Haiti 2013, Saturday, June 8

6/8/13 - Travel Day
We got to the airport earlier than we had intended, because I just woke up at 2:45. Although paperwork advises being at the airport two hours early for international flights, there were no attendants available to assist us, and the "self-check" kiosks were offline. So we waited.

At around 4:20ish, we'd checked our bags and were headed through security when I got a call from my dad. He had come back home, they'd gotten back into bed, then heard a great and mighty crash. D got up first and ran into the kitchen. She said it sounded just like the time the attic access fell open and smashed the full liquor bottles we had stored on top of the refrigerator. This time, however, it was because a opossum had been living in the attic and must have hit the trap door on a weak day (it's ridiculous; there is a 1/4 inch plastic lip that "locks" this 8-pound door into place) and had fallen through into the kitchen.

It was hiding beside the refrigerator at that time, so my parents called our maintenance guy and our landlord (no answer at 4:30 AM) then called animal control, who sent out a contractor. Several hours later, the opossum was trapped and the area disinfected. Later in the week, they trapped a second opossum as well as two rats. Good times.

Meanwhile, our first flight was delayed just a bit as there was a missing sign-off on the "maintenance book." We got to watch the sunrise, once we got into the air, and the flight was only about 40 minutes.

In Dallas, our flight was delayed for over an hour for unknown reasons; it had been at the gate the whole time. Since our layover in Miami was only to be 40 minutes, it was iffy whether or not we'd make it. Because of the way our flights were booked as a team, I wasn't seated beside James on any leg. For the first, we were able to request an exit row from the gate agent. The other two, however, were full and there was no wiggle room. Our awesome travel group, though, was willing to play musical chairs, so we did get to sit together every time.

While we were waiting to find out when or if we'd be able to board the plane in Dallas, I found something interesting: Just before we'd boarded the plane in Austin, one of the food kiosks had opened. James was famished, so got a breakfast sandwich. He also bought me a diet Pepsi. The girl who was working hadn't even gotten everything ready, so she had to put the nozzle on the soda fountain to get my beverage. James had ordered it with no ice (just like I likes it!), but while we were in Dallas, I noticed that there was still somehow some unmelted ice in the bottom of the cup. I opened the cup to discover that, no, that wasn't ice at all.

Yep. Nozzles. What's funny is that they didn't learn their lesson, and apparently still store the cleaned nozzles in a large Pepsi container, as we witnessed when we returned a week later:

We did make our connection in Miami, and arrived on time into Port au Prince, Haiti. Coming off of the plane, we were greeted by this:

Once we got through customs, we waited for our bags and the "red shirts" descended. These are men who are eager to carry your bags to the car for whatever tip you will give them. They are aggressive and numerous, and while you have to admire them for wanting to work, we already had a designated guide. We politely declined help, except for James, who sweetly let a man take his bag from him. He got it back a few moments later after several of us asked the man to return it. It was funny, though: Even though we met our guide and were talking out to the van together, several of the gentlemen in red shirts walked out with us, pretending to be official, waving us on, leading us. 

Driving away from the airport, honestly, I was underwhelmed by damage. I had been warned that I would immediately see devastation left over from the earthquake three years ago, but I didn't see much at all. What I saw looked a lot like what I'd expect a Central/South American urban area to look like.

We drove 8 kilometers (just under 5 miles) to Kenscoff to the house where we were staying. This drive, due to traffic and people and road conditions and switchbacks, took over an hour. It was a colorful and interesting trip.

Watching the people on the drive up, especially at the market very close to the house, I wanted to get out and walk among the vendors. There were people selling fresh vegetables, fruits, breads (including a flatbread that was about 20 inches in diameter), chickens, sundries, bags, drinks, roasted corn on the cob... If you could toss it down on a blanket or carry it in a basket on your head (which doesn't limit the selection as much as one might expect), it was out and available.

It did seem awfully chaotic, but I'm sure that downtown Austin seems dizzyingly chaotic to the uninitiated.

We spent the week in the home of Pastor Jean Alix Paul, his wife, Mylene, and their kids Laurie and Markley. You can read some of his story here. They live near the top of a mountain in a large 2-story stuccoed home with bunk rooms for visitors, a large kitchen, a comfortable living area, and a dining room with a long table for group meals.

Port au Prince was all sea-level Caribbean urban: steamy, busy, packed in. Kenscoff is at 3500 feet and much cooler and dryer. The house is behind gates which shut out the bustle. We could hear roosters and insects and lots of frogs after the rains.

