Traveling on the Haitian Roads

After leaving the airport in Chris' mini-van, I immediately noticed the vast amount of Haitians moving through the streets of the city. Men, women, and children of all ages. There were women on foot walking with huge baskets or buckets on their heads; some were on bicycles, while still others were riding with their families on the back of what we would consider a "moped," but the Haitians call them "taxis." It was incredible to witness as many as FIVE people all riding on one taxi! They were packed together like sardines with usually the youngest one sitting on the handlebars! They looked so uncomfortable, but everytime I scrutinized their faces when we passed by, they were all smiling! ...And the way the drivers drove; I promise you ~ if I wasn't already a woman of prayer before this trip, driving on these roads would convince me to become one! Gary tells me, "there's no rules of the road, except when they honk their horn to pass you, get out of the way!" They honk their honks ALOT!! And they take great risks at passing!

Another interesting thing to witness was what the Haitians call "Taps Taps." These "taps taps" are the Haitians equivalent to our American taxis with just one difference; you don't get inside a nice vehicle ~ you jump on the back of an opened pick-up truck and usually stand (with about 25 other people) as you hang on for dear life!...And if there's no more room in the back of the pick-up, you just stand on the back bumper! I am told that they call these vehicles "taps taps" because there is one guy near the back of the pick-up who stands close to the driver and the cab; when someone wants to stop and get off the truck, he will let this person know and this guy "taps" on the roof of the cab to signal to the driver to stop! Fees to ride on a "tap tap" are very inexpensive and you can catch one anywhere on the road ~ just raise your hand and flag one down.

You will notice that in many of my pictures, you can see a layer of "white dust" which makes the pic look cloudy. The entire land was covered with this "white dust" ~ it was as if you took a bag of dry cement and opened it up and its contents filled the air! Everything was covered with this layer of dust from the palm trees to the cars, houses and even the people. Driving for long periods of time, it was sometimes hard to breath and I noticed upon sitting in the cab section of our truck a few times, that Gary had to put the wipers on with washer fluid just to clear the dirt from the windows!!

Lastly, I will never forget the images of school children walking in matching uniforms along the road as we left early in the morning to begin our eye clinics. They were especially interesting to watch as the older sibling usually walked hand-in-hand with their younger sibling. Sometimes you would witness them walking single file, as the roads were usually very narrow and it was safer to stay to the side of the road. Believe me when I tell you the roads were narrow! They also were very rugged, unpaved and had potholes the size of a small car. If you are one that enjoys the thrills of a wild amusement park ride, you would fit in perfectly riding on the roads in Haiti! And if you have dreams of becoming a race car driver, then Haiti is the place for you to practice as everyone drives very fast despite the horrible roads!

Our landing in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

As we arrived to land in Port-au-Prince, I immediately noticed how many mountains there were in Haiti. The airport was situated among these mountains. It had one runway and no runway lights, therefore, all flights must take-off and land during the day. For this reason, we left Chicago on Friday, Nov. 28th and flew to Miami, FL. and spent the night there. We flew from Miami to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti on Saturday, Nov. 29th. Things went smoothly at the airport as far as getting our baggage despite all the "red caps" who tried to persist in "helping with our luggage." They just don't want to take "no" for an answer!(They like tips from Americans!) Our next big hurdle was going through customs.We had no problem getting our luggage through customs, but the 2500 pairs of eyeglasses were confiscated by the Customs Officials. Despite our pleas & prayers, and much wasted time, we were told that we needed to come back on Monday to deal with the "big boss." (He wasn't there because it was a Sat.) We were told by the Walkers that the government in Haiti is corrupt and steals so much from its people. It didn't matter to the officials that we were bringing donated glasses to help their people ~ the government wanted big bucks from us for the glasses to clear customs. Dr. Mark, Gary Walker and their interpreter went back on Monday (a 3-hour drive back to the airport, mind you!). Spending the entire day at the airport, the guys finally came back to St. Marc with our glasses. Originally, the customs officials wanted $1,000 for the glasses, but when Dr. Mark walked out of the room saying they could keep the glasses, the price suddenly dropped to $100!! All this was going on while the rest of the team started the first eye clinic in St. Marc at the El Shaddai Learning Center. We arrived early in the morning (just after 8am to set up) and found a huge group of Haitians waiting outside the gate. The eye clinics were set to begin at 9am and some had already been waiting at the gate more than one hour. We were fortunate that a couple hundred pair of glasses were left with the Walkers from the last clinic our group conducted 2 years ago. We started the clinic with these glasses, and we also had some reading glasses that the customs officials did not take from us. For all those Haitians who were not able to be fitted with proper glasses on Monday, we gave them a "raincheck number" to be one of the first in line for the eye clinic on Tuesday. You can imagine how very busy our day was on Tuesday! We did Tuesday's clinic for just over 9 hours ~ we had to see every person that was promised glasses! We were set to move to a different location on Wednesday. If we didn't see those in need, they would have to wait for our next trip to Haiti to see the eye doctor. Haitians just don't have services like medical doctors, eye doctors, and dentists readily available to them. For this reason, the people were thrilled that we came! Carolyn Walker told me that for at least one week after our leaving, the Haitians will come to the school looking for the eye clinic. (That is what happened the last time our group visited in 2006.)......keep checking back ~ I have many more stories to share!

Welcome

Welcome to my blog about my Haiti trip which took place from Nov. 28 - Dec. 5, 2008. I went on this adventure with 11 other team members from Family Harvest Church in Tinley Park, IL. Working hand-in-hand with Touch Ministries, Gary & Carolyn Walker, living in St. Marc, Haiti, we traveled to Haiti to bring the Haitians a rare opportunity of the gift of sight.We did this by traveling with an ophthalmologist and his wife, Dr. Mike & Cleo Phillips, and 2500 pairs of glasses. Our team all worked together to conduct four eye clinics over four days. During this time we examined approx. 800 Haitians. Many could not see well at all, but by the time they left our clinic, they were given a free pair of eye glasses and left happy and smiling because we brought them vision and a chance for a future hope as we shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with them through tracts we distributed written in Creole.

Enjoy my trip in pictures! LOVE, Ellen