Day 15- The long trek home, 21 hours.
Alarm goes off early and I get up and head for my cold morning shower. That'll wake me right up! I got coffee ready the night before so I walk in and turn it so it can brew. I can't shower yet because someone else is already in there. So I finish doing as much packing as I can without my shower things. I strip my bed down and put it in a pile of dirty laundry. I make myself a piece of toast and eat it. Soon after, the shower is ready for me. I climb in and turn on the water. I put my head under it first. There is no way I am going to be able to put my whole body in at first, it is so cold. I wash my hair and rinse it trying not to let the water get in my mouth. A couple times I absentmindedly lick my lips and then remember and start spitting, for the rest of the shower. I don't want to have any of that water in my system. I am almost out of here without getting sick.
After the shower I dress, put on my oils and some make up. I put the last of my things in bags. Everyone is ready but I am scrambling to get done because I was the last one in the shower. Luckily, I am done on time. The car is ready to go. I lug my huge suitcase out and so do the others. The security guard climbs up on top the Land Rover and the driver starts handing him the bags. They try to grab my backpack put I don’t want to lose sight of it as it has important documents in it as well as money. We say goodbye to Joanne and thank her for all she is doing. We climb into the car and in our usual places. Shani in front, Emily next and then the rest of us. A young girl climbs in and we are told it is the drivers cousin. She is getting a ride to Port au Prince with us. Then the security guard climbs in as well. We leave the house and I get a little emotional. I hope this is not the last time I see it. This house represents so much for Haitian woman. It’s the midwives school. Its where the volunteers stay. Its where the workers live. Its Midwives For Haiti.
We drive through town and are told we will be picking up Shelly. She is getting a ride to the town Mirebalais which is the 'meeting' point we have gone to 3 times before. We pick Shelly up and head out of Hinche. As we are driving through, I cry. I am saddened that I am leaving this place and I am leaving these people. I am headed home to my luxurious life and many are staying here suffering. I know that it is impossible for me to help every single Haitian. But it still hurts my heart that all these people live in this much poverty.
I don’t let the others know I am crying. I quickly stop and stare out the windows. We are in the country side now. Driving past people and homes. Women walking with their goods to sell in town. Shelly and I talk about the baby and Mom we cared for. She is very upset still with what happened. She had gone to the hospital to check on the baby and nothing has changed except for how jaundiced she was. No more yellowing of the skin but the brain damage is there. She feels like the baby will die and it makes her so upset. We worked hard to help save that baby. I ask her if she has ever seen a woman die and she said yes. It was difficult for her to talk about because she tried for 5 days to save the woman but the Dr wouldn’t listen. She bled internally and died leaving her baby. Shelly is a wonderful interpreter and is joining the medical side of MFH in January. Her mother is a matron and she has seen many births in her lifetime. She will be great at it!
We arrive to the meeting spot and Mario is there with the other 3 volunteers. They are supposed to join us in the Land Rover but there isn't enough room for them and the bags. I ask how their week went in Cabestor and they said great. They had 2 births. I find out they are headed back home after 1 week. I thought that I wouldn't want to come to Haiti and just be at Cabestor and not go to Hinche. It wouldn’t really feel like a mission trip if that was the case. Mario decided to drive them to Port au Prince so we don’t have to all cram into the car for the next 2 hours.
We leave the meeting place and drop off Shelly. She is headed to get some special formula for a special baby and Hinche doesn’t have it. She will pay for it herself and then catch a moto taxi the hour ride back. She is such a special lady doing all that. We say goodbye to her and I wish her the best.
