Theres always a first

It all started on two hours sleep. I spent the night in a warehouse field stripping supplies needed to bring on the chartered medical flight that we were taking. As it turns out south Florida, and Miami in particular regularly decide to shut down highways for fun. Our five lane 4am cruise to catch the flight rapidly dwindled down to two lanes, then one, at which point I commented on how I had never seen only a single lane open before. Then Alanis Morrisette's ironic lack of irony closed the highway down altogether. Yay. We finally got our proverbial asses into the terminal when we were told that one of us (Brenda) wasn't on the flight at all. Ultimately we decided that I should go on, and along with a bunch of rocket surgeons I was on my way to Haiti.

Its a short two hour flight and the only strange bit was the total obliviousness by the stewardess to the fact that we were headed to a disaster zone. She would make bubbly announcements about how happy she was that we were flying with her wonderful airline.

The country was enveloped in clouds and as we got closer to Port au Prince. Dipping below the cover, the devastation was uncanny even from 10,000 feet. There were hospital barges in the harbor next to battleships, and the landscape was littered with makeshift tent cities.
The most striking part of the landing approach was the amount of military on the ground. It looks like a war zone with the Hueys and armored personnel carriers mixed in with the rows of desert tan tents (you'd think that we specialized in desert wars or something). Touchdown in Port au Prince climaxed with Bubbles McGee uncomfortably pausing when she bade us farewell; 'Thank you for flying with us and I hope you have a wonderf..................... good stay.......... at which point I laughed so loud that I made her feel like an complete idiot, in the fashion that only I can.
Once down the presidential airplane evacuation staircase I discovered exactly what leaving Brenda behind meant. It meant I had seven 30 pound bags around my neck and a quarter mile to walk towards customs, who didn't care what I had and waved me through.

My first sight outside (besides the teeming, smoky, muddy, horn honkey, child beggy, cross eyed taxi driver that reminded me of the guy from Total Recall) was a fresh puddle of blood on the street. I can now check that one off the life list. The three breasted taxi driver and I followed Sam the motorcycle man back to the compound passing countless shattered buildings along the way. I've been in developing countries before (if you can even call Haiti 'developing'), but the disaster aspect of the scene is hard to describe. Concrete and people's things splashed across the streets, that aren't even streets anymore.

Of course my camera decided not to work from the moment that we landed, but I think it was good that my first impression wasn't from behind a viewfinder. As the military helicopters fly overhead I'm about to make some new friends with the handle of Jameson and giant bag of Starburst that I brought. Instead of East, I'm now South bound and down.

-McBride