Welcome to Haiti

We arrived in Port-au-Prince a few hours late but intact. The plane was packed; filled with a disproportionate number of caucasian teenagers with matching t-shirts. I wonder somewhat cynically what they have to offer and marvel that, through the strange prism of American culture, an event such as the Haiti earthquake winds up adding Collectible Items to the Global Product Stream.

The plane itself was oddly indicitive of Haiti: nothing seems to work perfectly well, and you're better off if the oddities and quirks make you smile rather than curse. About halfway through the flight the overhead screens started sharing the following information with the passengers:
TIME TO PORT-AU-PRINCE: 8:16
ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL: 0:12
TEMPERATURE: -43c

"Doesn't exactly instill confidence in the engineering," quipped Beverly.

at the moment we touched down, the screen informed us:
TIME TO PORT-AU-PRINCE: 7:08
DISTANCE TO PORT-AU-PRINCE: 5058 Miles

Plenty of houses sans roof on the way in, though the skies were so hazy- almost smoggy- that it was hard to see much distance.

The cello made it intact. Right now, I'm writing from the table of the hotel restaurant, and the cello is locked safely in our room, unscathed. Pretty amazing, actually.

It rained. It did not drizzle. We waited and negotiated (much of Haiti seems to revolve around waiting and negotiating) for our 2 4-wheel drive vehicles- just as we were piling in to the trucks, the sky opened up. Within minutes the "roads" were running streams. I was amazed that people were talking about the "address" of the hotel. "Address" implies order and numbers. A lot of bricks and a lot of tents, but it was hard to tell what was the result of the earthquake and what was like that before. As we crept through the stream/roads we slowed down next to an old Toyota pickup with a tarp strung over the hood, lean-to style. I noticed a lone man standing erect, shoulders hunched, neck leaned forward perhaps in the least-rain-penetrable spot of his new post-earthquake home.

At the hotel, as we waited and negotiated for 2 rooms despite having a "reservation"for 3 rooms, a man walked up through the downpour toting a black and silver pistol grip pump shotgun. After a second, he pulled his black baseball hat out from under his jacket, it read "SECURITY."

-Mike.