Frightening Arrival

Below is the full story of our arrival to Haiti: The streets are full of traffic that doesn’t seem to follow any kind of rules, just go go go. If the traffic was slow on one side of the street, just jump the medium and drive on the other side, who cares if there is on coming traffic, it will get out of the way (hopefully). At one point we are driving up a steep winding hill, all of a sudden cars and trucks are coming at us telling us to turn around. There is no place to turn so our driver has to back down a steep winding hill IN TRAFFIC! I think at that point it was Diane that said, "just think of it as a computer game." It seemed we traveled hours getting through Port finally got on the one road to Les Cayes. It was narrow and pitch black. Suddenly we came to a screeching halt around 6:15pm. Protesters were angry at not having electricity and barricaded the road. They began yelling at our driver and our driver seemed worried. We couldn't ask him what was going on because he couldn't speak English. Finally a protestor that knew a little English told us we would not be allowed to pass. Our driver called Joan and explained we were a good distance away from the angry mob but may have to wait until the police arrive but that could take several hours. Our first concern was were we safe. Joan told us to stay in the van and we should be fine. The problem was almost everyone had to go to the restroom, it had been at least 7 hours from our last restroom visit and we were over heating because the driver shut the van off and left to sympathize with the protestors. We were sweating and whispering so not to escalate the situation. The protestors had surrounded our van and were peering into our windows. Amy told them all you just wait until Joan gets here, you are IN TROUBLE. well after 2 and a half excruciating hours of sitting in hot van, Joan and Tim came to rescue us. Tim called a pastor from the community to rally support from the local church people. The towns people from the local MEBSH church walked towards the blockade with our vehicle following. We got to the area and discovered the protestors blocked the road with several disabled vehicles. They had disabled the vehicles by flattening the tires and had broken glass all over the area. At that point Tim had to wait in his van with the van running in order to not anger the protestors. Joan told them we wouldn't attempted to cross their barricades if they would allow us to transfer our suitcases where Tim was waiting on the other side. She offered to pay them to help carry the suitcases and then they allowed us to haul all of our luggage across the barricaded area. (money is an universal language) While we were loading the suitcases on to the roof of Tim's vehicle the soldiers from the UN finally arrived with their big military truck carrying machine guns to disperse the protestors and cleared the barricades. But by then Joan and Tim had everything well under control.

We had to unload the one van, haul all the suitcases, you know the ones that were exactly 50 pounds each, across the blockade of trucks and buses and of course garbage, crossed the bridge to the Reinhard’s vehicle. That was loaded by the guys and Joan getting all of those heavy heavy suitcases back on top of a vehicle and climbing in. Here we are loading in the dark under police guard.

Then off we went squeezed in like a can of sardines, the quarters were so tight we had to take turns on moving our legs. We arrived shortly before midnight, Bethany had a nice meal prepared, all enjoyed a cool shower and off to bed. So thankful to have arrived safe!