They have a woman on staff who prepares breakfast and dinner for us. It "feels" weird. Also, Madame Mylene, who works full time, made sure both meals got on the table. The work ethic of the people from the market to the house to the streets to the farming communities we saw was humbling.

Saturday night, we had time to catch up on rest, reading, and general down-timing. I got a little homesick while James slept, imagining sleeping without him all week. He truly is my darling, and as far away as I felt from my daughter, sleeping 200 feet from James seemed almost as drastic.

For dinner the first night, we were fed salad, corn, broccoli, cabbage, a creamy casserole, and goat meat. We also had sodas available, but no diet sodas. It was interesting how, after consuming non-nutritive sweeteners, drinking beverages filled with sugar made me feel VERY full. The food served at "home" was healthy and satisfying.

They had three "guard" dogs, which apparently are very intimidating to the Haitians. They were adorable, if smelly. They were also extremely needy for attention.

We had an early start to Sunday, so I went to bed early on Saturday. While I sleep, check out this audio interview with Pastor Jean Alix. It's five years old, so the numbers will be off (this was pre-earthquake), but you'll get to enjoy his speaking style and hear about his ministries. EDIT: There's no link because the interview has been removed.

Haiti Trip 2013, An Introduction

This morning after I woke up, I lay in bed a long time, filled with nervous energy. I was, I believe, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed thinking of a day during which no one was going to shove food in front of me, tell me where to go and what to do, put me in a car, and make sure that I got there. Overwhelmed by once again being the "madame" of a house, where if we are going to have dinner or clean clothes or an absence of dust kitties, or lights because the electric bill got paid, it was up to me. Overwhelmed by my exposure to a new reality to which I feel responsible.

How do I juggle responsibility for myself, my family, and my newly-acquainted brothers and sisters and children, and do it all well?

Do you know much about Haiti? I didn't. I actually still don't. I probably should have done more research before we went. Briefly, Haiti - or Ayiti in local Creole - is the western (left) part of the Caribbean island of Hispanola, just southeast of Cuba (as you can see from my shower curtain). It was the first black-led republic in the world, and the first independent country in the Caribbean and Latin America. Whoo, Haiti!

Sadly, the US has a history of butting into Haitian affairs, about which you can read in this Wikipedia entry. None of that affected my trip, although I wonder if it lingers in the minds of older Haitians, and whether they see all of the "blancs" as trying to shoehorn "improvements" where they're not welcomed.

One thing I loved about this week's philosophy is that this was not a "we're coming to save you!" journey. It was specifically billed as a learning trip. I soaked up as much as I could about my surroundings, but that wasn't .05% (an official Jacob Vanhorn statistic) of Haiti, and I'm not even close to being an expert on the encapsulated experience.

To go on this trip, we each needed to raise $2200 in support. We raised a tiny fraction of that and paid the rest ourselves. Although it was initially somewhat discouraging, I'm now very grateful that I got to pour as many resources as I needed to into Haiti. I could not have spent our money better on any comforts or groceries or bills or anything else. For those of you who contributed financially, I again thank you with gratitude that words can't express. Because of you, a house is being built for a Haitian family by Haitian laborers and artisans. You helped provide a week's work for our incredible interpreters Dario, Jay, John, and Yvens and our intrepid driver, Gary (so glad he was the one transporting and not me!). And for those who prayed for our trip, thank you. Everyone stayed safe, we got to go everywhere and do everything that was planned, and it is my belief and hope that everyone involved was blessed.

We hung out with orphaned children who connected with us on so many levels that didn't require common language: photos, stored videos, animal sounds, crafts, piercings and tattoos, futbol, percussion, and hair styling. We did grunt work so that experienced builders could put together a house for a family headed by a woman who served as a foreman for our operations (again, without being able to communicate verbally, for the most part), who hauled rebar and gravel and who still managed to tend her farm and even enjoy a well-deserved shower in the rain at the end of one of our work days (although I suspect she went back to work after we cleared out and the rain let up). We visited with families and churches and communities, and we heard so many stories that I want to share with you... But I'm still unsure how best to honor those stories. They deserve to be told. They are incredible, and life-affirming, and faith-challenging. And I'm not confident yet that I know how to convey them, giving them the attention and respect that they deserve.

So, for now, I can only tell you my story. I hope you'll indulge me, and I hope you'll find that this journey means something to you. If you will, allow me to start with some notes I took on the airplane ride from the United States to Haiti. It's the beginning of my Haiti story:

6/8/13 - Saturday, en route
When Jacob announced this trip, I knew that I needed to come. For years, I have longed to go, to meet people from a different culture, and to experience life, not as a tourist, per se, but alongside of its people. I have entertained different theories as to why I haven't been able to go before, but now I realize that God has been saving this trip for when I needed it.