The next 2 hours we drive through the country and over the mountain pass. We finally arrive to the airport and the man that greeted us at the airport greets us again. He helps get the bags down and inside the airport. We ask for him to take our picture. We are wearing our MFH tshirts and Emily is wearing her Clinton shirt. He takes our picture and asks if he can take a selfie with all of us. We all cram into the picture and he helps us to the check in area. I go first and place my bag on the scale. I don’t know how it happened but my bag is 12 pounds overweight!! I am bringing a few bottles home for the girls who have carry on's only so that may be what it is. I take stuff out of the suitcase and place into my back pack. She doesn’t charge me for my baggage fees and I walk over and get the rest of my stuff situated. Soon all the girls are ready and we head for security. We say bye to 'airport guy' and go through. No problem for me this time. A couple of the girls get stopped and I wait for the security to search their bags. I am pretty hungry and so are some of the others. It is about 1130ish and its lunch time. We walk around the airport and there really isn't much there. I think there was a total of 5 gates. There is a small coffee shop that has food but I am so reluctant to eat it because I don’t know how it was prepared. I opt for a bag of chips and a bottled water. Shani was nice and bought us our snacks. Thanks :)
We sit down near our gate and eat. Soon, we are ushered to go to our gate by a man. It is time to say bye to Donna as she is on a different flight back to California. I instantly start to cry. I don’t want to say goodbye to her. I don’t know when I will see her again and we have all bonded in a way I will never bond with someone else. These ladies are very special to me. Donna gives me a hug and she can't look at me or she will cry too. Oh it is so hard to hold back the tears. The girls all give me a hug and I swallow down the tears and say bye to Donna.
When we walk over to our gate there is a security line again. We are a bit confused by this as we have already gone through security and now we have to go again. We ask why and are told the first security is for the airport and this security is put in place by JetBlue. I am happy to go through what ever security a airport has in order to make my flight safe. My one issue is we have all just bought bottle water and are forced to either drink it all at once or throw it away. Once we get through security though there are no bathrooms. They are on the other side. So if I drink all this water, I will need to go pee soon and have to go through the long line of security. Darn!
I drink my water and find a place for the 4 of us to sit. We plug in our phones to charge and hang out. At one point we count every one and when we realize we are now 4, it makes us sad. Emily says she needs to pee soon and I think I kinda do too. The plane doesn’t load for 30 more minutes and then we don’t take off for an hour. Which means if I don’t go now, I wont be able to go until the plane is at 10k feet. So I decide to go. I grab my passport and boarding pass and head out. When I am done I go to the front of the line to the person who let me out and ask her If I need to get back in line again since I just went and used the bathroom. She was nice enough to let me in there and I didn't have to wait long at all.
Soon we are called to board. We want to get on board sooner than later so we can place our bags over our heads and not far away. We walk the jetway and I do my tap tap on the plane as I walk on. We find our seat and I am sitting next to the window. Shani is pretty far back from us and Emily and Tiffany are across the aisle from me. 2 Haitian women sit next to me. I get what I need out of my bag to keep me company for the next 3 hours. I place one of the lozenges in my mouth that my friend gave me for take off and landing. We are off and headed to New York.
The flight to NY was nice. I like to look at the window and always enjoy the window seat. The view is beautiful as we fly over the Caribbean. We arrive in NY and it is dark outside. We land and slowly get off the plane. We are in no hurry as we have a 3 hour lay over. We go through US customs easily and go and claim our suitcases. We then go to declare what we have brought back into the US and are waived through. We are all excited to eat nummy American food and all agree to a restaurant. We sit down and one of us comment on how clean it is. In Haiti everything is dirty and old. All of us order salad. I had wanted a cheeseburger or steak but changed my mind and decided on a cobb salad. We were all craving yummy fresh vegetables. Emily said it was the best salad she has had in along time. We eat up and before long it is time to head to the gate. Most of our 3 hour layover was used up going through the process of coming back into the USA.
At the gate we give our boarding passes and walk down the jetway to the plane. Tap tap as I go through the doorway. This time Emily, Tiffany and I are all sitting together, me at the window. We get situated for our 6 hour flight back. It is 8pm and we land in Seattle at midnight which is really 3am our time. After take off we are given our nummy snacks that JetBlue offers and I blog. I have a lot to catch up on and won't have a computer after that night. I am using Emily's laptop as I don’t have one. Not long though and I am sleepy. I put everything away and use my pillow and blanket to try and get comfortable to sleep. I sleep 'ok' for a couple hours and wake up to the announcement that we will be landing shortly. YAY! I am so excited to be home. We have been traveling all day.
We get off the plane and head to the baggage claim. Emily doesn't have baggage so she says her goodbye s and goes to find her husband. At baggage claim, Tiffany's husband picks her and Shani up and we say our good byes. Soon Niles is there to pick me up. I am finally home. We drive back to our house and I have officially been traveling for 21 hours and I am beat!! Goodnight!
