long ride home, literally.

Night time, dark, foggy, ten people smashed inside an SUV, scary-winding-loooong tiny dirt road, guy who only speaks Creole as our driver, oh, and it’s raining. And the windshield wipers immediately broke upon backing out of Gina’s house. Yeehaw, this is gonna be a fun ride! There was some giant truck in front of us with like 20 people hanging off the back of it (like, hanging as in holding on to the sides of the open cargo door with their legs hanging off). So, the first half of the ride was not only bumpy, but increeeeeddddibly slow. Because we couldn’t see anything (the fog was so thick) we had to go about 5 miles per hour until we got pretty far down the mountain. It probably took us 2 hours to drive up and at least double that on the trip down.

I happened to be sitting in the very back trunk park of the SUV with, I don’t know, 18 other people and we were bouncing all over the place. It was sort of fun at first, like being on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. The fun slowly started to wear off after about an hour or so of bumping into each other and the roof. Ok, so this is coming from someone who NEVER gets car-sick. Three shades of green later, I wanted to die. Still, the pleasantness of what had just happened at Gina’s house permeated my mind and nothing could have really brought me down. In fact, I was already dreading leaving.

Four hours and several near-vomits later, we were back at the valley creche, which now oddly felt like home. I think I exited that car before it actually stopped moving. I went in and surveyed my sleeping babies (yes, they are all mine), and then we all decided to sleep up on the roof of the orphanage rather than staying inside since the breeze made it way cooler up there. We dragged mattresses up there on old metal ladders and no one died. I think Ty put on a movie on one of his fancy schmancy techno gadgets (aka: laptop), that nobody watched, and sometime I drifted off. Probably another 3 hours sleep total, and the sun was rising. By the way, roosters apparently have no sense of time in Haiti. They crow all night long. All night long.

Saying goodbye to the kids and the orphanage was no bueno, to put it mildly. I especially felt bad for Tonya, Brian, and Erik, who were leaving their girl and boy there and knew that it would be a long while before they were going to be able to take them home. I was a little relieved that I had not been matched to a particular child on this trip, because leaving would have been so much harder. A few of us went out to try and help unload huge amounts of supplies for Gina’s orphanage, and while we were waiting, it was time for me to leave. Ty flew me out to the airport via helicopter (the only way to travel), and made sure I knew where I was going. I sat around in the tiny one-gate airport and waited, everything in Haiti is done on island-time. We were at least a couple of hours late boarding the plane, and I knew I had a connection in JFK with only a half-hour layover, taking me to my other connection in Las Vegas with an 8-hour layover. All in all a 24 hour journey home, whereupon I would arrive in Salt Lake just in time to drive to my office for a 9:00am hearing at the courthouse. Whatever, I would make it eventually.

All I can say is, poor people sitting next to me on these flights. My trip happened so fast, and I had witnessed all of this horrible destruction, poverty, and sadness for the past few days and I guess I held it all in until the plane ride home. It was all coming out of me in giant crocodile tears. In New York, I looked all around and couldn’t believe how lucky we are here in the USA. Even in the ghettos of Philadelphia (where I served a mission and witnessed some of the poorest sectors of American society), I don’t think the poverty and devastation comes close to that of Haiti. Food, water, shelter, medical care, air conditioning, we have it all at our fingertips. And anyone who thinks the US government is corrupt should go live in Haiti for a while.

After a full day of work, 2 hours straight of hugging my London, and a brilliant long night’s sleep, I already couldn’t wait to go back.

Lastly, a word of advice, if you go to Haiti, don’t brush your teeth with the tap water. Duh. I payed for that one for a good three weeks.