The Never Ending Trip

Saturday, I decided to ride along with Papa Beaver, Mama Kathy, Grace, and Becca to Port-au-Prince. They were going to do some airport drop offs and pick ups and run some errands.  I simply wanted to stop by TLC to pick up some of my personal belongings that were still at my old apartment, and hopefully see Dorothy and Nickson.

From Gonaives, it is a three hour drive to Port-au-Prince.  So, we decided to leave at 6 AM.  The plan was to be back home in Gonaives by 4 PM.  However, things did NOT go as planned.

Grace, Mama Kathy and I all wanted to stop at the scene of the bus accident.

None of us had been past that place since last Sunday.  They had surprisingly pulled the bus up out of the water.  You could see that they had to add some dirt and gravel to level the bank a little bit.

The telephone pole that the bus slammed into was replaced, the water level had gone down, and there was nothing but a bus seat left in the mud. 

 After taking a few pictures, we continued the journey.

Half-way to PAP, we found out one of the flights was delayed by several hours.  So, that meant extra time spent waiting in Port.  To make a long story short, we spent the majority of our day sitting in the bed of the truck in the hot hot sun.  We made the waiting more interesting by telling stupid jokes, taking silly pictures, eating ring pops, hanging out in a gas station because it was air conditioned, creating our own version of the game "Chubby Bunny", listening to music on our iPods and spitting kanep seeds at random objects.

After sitting for over 2 hours in the airport parking lot, the family we were picking up finally arrived.  Then, it was time for the LONG drive home.  Grace and I were not pleased about the idea of driving all the way back to Gonaives in the dark.  Haitian roads are dangerous enough in the daylight.  Also, we were both on edge because of the bus accident last weekend.  There were 4 people inside the truck and the other ten of us were in the bed of the truck with all the luggage.

About ten minutes into the drive, Grace and I noticed dark black clouds hovering over the mountains.  Just great.

A few minutes later, the rain started.

It wasn't bad at first but eventually it was a downpour.  Typically here, the rain doesn't last for too long.  This time, however, it rained for nearly two hours.  I was freezing in my shorts and t-shirt so I covered myself with rice bags and we all huddled as close as we could to the cab of the truck.  Papa Beaver did not want to stop to let the storm pass because that meant we would get home even later.  So, we continued on until the truck headlights started to dim making it difficult to see.

Thankfully, it stopped raining.  Unfortunately, the truck stopped running.  We were, however, lucky that the truck broke down at a gas station.

It took an hour for Papa Beaver to get the truck started again.  By that point we were all cold, wet, very tired, and slightly cranky.

Although the truck was running again, neither the headlights nor the taillights were working.  We were about 45 mins from Gonaives so we waited for Amos to come with the other truck.  His headlights were working but his taillights were not.  Sounds safe, right?

Half of our group loaded up in the truck with Amos and the rest of us stayed in the back of Papa Beaver's truck.  Papa Beaver followed Amos closely so that he could see from his headlights.  My eyes were heavy and I was exhaused, but I was very nervous as I rode in the bed of the truck.  It was pitch dark, Beaver does not have good vision at night, and we had no lights.  That is not a good combination for people who just experienced the trauma of a vehicle accident.  I prayed the entire 45 minutes.  I was riding with my back against the cab so I could not see.  Each time Beaver used the brakes, my heart stopped.  Praise the Lord, we made it home safely.

A trip that was meant to take 10 hours ended up being 17 hours long.  The majority of it was spent sitting.  Needless to say, I am not planning another trip to Port for quite some time.