EGO's smiling children welcoming us
After a few minor delays (like the pilot not showing up for our flight from Miami to Haiti) and some great anxiety over the contents of our bags, we made it here safe and sound!
Fortunately, Charles (who runs the orphanage) paid enough money (just an expected way of life here) to get himself into the customs area and to usher us through without a single bag being opened (which was suggested, then Charles pleaded ignorance as if he didn't understand what they were saying in French Creole. He later told us that the last group that came got their ###things confiscated, and they only had 8 bags - we had 31 bags completely full of ###.
After all of us and our 46 bags got loaded on to the various vehicles, we headed out of Port-au-Prince. What we saw was very similar to what we saw in Mozambique, yet worse in some ways - mere shacks for houses, kids pawing through trash, dirt and filth everywhere, kids bathing in dirty streams. Glimpses into the lives of people who have absolutely nothing - people who live in absolute poverty like a great proportion of our world lives.
We were welcomed at the orphanage by about 40 smiling children, waving and lined up like little soldiers as they welcomed us to the orphanage with a special song. Then it began, just like we experienced at the Iris Ministries orphanage in Moz, where the children chose an adult, and immediately began holding hands, touching hair, hugging us.
After a few minor delays (like the pilot not showing up for our flight from Miami to Haiti) and some great anxiety over the contents of our bags, we made it here safe and sound!Fortunately, Charles (who runs the orphanage) paid enough money (just an expected way of life here) to get himself into the customs area and to usher us through without a single bag being opened (which was suggested, then Charles pleaded ignorance as if he didn't understand what they were saying in French Creole. He later told us that the last group that came got their ###things confiscated, and they only had 8 bags - we had 31 bags completely full of ###.
After all of us and our 46 bags got loaded on to the various vehicles, we headed out of Port-au-Prince. What we saw was very similar to what we saw in Mozambique, yet worse in some ways - mere shacks for houses, kids pawing through trash, dirt and filth everywhere, kids bathing in dirty streams. Glimpses into the lives of people who have absolutely nothing - people who live in absolute poverty like a great proportion of our world lives.
We were welcomed at the orphanage by about 40 smiling children, waving and lined up like little soldiers as they welcomed us to the orphanage with a special song. Then it began, just like we experienced at the Iris Ministries orphanage in Moz, where the children chose an adult, and immediately began holding hands, touching hair, hugging us.