January Medical Trip Day 1

The day began at about 4:00am when we all got up got to the airport at 5:00am and luckily this time there were no delays. All of us boarded and took off through cloudy skies toward Atlanta. 

Atlanta's airport being one of the biggest in the United States was a little bit of a bear to navigate but our plane was delayed an hour which was a blessing in disguise because it actually gave us a little bit of time to split up and get food. The few that were with me got Chic-Fil-A and spent 20 minutes riding the tram thanks to yours truly thinking that it was only one stop to the end of the line instead of six. When we finally regrouped, the person on the PA said that we would be changing gates due to a problem with the plane we were originally going to be on. It was just the next gate over so it was no big deal.

I would have taken a picture of the flight to Haiti but it was pretty much entirely white due to clouds so it wasn't that interesting. When we landed we went through customs and immigration and loaded up in to 2 Toyota Hiluxes (think Tacoma) a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado (think Lexus SUV) a Nissan Patrol (no US comparison just awesome 4x4) and a Nissan Frontier. If you can't tell, I like off road stuff so seeing and riding in these cars that we don't get in the states is always fun for me.

It was really cool seeing all the guys from the last few trips. Woodkey from last year is leading us again and seeing Oscar and the other guys was great. This year there is a woman leader with Woodkey named Nadia. She will be translating and stuff for us as well.

Since we got in a little late, we had to drive to the resort partially after dark which was really cool, the cities we drove through were just as alive in the night as they usually are in the day. Unfortunately since it was dark I couldn't get any good pictures without the flash and I didn't want to distract any of the drivers including ours in the chaos that is Haitian traffic. But, we got to the hotel La Xaragua without any issues which is where I am typing this out from.

We had rice, fried plantains, conch and some kind of sheppards pie thing without breading which was really really good. Woodkey gave us an overview of the week and basically just told us to be flexible since this will be the first medical trip to this community and we really don't know how everything will work out.

Tomorrow we head up the mountain to visit the community and maybe scope out where the clinic will be. Thanks for following along and I will be posting every night around this time, so look her if you want to keep up!