Called.: Haiti Day 1!

WELL IT'S ABOUT TIME I WRITE ABOUT HAITI DONTCHA THINK? :)
Okay here we go!

Day 1:
I woke up around 2. Yes you read that right, 2am.
I got dressed, grabbed my suitcase pillow and carry on, and woke up my dad.
Then we (Daddy, Geno and I) got in the car and went to Sheetz because I needed a steamer at this ridiculous hour of the morning (which I would definitely still consider night).Then we went to church.
Got to church, loaded everything in the truck that would take it to the airport, you know, the usual procedures.
Then my mom and Mario pulled up. With the dog. So pretty much everyone was there. (Mia was actually on a mission trip at the same time - she was a camp speaker at a kids camp a few hours away. She got to share Jesus' love with a bunch of kids. She's great. Ask her about it)
Then we all prayed, said our final goodbyes, and loaded the church vans and headed to the airport.
We almost missed our flight. And by "almost missed our flight", I basically mean we ran on the plane and they closed the doors behind us.
Our first flight was from Pittsburgh to Chicago. I didnt have to face my fear of sitting with strangers because we had a smaller plane and I was in a nice little row all by myself :) I saw a rainbow from the plane!! How awesome is that!?!?

Ashlee and I at the Pittsburgh airport :)

Sunrise from the runway - the last we saw of Pittsburgh :)

Rainbow from the plane! Soooo cool!!

Next we landed in Chicago and had a couple hours layover. We got to hang out as a team for a while which was fun :) Especially since I missed every single team meeting (didnt know I was going until 5 days before!) and hadn't gotten to hang out with the team before! We also met another team at the airport that was going to Haiti. So that was cool!

Next we flew from Chicago to Miami. That flight was a couple hours long, if I remember correctly.

Then we landed in Miami and I believe we had about an hour before we boarded again??

Last but not least, we flew from Miami to HAITI :) The flight was like an hour and a half, I think.

I sat by a nice man on the plane named Julen who was from Haiti. He was the first Haitian I ever met! He taught me some Creole on the flight and told me all about Haiti. He kept saying "You will LOVE my country!"

He also gave me his address and phone number in case I ever wanted to visit him.

Julen and I :) Note: Haitians don't smile too much! You might notice that in some of the pictures.

Anddddddddd, FINALLY WE LANDED IN HAITI. I looked out the plane window in amazement as I caught my first glimpse of beautiful Haiti. My first thought was "we're not in America any more." I saw mountains in the distance, and the dirt ground. The best way I can describe it is... we were definitely in another country. We got off the plane and into the airport, and immediately went in one of those shuttle things.

When we got off, we were greeted with an immediate blast of heat like no one in Pennsylvania has ever felt. A band of a bunch of men were playing instruments and singing. The music was very upbeat and happy. It just... felt right.

My first impression of Haiti: hot, exciting, beautiful.

The airport was nothing like the American one. Not really high tech or high security. Everything looked kind of old. It was sorta dirty and very, VERY hot. No signs were in English. We went through customs and I was super excited because they stamped my passport!! Yayyyy my first stamp.

Then we got our luggage. There was no air conditioning or carpets or anything like what you would find in an American airport. The carousel that our suitcases on looked really beat up and pretty sketchy. There were lots and lots of ads for beer. We got our stuff, went through another security (I think?) and went outside.

When we went outside, there were lots of men who wanted to carry our bags for us. However, they also wanted us to pay them lots of money. We were told to just tell them no and keep walking. We walked down a long gated sidewalk type thing. My suitcase was so heavy and I was so hot. I thought of how my shoulder and my arm were about to fall off and I was going to die of heat stroke, and then I remembered Jesus carried a cross for me after a terrible beating. I can certainly carry my suitcase down the sidewalk after being in an air conditioned plane right? :)

Then we waited for the Convoy of Hope people to pick us up. They came soon in the "tap tap", which would be our vehicle for the week, which you will see a picture of.

It was basically a huge truck. On the inside were two benches, one along each side. No seatbelts. There was no door in the back, and our security guy sat in the back so none of us fell out ;) The roads in Haiti (if you can call them roads) are SO bumpy. It's like off-roading, but you are on the road. I cannot even tell you how bumpy it is. You like.. have to hold on for your life. There are basically no traffic laws. No speed limits. It's kind of a free for all. No description of the Haitian roads can even do it justice though. IT'S JUST CRAZY.

So we got in the tap tap and headed for the guest house where we would be staying all week.

Driving through Haiti is like... being surrounded by incredible poverty, but incredible beauty at the same time.

Then we went inside and brought our suitcases to the room and had dinner :)

The tap tap!

First sight of Haiti after we got out of the airport

First tap tap ride!

First tap tap ride :)

Piled in with all the luggage :)

When we first got to the guest house, they dropped my suitcase out of the tap tap and a wheel broke off. Hahahaha!!

View from the roof of our guest house. Isn't Haiti beautiful!?

More Haiti :)

After dinner, Kylee, Christina, Elaina and I got to go to the market with Menold and Peter, our translators. (Omega, our driver, waited in the tap tap). The market was just like a grocery store in America, in fact, a lot of the stuff there was from America. Groceries are pretty expensive in Haiti because almost everything is imported. I also discovered that Menold and Peter spoke Spanish which was SUPER EXCITING because I love Spanish and didn't know I would get to use it in Haiti!! Peter bought us Haitian gum, which turned out to be very yummy. Then we came home and Pastor Anthony gave us a run-down of what we were going to do that week, then we had team devotions, then got showers and went to bed for our first night in Haiti.

It was just the first day, and it was already an amazing experience. It was like we were in a totally different world.

In my journal that night I wrote, "I love our team. I love Haiti. It is beautiful. The people are beautiful. I love it so much."

♥