Haiti Trip: Day 1 (Not in Haiti yet…)
After an early flight out of JFK, Marly, Jesus, and I arrived safely in Santo Domingo without any friction or major problems (other than JetBlue trying to ruin me by taking an extra $500 by mistake and refusing to fix their mistake in a timely fashion … don’t get me started. More on that later).
David Pierre-Louis’ (Strength Through Unity) arrived on a flight after us and we got a chance to meet with him and his crew of four. The quick plan was to roll from the airport to the hotel so that we could reorganize and spend the day collecting remaining supplies and equipment, leaving for Haiti on Wednesday morning.
Aside from the challenges we’ll have being in Haiti – considering the state of our and Haiti’s resources – we are realizing that the task of coordinating a group of 7 people with many moving parts will be a significant challenge as well. We’re looking forward to a session tonight where we all sit down, get on the same page (politically, socially, philosophically, etc.) and get a solid plan together.
It turns out that AT&T has voice and data coverage in Haiti (on a roaming basis) and will dismiss any roaming charges for me. This means that as long as I can keep a charge in my device I will be updating this site with the experiences we’re having here.