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 becau
se 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!
