We have arrived in Jacmel! The day began at 4:50 with a shuttle ride to O'Hare, followed with flights to Ft Lauderdale then Port au Prince. We arrived to the complete chaos and shouting of the cabbies jockeying to assist with bags and transportation. Shouting is just a way of getting your point across in Haiti, the culture is very different from the US. We were pleasantly surprised by the developments over the past year in reconstruction efforts. Don't get me wrong, there are still many tent cities/shanty towns, but they have made significant progress with reconstruction of roads and bridges. There are new businesses built and familiar names were on their fronts: Caterpillar, DHL, Nissan are just a few. Perhaps the new government just being elected when we were here last is making progress. We loaded into 2 vans and screamed through the mountains. 36 miles in 3 hrs.... I wonder if you can see this road on google earth maps.... if so, you will see magnificent hairpin turns. The great news is: we're here. The bad news is: we've gotta get back over those mountains...:-)
To see the official blog of the trip (from Megan Roegge) visit bonjouhaiti.blogspot.com. To see posted pictures all through the trip (airport ones already up) visit the facebook page of Trinity Lutheran Church in Urbana!
We received a wonderful welcome from the staff of the Isaiah 61 house in Jacmel. Google it and you'll see pictures of where we are staying. One of the guys has killed a large cockroach already, and there has been a gecko visit to another one of the rooms. They are the first, I'm sure, of the many wildlife sightings we will have. Bon huit (good night)
No comments:
Post a Comment