Out with a Bang - Aftershock

Haiti 2010, Last Day?

Our final day in Haiti started with a bang, literally. We were all woken at 1:30 am with a very loud rumbling and with the ground doing a little dance under our backs. Those who had slept inside shot outside almost as quickly as the tremor had started, and after calming ourselves down we drifted back to sleep for another few hours.

After sharing our experiences over breakfast and saying goodbyes to our hosts and the folks who were staying in Haiti, we loaded uo in the back of the truck for another dusty, bumpy, noisy and smelly ride back to the airport. The people of Port au Prince were going about their lives, cleaning, rebuilding and selling. Maybe almost normal for Haiti.

Another typical Haitian adventure waited for us at the airport. We had been dropped at the international terminal, but should have been dropped at the other end of the main runway in a smaller terminal. The base terminal used by MFI had been switched 3 times in 3 days, and nobody knew where we were supposed to be until an official from MFI luckily drove up from the other terminal and collected our bags - but no room for us. We amused some of the locals by crawling through a hole in the fence to avoid backtracking another half mile to get out of the main airport. Then it was a very hot half mile or so dodging Humvees, motorcycles, UN vehicles, and the ubiquitous Haitian tap-tap buses.

Now we are sans passports, and waiting to see if our names are called for the MFI flight to Fort Pierce, with a refueling stop in the Bahamas. We'll either be on a 6 seater or a 29 seater - whichever one it is we hope it has 2 engines - we'll be too far from land to glide in!