A mission was put in my heart, to find out if I could treat acupuncture in a hospital in Haiti! So I bought the ticket and then started researching. Decided I would do it like I did China. Just get there! Specially since after exhausting letters and emails got me nowhere!
A day before travel, I call the airline to get a seat, and they don't have my ticket! After 5 hours of relentless jumping between different phone agents, I get the ticket and its $250 less. A day before travel!!
At Insel Air gate in Miami, I start talking with other Haitians about the taxis, with my continued pursuit to figure out how I would get transportation in Haiti. I had made calls to rental agents in Port au Prince but the figures were $500/day. Again, I figured God's gotta have this one!
I strongly felt my vision was sent to me by God Himself and that He would provide. Here comes the first of incredible imposible chances I call miracle numero uno: As I stand in line to enter the plane, a young woman in front of me has a backpack the says Quechua. Quechua is the language of my favorite people! The land of the Inka! So I strike a conversation. Turns out we are both going to sit together.
She is a nurse working at a clinic for phantom pain and spinal cord injury! My specialty!! And she invites me to spend the week teaching and treating my specialty!
I knew God did this. I would spend the next few days at CERPA. Centre de Rehabilitation specialisÄ— pour le Personnes AmputÄ—es.
Haiti is not for the faint at heart. The complainer or the ungrateful. But it is a diamond in the making. The hearts of Haitians are like no culture you have known. The language so rich and so fun. It looks like chaos, but the Haitian Heart is all about passion and desire. They get tested daily to make the best of the day and they do!
From the moment I landed I saw the so many people trying to get my attention to be your taxi! There must have been 300 of them just as I left the doors of the plane. This is where my peruvian antennas had to be on at extreme wattage use. Where my travels to far mountains to jungles. Living on my own in China, traveling for months thru India and my 6 month internship in war torn Sri Lanka. Its all coming back.
Again an incredible miracle. From the one thing I was told about on every blog: suitcase snatching, and it happened to me! But it was meant to be and it turns out that its how you get in a taxi! Its all in perspective! They grabbed the suitcase off my hand and I just say farewell, see you tomorrow to the nurse and ran after the suitcase packed with all my clinic tools!! I am now in the street where all of the cars remind me of the movie Mad Max. So colorful too! People are having fun at it all day long! You have to go with the flow. Then I see my suitcase thrown inside this brand new van, the driver speaks English and he is a Christian. Haiti is 90% Voodoo! When he drops me off at my hotel, he asks how much I want to pay. I say $30! He is super fine with that so I hire him for daily driving. Again he asks me how much I want to pay, so I say $150 a day. He is super happy with that! It turns out, as the week was over, that $150 was the minimum he could take home to share this precious vehicle with 2 other drivers!
Creole is the language of Haiti, then French, so finding the one Haitian who speaks English and is a Christian & is driving a new car is a miracle! I was treating in homes, the restaurants, the village! What an amazing experience. All I had to do is just go there. But it started with this incredibly anxious feeling like God was telling me to go! That's why this is most definitely a miracle. So far I know, the discounted lost ticket, the amazing moment of meeting the nurse, the driver, the clinic, Now you tell me if God had my back. Now, I just want to go back! So I am already getting myself ready. Hello Haiti 2018.