Ile-A-Vache Airport Tour

Laura
Mar 17, 2016
2 min read

Day 8: Tuesday 19 January 2016

After a good night’s sleep from the previous hectic day, we all enjoyed a breakfast of fruit and Haitian oatmeal before heading off to Madame Bernard. We took a boat from Vacation Village and docked at Madame Bernard and immediately headed up to the container to begin work. For the most part, the container was fairly well organized. The diapers were organized fully yesterday, so today our main focus was the soccer gear.

Kristen, Rich, Mike, John, and Dan all coordinated with our translators, Ailish, and the mayor to move the soccer and computer supplies. The computers, both laptops and desktops, were distributed to various places across the island, such as the medical center and the orphanage. The soccer supplies were all taken to the mayor’s office up the road from the container for distribution.

During this time, Brittany and I were working with an orphanage volunteer, Maria Lynn, and Ailish to coordinate the various group’s overnight stays. We were learning the process that is involved for NGO’s when volunteers are coming to help. We spoke with the volunteer coordinator at the orphanage to book rooms, and went over the logistics needed, such as food, clean water, medical, and transportation.

After the work at the container was finished, we met up with Geronimo, a Dominican working for the company, Estrella. Estrella is responsible for the building of the airport on the eastern side of the island. Geronimo gave us a full tour of the airport, and showed us the buildings, wells, and runway. The airport has been under construction for a year and a half, and is expecting their first flight next week. This flight will be a publicity flight to showcase the airport. After the airport, Geronimo drove us back across the island to Kay Kok, stopping along the way at various wells to collect water samples.

Once back in Kay Kok, we all prepared for the next few days when we would all spend two days and one night at the orphanage.