So we're in Haiti! We landed about 7 hours after we were scheduled because of the medical emergency and then we got placed on a later flight. We had a nice group lunch at Miami airport and emailed more of our contacts in Haiti.
I was so tired by the time we were on our flight from Miami that I don't remember much of the plane ride. (We had left at 3 am from MIT and hadn't slept at all Sat night)
I woke up a few minutes before we were about to land. From the plane we had a spectacular view of the region, surrounded by really really green mountains we landed in what was most likely the shortest runway ever. The weather is a bright, sunny, sweltering and humid 94 degrees. The airport was filled mostly with aid workers and a few Haitians returning.
At the airport we were met by a bus driver who took us to our hotel Le Plaza. On the trip to the hotel we saw a lot of rubble left over from the earthquake and lots and lots of tent cities. The people seem to be moving on with their lives, there is a lot of music playing from the tent cities. Some of the buildings look untouched, others are just piles of cement blocks. The contrast is startling. Otherwise the streets look much like what I've seen in India, people bustling around, political campaigns with graffiti on any visible cement wall, and instead of wooden/cement structures with tin roofs on them in the shanty towns-- there are tons and tons of tents. We saw women carrying jugs of water back from what looked like a tube-well setup. We drove by the presidential palace- where we saw one end of it slumped in obvious damage from the earthquake. Our hotel is at most 10 minutes from the presidential palace.
The hotel has a strong security presence, with armed guards moving around the area. Apparently, until about last week, Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta and the CNN team had a strong presence at the hotel. This was where they stayed and set up their satellites. The hotel is still running on generators. We recuperated in our rooms for a little bit, drank a bit of gatorade and then headed to dinner. The highlight of dinner was definitely the mango. And it was amazing, by far the best mangoes I have ever had in my life.
After dinner we discussed our plans by the pool. We met a group of nurses. One of the group members had been here for 5 weeks. She talked about how she saw tetanus and rabies on a daily basis and how she had never seen it before. She used the term "slice and dice" to describe the treatment options for the tetanus patients. She had been involved in the WASH program as well, which is one part of the projects that we are going to learn about tomorrow.
We went up to the roof and from there we had a view of the presidential palace and could enjoy the music that drifted up from the neighboring tent-city. Afterwards we came back to our rooms to rest up for tomorrow and jot down this quick note.
More updates tomorrow!