When I committed in my heart to go, I asked James and he was all for it, and for coming with me. We were not yet engaged. It feels like a lifetime ago.

At that time, my back pain still loomed so large in my life that it was my primary travel concern.

Since then, it has taken a turn for the worse (and hopefully worst). I have gotten married. We have transitioned into marriage and co-habitation. My back has either improved or I am becoming accustomed to the constant pulls and shooting pains. Last month, in a shocker of epic proportions, I had a positive pregnancy test. Weeks later, having settled as a family into this new development, I miscarried. Actually, because I have let this progress naturally, I am still in the middle of the process.

This trip has forced me to spend the last week quickly dealing with the loss while looking forward. Bags to be packed. Travel items to be bought. And I needed that. I think maybe we both did.

Because of the busy-ness of life leading up to this trip, I haven't had a lot of time to think about it. We are being reminded to be flexible, but I have no expectations. I am open for this week to be whatever God will make of it. As for now, I am sitting beside my husband, and that is enough.




Pictures are here, if you're interested.

Rebel Without... Well, Tact, I Suppose

Read at your own risk. This is more of the TMI stuff, but, again, I like to chronicle everything.

By Wednesday evening, my "spotting" was getting heavy enough to qualify as a "light period," so I picked up, for the first time in well over a dozen years, a box of pantyliners. Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck.

In high school, I had "issues" with my monthlies. I actually had black-out, sensory aggravated, body-wrecking episodes that would leave me curled in a fetal position, eyes closed, blocking my ears, and cold-sweating until they passed. This was in addition to cramps and very long, very heavy, very irregular periods.

For whatever reason, I guess because my mom didn't use them so it never came up, tampons were not introduced as an option. I used pads. The heaviest pads you could get. And very often, despite my feeling like I was walking around with a pillow crammed into the crotch of my pants, they would leak, and I'd end up with blood on my pants, enough to show through.

At least one week (and sometimes as many as ten days) of every month (or six) of my late teens and early twenties was spent walking around constantly glancing into reflective surfaces to check for tell-tale shocks of red. I stopped at every bathroom possible to make sure it was still business as usual. I had to wash my sheets a lot. I had to change clothes a lot. It was awful.

This changed quite a bit when I discovered tampons, so that was good. But it wasn't ideal. I mean, a period isn't ideal. Period.

But then, three years ago, I discovered an absolute miracle: The Diva Cup! (Cue angelic heralding.) No waste, no leaks, no running to the store at the last minute because I forgot to stock up. Brilliant!

So, now... yesterday and last night were both very much how I remembered high school. Squishy. Potentially embarrassing. But you know what I forgot? The smell. I won't try to explain it. If you're a girl with this same experience, you get it. Ugh. Oh, and getting up in the middle of the night, even though I didn't *have* to, just to make sure I wasn't going to mess up the bed.

Everything I have read says that you're not supposed to use a tampon (or any insert), nor are you supposed to have sex for two weeks after a miscarriage. What I've read says that you're open to infection because the cervix is dilated and all of these blood vessels are open, and everything needs to come out or you can get infected. This morning, though, I found something on an Australian website that said: "Many authorities advise avoiding tampon use during or after a miscarriage. This is because of a possible risk of infection although tampons have not been proven to cause infection in this situation."

Well.

If you know me, you know that was practically a green light for recalling the Diva Cup.

The more I read, the more I see that the risk of infection is if all of the tissue doesn't pass. But they usually clock that at two weeks, and it will be exactly two weeks from the time this started when we get back.

I cannot spend our travel day tomorrow going to the bathroom every fifteen minutes. I can't pack enough liners or pads to change every single hour, or even every four hours or so, for the next week. The house where we're staying? We can't even flush the toilet paper, so I really do not want to create a mountain of tissue of which the hosts will have to dispose.

The Diva Cup is the most convenient answer.

I am now treating this like a "normal" period unless something else happens. I think we're going to be just fine.

Chick-fil-A Grand Opening!

When James first moved into the Nuthaus, back in February, this was happening:

Woo hoo! A Chick-fil-A! In walking distance!

Two nights ago, James and I were reading and talking in bed (actually, James was reading and I was talking) when we heard the sound of metal pipes bouncing off of concrete. Over and over. It was annoying, and it was well after 10:30, so I very seriously considered calling non-emergency police to complain about it. After all, eventually, I'd grow tired of talking and want to sleep, right?

