Orlando Or Bust

Dec 2 dawned with a glorious sunrise.  Our day of departure from Haiti for Christmas was at hand.  Dr. Bill and Ruth Cooper left on Nov 27, the cleaning up was done and we were ready to head home.  Sad to be leaving our friends but with a heart full of gladness that we would be home for Christmas we left hurriedly when John said, "Let's go" shortly after 10 o'clock.  The truck needed to be back by 12 o'clock for Matt and Stacey as they together with Lily, Hannah and Julia were heading off to the Dominican Republic for a few well earned days of rest.   Cap Haitian Airport is a two hour round trip under the best of conditions, however there had been an road repair program in the last couple of days before the election and our fellow missionary John Hubele was able to get us there in record time.  We arrived with plenty of time as we were flying out on the second flight with MFI leaving we understood about 1:30 pm. 

We hadn't been in the waiting room too long before airport staff started to fill up the seats in the waiting room.  We realized there must be a staff meeting.  When one of my ESL students from our last stay as missionaries came into the room I asked him if we should leave.  He indicated in good English (pat, pat on the back) that it would be appreciated.  We moved to the check-in area and perched ourselves on stools for quite some time.   Eventually, the meeting was over.  It was a cholera prevention seminar and each person had to dip their hands into the bleach solution and were given hand sanitizer to carry.  We were so happy to hear that this teaching had been ongoing for the last month.  During our wait at the airport a little baby who had been brought to the Vaudreuil Clinic was pronouced dead of Cholera.

Ours was one of two MFI flights into Cap Haitien that day.  Our MFI flight came in, unloaded cargo and took off for Pignon to collect passengers.  The second flight came in unloaded cargo and passengers and then took off for Port-au-Prince.  One of the immigration staff who spoke English quite well (He was not in my class.) sat down to talk to me when the meeting had adjourned.  He began by telling me what his efforts were towards keeping cholera at bay and also made statements like, "Haitains have to live like pigs, it's no wonder cholera is spreading."  We had a long chat and eventually he got around to asking whether we might be able to bring him back a used laptop.  When I told him we were using a used laptop his face fell and then fell even further when I gave him the bad news that it wasn't a possibility.  He thanked me for being honest in letting him know and it was about then that our flight arrived 1 1/2 hours late. 

Our flight had finally arrived back from Pignon with three passengers and their cargo and we left around 3:30 p.m. knowing that we were refueling at Provo in the Turks and Caicos, landing for US immigration at West Palm Beach, and then continuing on to Fort Pierce where our car was waiting for us.  We left the airport at 9:30 thinking we would hit the Cracker Barrel for a meal before we left for Orlando.  Alas, it was closing time for the CB and a great disappointment for us.  Our second choice was Kentucky Fried Chicken.   But here's the great thing.  We DID have a choice.  All of a sudden we had a choice of a few fast food restaurants.  A Haitian's choice is, rice and beans or beans and rice once a day sometimes.  North Americans have SO MUCH to be thankful for.  We take our choice of restaurants for granted. 


Cypress Point

 Our drive to Orlanda was uneventful.  I'll bet you thought there would be another story in this.  Nope.  The only story is that it was almost midnight, we were dead tired but arrived to a lovely condo.  I thought we were going to spend the following day just resting.  What John thought of as a day of rest didn't match what I was thinking.  We spent the day at WalMart and Target buying things that we need to take back to Haiti with us in January, and we ate a lovely meal at an Olive Garden. Bless his heart.  It almost sounds like I have a food fetish since I have mentioned food twice but after two months in Haiti making do with what you can find at the store, and making up the rest of the ingredients based on what you have in the cupboard, it is so wonderful to sit down to a meal knowing that you didn't have to figure out what else you can use because it's not available locally to you in Haiti.  And someone else made it !!!

God blessed us with a little cooler weather in Florida.  The locals were freezing and we finally felt cool, but this was only a taste of what we would experience on our drive north to Williamsburg, VA.