everything we needed for a year, but we also brought a bunch of stuff down for the sisters like fabric, toothbrushes, barrettes and other supplies. My bags ended up being 42 and 47lbs and each of my carry-on bags were at least 20lbs. Let's just say, that by the end of the day, my arms had gotten quite the workout.

We were all worried that either our bags would be too heavy or overweight, but we checked everything without any problems, said goodbye to Sr. Vivian and Sr. Rita, (the woman who oversees our program and came to see us before we left), and made it through security. We had just enough time to find some breakfast, fill our water bottles and call our parents before we started to board. The plane ride was pretty quick, (in comparison to others I’ve been on). It was less than 4 hours and it was beautiful. As we started to fly over the Caribbean, we could see some islands and bright blue water. We flew over Haiti for a while and got to see some of its topography. There were a lot crazy looking mountains and it was interesting to see all the dry rivers.

We flew in low over Port-au-Prince and had our first view of the city. Before leaving, I had done very little research on Haiti beyond what I had learned about in history classes and what Beth, Sr. Vivian and Sr. Pat, (one of the sisters who lives in Haiti who was in the Bronx on vacation while we were there), had told me. I didn’t read any of the blogs of former Quest Volunteers or look at pictures on Facebook. I really wanted to go in with a totally open mind and draw my own conclusions and first impressions. The first thing that struck me was the amount of concrete. All the buildings are made out of concrete.

Once we deplaned, we got in line to get our passports stamped and to pay the entry fee. Our Creole was immediately tested, but we managed enough to get through without any problems, found our bags and met up with Brittany, a former volunteer who visits as often as possible, Tiden, our driver, and Nate, an American volunteer for another organization. We filled our truck with our bags and started the three hour drive north to Gros Morne. The drive itself wasn’t too bad. We were a little snug, but we started off with a snack of baked and salted plantain chips, had a lunch of fried pork, spicy piklies (onions and cabbage, I think) and some more plantains, and only the last 30 minutes were really bumpy. We drove through several towns and along the coast, (our first close up view of the beautiful Caribbean water), passed the newly constructed Olympic stadium that will help athletes of all ages train, saw the “suburb” towns that sprouted up after the earthquake that have now become permanent settlements still with some blue tarp roofs, saw one of the mass burial sites for earthquake victims as well as a site where lots of people were murdered and buried under the Duvalier dictatorship. We also got to see tons of mountains that would make for some awesome hiking. There is one mountain not too far from where our house is in Gros Morne, that apparently is quite challenging, but all volunteers that go through the program have to climb it. I can’t wait!!

We arrived at the house around 5, took a zillion trips to bring all our stuff up, sorted out the sleeping arrangements and had a little while to relax before dinner. The house itself is beautiful and our dinner of goat and potato stew was very nice. After dinner, we had our nightly prayer/reflection meeting and then we all hit the hay. I won’t go into all the house details right now, so expect a post about everyday life a little later.

I didn’t take that many pictures while we were driving from PAP to Gros Morne because I just wanted to take it all in. I’m sure we will be making the trip in the future, so I will take pictures then and post them later. Enjoy!!!

My fellow Questers!

It's a little hard to see, but our first views of Haiti were of large and pretty intense looking mountains. That's what is in the middle of this photograph.