We’re Baaack! (3-29-06)

Finally, I’m being true to the name of my blog again, as we arrived at the Touissaint L’Overture International Airport at about 11 am today. The cell phone system in Haiti was down but the one-armed man at the airport who is always happy to see John found us a ride to our place, less than 10 minutes away. For a fee of course. We were happy to pay as we had five heavy suitcases that also happily arrived in Port-au-Prince at the proper time. We didn’t want to have to worry about these bags in Miami, so we took the chance of checking them all the way through from Peoria to Port-au-Prince and they didn’t wind up being one of the 200,000 bags lost permanently each year. Our friend rode with us from the airport, saying, “God bless my county. The bad is finished!” After unloading the bags, he and the driver pulled away as he was joyously celebrating the tip that he had earned.

The weather here is wonderful, warm with good breezes. Jenny’s pastor, Michel Charbaneau picked her up at the hotel at about 2 pm. Pastor Michel first brought Jenny to us several months ago. She partakes in his feeding program and his church sponsors her in school. We found out that Jenny lives with her mother, and an aunt and some cousins on Delmas 65 in a ravine. The pastor is going to take pictures of Jenny with her mother at her home. “We will be shocked by where she lives,” predicts John. John listened to Jenny’s heart and looked at her ear. Since her PDA has been repaired, she has no heart murmur. “You should have heard it before,” he said. And her ear looks a lot better too; the antibiotic drops we have been giving her seem to be helping.