To Haiti and Back: Part Two

  So we jumped in the car with Ivinge and the stern looking driver.  Pretty soon we were entering the gated area that would be our hotel for the night.  It looked nice enough from the outside, but I will admit we were a little giggly that a "2 hour rate" was posted when Ivinge took us to check in.  Oh well.  We weren't really in a position to have an opinion about where we stayed, so we just went with it.

Ivinge and the woman from the front desk showed us to our room.  It felt funny that they both came right into the room, Ivinge checking out the bathroom, etc. before giving his approval that it would work.  Our room was fine and honestly, we were so dang tired by this point that we didn't care too much about the details.(such as the painting of a nude woman as the only decoration...) Unsure if we should be using the tap water to brush our teeth, we chanced it and survived :)  We had left a deposit for the TV remote control and pretty much just laid on the bed and watched a little TV until we dozed off, again having fitful sleep due to worry we would not wake up for our early morning flight to Cap Haitien.

We did wake up on time and went to the courtyard to meet Ivinge at our agreed upon time....This was our first real life lesson in Haitian time.  Having no idea how long it would take us to get to the airport, we were getting antsy.  But now we knew how to contact Ivinge!  So Mitch called him and all he could really understand from the other end was, "Menning!  I'm coming!  It's ok."  With not much more we could do than trust that it WOULD be ok, we waited.  Pretty soon Ivinge walked through the gates and guided us out toward the street.  We expected to see stern driver guy but were surprised when, in less than a block of walking, we were at the airport!  Still, we were glad to have Ivinge there with us to make sure we got where we needed to go.

The desk at the little airport was pretty funny.  There was not so much a line as a mob of people waiting to be helped.  No computers.  When it was our turn, the guy behind the desk started filing through actual sheets of paper to try to find our reservation.  He quickly found Mitch's, but could not find mine..... Luckily I was in lala land at this point so wasn't stressed about it.  Mitch was getting a little concerned, but then saw my name on one of the papers and pointed it out to the guy.  Our boarding passes were issued and we were good to go.  The boarding passes.... well, basically they were two little cards with numbers on them.  No names.  Nothing to identify that we were the passengers.  I am pretty sure I could have given it to anyone sitting outside and they would have been able to get on the flight.  Security at the little airport was a little sketchy :)

We sat in the waiting area for quite a while.  It was nice to talk to Ivinge a little bit and to hear about his family.  We immediately liked Ivinge, but the more time we spent with him, the more clear it was to us that he is the main dude in this whole adoption process.  He works very hard to hand deliver paperwork, check in with government agencies, and communicate with COTP and the adoption agencies.  We have so much respect for him and are grateful for his calm demeanor and kind personality, especially knowing that he has to constantly deal with us crazy and sometimes obsessed adoptive parents!  They finally announced our flight (at least that's what Ivinge told us) so we got up and walked out to the plane.  It was small and I have always been fearful of small planes.  Feels like you always hear about people dying in little airplane accidents.  But here we were about to board one.  In Haiti.

Since we had no choice, off we went.  It was sort of first come, first served as far as seating.  There's no silly rules like in the States as far as baggage and where it's stowed.  We just found any old open space and plopped our backpacks there.  Mitch's 6'5 body did not really fit in the seat, but somehow he squished in.  The flight itself was not too bad, but I did get a bit motion sick.  We were so exhausted that I think we even dozed for a few minutes of the short flight.  I tried not to imagine the little plane crashing into the mountains we were flying next to....and was even able to appreciate how beautiful it looked from up there!

As we landed in Cap Haitien, all I could think about was that we were going to meet our little ones soon.  And I had no idea how I would feel--- would I be an emotional mess?  At arm's length with them?  Would they gather that we were treating them differently?  Would we be just another American couple to them?

Oh, God.  Help us to do this well.