The travel home was long and had its little blips along the way, but overall went well. We started down the mountain at 4:30am, switched over to the hired bus service at 5:30, and were on our way to PAP. The road to PAP was uneventful. We did pass a wreck, but the drived kept on agoin'. That was a bit hard to do, but we weren't really given a choice - there was an overturned truck over the hill. There were some Haitians there, so hopefully assistance was provided. It is times like these that one is reminded of how much we take for granted. They don't have tow trucks and ambulance services or fire trucks (PAP had some, and the other big cities probably do, but out in the hills, people are kind of on their own - or at least it seems that way). One patient at the hospital was in a bad motorcycle accident and he needed to be taken to Cayes for surgery (we did not have the appropriate staffing). Rich Pfister took him in the back of the Toyota.
We arrived in PAP in very good time (they always plan on lots of extra time, because you don't know what you will run into along the way). Our driver was turning off of the main road onto a side road. He had a long bus (not quite school bus length, but definitely longer than a big van), and the angle that the side road met the main road was steep. They just kind of muscle their way through and he pushed forward and made the turn too sharp, hit a pothole and our back bumper hit the pavement and the back wheels were off the ground. We weren't going anywhere!! there was lots of horn beeping and yelling and the traffic was getting backed up all around us. Our position effectively shut off a lane on each of the roads. There must have been a church at the top of the hill, because while we sat there they ushered through two funeral processions and a wedding. Many walked for the funeral processions and the wedding party road in the back of a truck. The police did arrive and begin to direct traffic and some people even paid attention to them, others just kept driving and one guy even pushed the officer out of the way and kept directing traffic himself. at first, I was a bit worried..it wasn't a good situation and people were angry...didn't know if there would be a riot, but then it seemed to settle down a bit and people helped pile rocks under the tires and after an hour or so we were able to back up and then continue on our way.
They had techincal difficulties getting the luggage off the plane so we waited quite awhile for our luggage. At least we did not have another plane to catch. Picking up the rental car went smoothly and we only drove around the airport once before we made it onto the correct road to head home :-)
Sunday, it was a joy to be in a church that spoke English and to worship with our loved ones in Sarasota. At the same time, we both experienced loneliness for the haitian people and the loved ones we had come to know better serving there. We spent the evening with Loris and Lottie and their daughter Sally.
And what have we done the last two days...you will never guess...we have been painting!!! We tackled the bedroom - ceiling, walls, and dressers. It has been cool here, so we needed to do something :-)
We are looking forward to Charlie and Laura and kids coming in this weekend, and then will head north towards the end of next week. Hopefully, we will be recovered from our last trip to tackle yet another long leg of our journey.
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