I left to visit Tamarah on January 5th and came back on January 13th. Since I live in Southern California, I had to catch an overnight flight to Miami. Arriving in Miami the morning of January 6th, I caught the early morning flight to Port au Prince.
When I got there, I was expecting chaos like I had experienced in African aiports, it was not as bad as expected. The runway is old, just like a wide paved road. You have to exit the airplane from a staircase onto the tarmac. Then, you walk into the airport building.
The thing that struck me as funny was that when I got onto the plane in Miami was that it was one of the HUGE international flight planes. I am used to flying those size planes when flying to Europe or to Africa on 10-12 hour flights, not a 1 hour flight. It felt like we just took off and landed again. It was a beautiful sight to overlook parts of Haiti as we were approaching. Mind you, on the ground things don't look so beautiful...trash and pollution everywhere! There are beautiful parts to Haiti too. I will post some photos.
Anyway....when you get through the line at passports/immigration, you walk into the luggage receiving area. It was chaotic! There had been about 250 people if not more on that plane, each was looking for two pieces of luggage in a small receiving area. I got hussled! Some worker tried to take my luggage tags to find my luggage. I wanted to find my own luggage, I did not need his help. But too late, he grabbed my luggage claim tags and went...so I followed him CLOSELY! While keeping an eye on him (as I knew that I needed those tags to get out of the airport), I found my two huge suitcases and the double-stroller that I brought.
At the same time, Barbara had made it into the luggage area! First thing, she had to watch my luggage and I had to retrieve my claim tags. I gave the guy $2 and told him that I had already found my luggage. He gave me back my tags.
As we left the airport, it got a bit hectic, but everybody knows Barbara. She had a guy waiting to help with the luggage. Everybody was saying, "Hello Barbara!" I kept having to say, very firmly, "No mercy!" to guys who wanted to "help". All that I was carrying was my backpack!
As we left the airport building, I felt so relieved that Barbara was there! We walked across the street to the parking lot. As soon as we got to the pick-up truck, Mirland came out of the car and handed Tamarah to me. I gave Mirland a hug and took Tamarah. My sweet Tamarah! She was sleepy and probably thought, "Who is holding me?" But, she did not cry and when I got into the the truck, she snuggled right up to me.
Mirland is Barabara's assistant. Barbara Walker has been in Haiti for around 20 years. She is an amazing lady. In addition to having done about 600 adoptions in that time, she also helps women and children in need (more on that in another post) and she works with an organization that gives out water purifiers to Haitian orphanages, schools, villages, etc. (more on that in another post). Barbara has two assistants, Johny and Mirland. Both are Haitian. I really like both of them.
It felt so good to hold Tamarah in my arms. She is a beautiful baby. She was so quiet. She did not "talk", she just sat quietly on my lap, did not move much and did not interact much with me. She seemingly liked being cuddled though. Her interactions changed as the days went on. Within one day, she was "warmed up" and lively.
From the airport, we drove to Tony's hopsice home called: Holy Angels Hospice Home. Tony is Eastern Orthodox, so he and his kids were celebrating Christmas on January 6th, as is tradition in the Eastern Orthodox church. His hospice is for dying children. (Ever since I came back from Haiti, I have been trying to get sponsors for Tony's hospice. He has one sponsor, a 90-year old priest in New Orleans. Right now, they are operating without latex gloves. It was a choice between food or latex gloves. I did not get myself to take photos of the children, but I have some now that I need to scan on disk to upload. He really needs support...but more on that later.)
