Arrival in Haiti

As our tiny plane rounded the corner of the island of Haiti, I gazed in excitement at the land below. I was shocked by the vast, green lands, the tropical jungle canopy over everything. I suppose I assumed that it would be more akin to parts of Africa I have seen, dry and barren.
We landed and unloaded from the plane and were greated by pastors and the "airport staff", which consisted of one large white woman and 4 Haitians who followed her around and obeyed the orders she barked at them. After going through "customs", which consisted of showing our passports, we were given our bags back and told to wait in a stiffling hot room until our ride came to pick us up. We met various other "blancs" (Creole for white person) in the room, who spoke english and chated with us about their various mission work. One lady was very kind, she held my hand and dragged me outdoors to exchange some American dollars into Haitian "goud" so that we could buy a soda. She had been living in Haiti for the past 23 years, had married a Haitian man, and seemed to know everyone around us! After a couple ours of waiting, she grew worried about us and gave us her mobile number to call if we were indeed abandoned in the Cap Haitian airport. Luckily, after about 2 hours the large white woman came inside and told us that the truck that our hospital had sent for us had broken down and they were trying to find another ride for us. Finally, after 4 hours of sitting in the humid little airport room, a man arrived asking for "sawah". We were relieved and excited...finally! There were boxes of medical supplies at the airport for our hospital, and I had to pay $100 to have them be cut open and examined by the "customs crew". Finally, we loaded our supplies into the truck, hopped aboard, and started our journey to Gonaives. We were told it was a 3 hour drive....it took us almost 6. But the drive, although long, was fantastic! We drove up into the mountians of Haiti, watching small villages pass us by, observing the people go about their lives. Every so often we would be spotted by a small child who would yell "blanc" and then all the children, and some adults would come out to the road and wave at us, occasionally reaching out hands asking for money. We arrived at our compound after dark and were shown our room in Claire Chappuis' house. The room is simple, but nice. We each have a metal bunk bed to ourselves, which we use the bottom for sleeping and the top as a shelf for our clothes. We have a ceiling fan that works from 2pm-10pm, and 2 small windows in one corner. We also have a simple wooden table by the door and a makeshift wooden board at the other coner, which we have arranged our toiletries on. Simple, but very livable :)
Jenna and I were exhausted and went straight to bed in eager anticipation of starting our first day at the hospital the next morning!!