James went out and almost the moment that he did, the sounds stopped. When he came back in, though, they started up again! His investigation that time gleaned that there were people putting up temporary awnings and tents in the Chick-fil-A parking lot. A day and a half before the grand opening, they were camping out. This is why.

They had tables set up under the tree and were playing card games. There was a "corn hole" game and football tosses going on in the middle of the lot, which had been kept cleared. There was a DJ for a while, and there were lots of people under the drive-through awning with recliners.

But you will just have to take my word for it, because I didn't notice that there was a stinking piece of landscaping in the way! :)

Now you might notice, as I did when they were building this, that there are two full drive-through lanes. Not just two order boards and one set of windows, like at the McDonald's across the street. Two standing sets of windows separated by a drive-through tunnel or breezeway or whatever you want to call it.

I theorized mightily as to how this might work. James and I discussed it, and he was, for some inexplicable reason, horrified by my idea that it might be pneumatic tubing. Then again, I think he pictured employees putting an unwrapped sandwich in the tube to be sucked to a different location, and in my head, it was an entire bag comprising one order.

One day, as James and I were walking home from the store, we got lucky! The construction workers had left the door open on the remote drive-through housing!

It's a belt system! How brilliant is that?

We'd read the "First 100" rules and so we thought we'd sneak over there early this morning and try to sign up for the raffle, but by the time we got there at 5:30ish, they'd packed up the registration materials and people were starting to pack up their tents and get ready for the opening. I was surprised at how many small children and even pretty elderly people there were.

We walked around a bit, then went back home for an hour or so. Just before 6:00, they started announcing free meal winners, and there was much rejoicing. This time, knowing what it was, I didn't mind the sleep intrusion. It was fun.

At 7:00, we walked back over to buy breakfast and the place had really cleared out. That's when I realized something I hadn't noticed before: This restaurant has no indoor dining area.

Yep, that lovely patio is it for on-site eating. Although, if you look at the lot on which it is situated, it makes sense. They really can't have families bringing kids and sitting in the dining area while kids play on the playground for hours when they only have a dozen or so parking spaces, and everywhere around here offers fun ticketing and towing.

You step up to one of three ordering windows, then your food is presented at the far left window.

Hey, you know what else is inside of that far left window?

The belt deployment system! Which we got to see in operation!

After James and I had gotten breakfast, come home, and eaten, I decided to go back to get some of these pictures. I had this idea to take my cup and ask for a refill. Which, of course, I got. Because Chick-fil-A is awesome. It's tempting to keep trying it until the ice melts, but I don't want to take advantage of their goodwill. Although they do insist that it's "my pleasure."

Now I'm wishing I'd bought a cowlendar this year, because I anticipate huge chunks of our cash going over here... especially because I'm on a salt kick and their waffle fries are marvelous. 

That's the other thing... see the white shirts? There were a lot of managers there. It appeared that everything went smoothly, and now we have another quick dining option near the Nuthaus. Of course, we prefer locally-owned, smaller restaurants, but in a pinch... well, it's Chick-fil-A. Yummy.

This Blog

I moved my blog over to this site because as soon as we get back from Haiti, I'm going to change my name. I also wanted to blog about the pregnancy in a format that no one would see for a while. I'm glad I did that because I want to note what has happened, but would not have wanted to process through this with a lot of people. If James, Daphne, and I and way too many cats are the only family we ever have, it will be more than enough. I am so in love with my wonderful husband, I can't even begin to express it. I hit the jackpot with that man; I truly did.

Certainty

I'm supposed to go in for an ultrasound today, but I don't want to. I know that I'm losing this baby. The blood is coming more regularly now, like a light period. I am waiting for a dramatic "There's so much blood!" moment where I know it's "over," but that might not be for a couple of weeks. I'm not going to worry about how that pans out with Haiti. This is reality, and I'm not going to change a bunch of plans to wait for something. I feel fine now, and life is going to go on.

Meeting the Midwife

Today, the three of us walked the block and a half to the birthing center around the corner. We met a very nice midwife who I will definitely use if I ever need someone for prenatal care and delivery. The birthing center is beautiful, very homey. I got a referral for an ultrasound tomorrow afternoon, but I really don't expect that it will show a viable pregnancy. I continue to bleed consistently, and it's red.

I'm glad to know we are both still fertile, and I hope that this will work out eventually, and soon. I'm glad we have the Haiti trip to distract us. I ache for my husband. I love him more than anything and want to please him so much. That is the excruciating part.