Day 1

Bon swa! The team was up early this morning to catch an 0800 flight to Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti. The flight was supposed to take five hours but ended up taking much longer due to problems with the hydraulic system on the plane. We were forced to land in San Juan Puerto Rico and wait two hours for another plane to come. After a few hours of waiting, we were back on the plane and headed to Haiti.

We landed around 1745. We got off the plane and made our way through customs. The airport in Haiti is much smaller than Boston’s Logan Airport. Once through customs we found ourselves almost immediately outside. There were people everywhere asking if we needed a ride. It was a little overwhelming at first. However, we had a car waiting to take us to Lance Durban’s house where we were staying for the night.

Lance is a friend of Captain Lennon. He grew up in New York but moved to Haiti over twenty years ago to establish his own business. Tomorrow we will actually get to see his factory and learn about what it is like to run a business in Haiti.

The city of Port Au Prince is built on a hill and has a population of nearly three million people. As we drove up the hill, Captain Lennon pointed out how you can visibly see the level of social classes. Those a the bottom of the hill live in extreme poverty. Those who live at the top of the “hill” live very similarly to how middle class families live in the United States. Lance and his family live towards the top of “the hill” which takes a few hours to get to from the airport. Driving in Haiti is much different than here in the states. There are no traffic lights and stop signs and virtually no rules of the road. There are also a lot of motorcycles which are referred to as “moto bikes.” It was incredible to see three sometimes four people riding on a moto at the same time!

We got to Lance’s house around 2000. We ate some dinner and discussed all of our projects. We went to bed very soon after since we were all exhausted from a long day of traveling. Tomorrow we begin our journey to Les Cayes, a city in Western Haiti. The drive will take about five hours. Once in Les Cayes we will take an hour boat ride to Ile-a-Vache, an island off the coast which we will call home for the next ten days. It will be another long travel day but everyone is excited to be on the island so we can get to work! Talk to you soon!

Kaylene