Haiti, here I come!

A 620 am flight out of Sydney begins a week long journey to a small community called Deschapelles, two and a half hours north of Port au Prince, Haiti, to an orphanage called HATS-Hands Across the Sea. There are 16 children living full time at HATS, and these children, I've been told, have a variety of stories that would tug at your heart strings. I've never made a trip like this before, and, as a mother, this is the part that makes me most anxious--how do you become so immersed in a child's life for a week, only to bid them farewell in 7 short days, without leaving a piece of your heart behind? I suspect this will be a week like no other, and with wheels up, I'm off to the first stop on the journey--Toronto.

After an hour of winding my way through the customs' line, I met up with one of the ladies who travels to HATS every year, Beate, a school teacher in Ontario. It's like we are old friends by the time we land in Miami, check in to our hotel amongst the palm trees, then meet up with the other two women ( a mother/daughter team from Calgary), only to rest our heads for less than 12 hours.

Stepping out into the muggy Miami morning at 4:15 and boarding the airport shuttle, we cross our collective fingers that all our bags will make the journey with us. The four of us are loaded down with a variety of 'gifts,' including Beate's lightbulbs, crocs, clothes, and cheese, to Laree's and Ronelle's 3 sewing machines and abundance of children's clothes, and my 75 toothbrushes/toothpastes, shoes, t shirts, medicines, and of course, bottles of bubbles, just to name a few things! 

I am a little nervous, and excited all at the same time. I have traveled to poorer countries before, but never actually lived in their reality. Many of us have taken vacations to the Dominican Republic, or Cuba, or other warm tropical places, and we are in shock and awe when we take a tour through the local neighbourhoods, seeing how people really live--far from the lush accommodations provided to the tourists.  At least that's the way it was for me-- seeing the local realities were fleeting moments, maybe captured on film, shared when I got home, then 'put away' in the back of my brain as I returned to my 'normal.' This time, however, I don't think I will be able to put these pictures away...

The flight to Port Au Prince is supposed to be just about 2 hours. Without an empty seat on the Boeing 767, and the sun beaming through the clouds, the adventure begins...Haiti, here I come!