Sunday 25th April
Sunday morning at 6am Níal, Ro, our tech Gouj and myself joined the huge queue in Dublin Airport marked “Haven”, and wondered what we were getting ourselves into. Check-in done, we bought various over-priced lotions, creams and repellents and whatever else we’d left ‘til the last minute. I guess I was a little scared, a little excited… I suppose we had a feeling of adventure similar to the one that precedes a tour or a holiday.
Ro and I brought over guitars, I was pretty embarrassed about it, other people had boxes of gifts for the kids and stuff, but we’d promised we’d play a few songs and be part of the nightly on-site entertainment. Instead we stuffed our bags with light things like pencils and crayons and notepads, small practical things like that.
I was a bit concerned about the travel day, I love travelling, but any flights over 2 or 3 hours I generally get a bit nervous from being couped up, and this flight was 9 hours, and then we were straight onto a bus for five more. When we eventually took off (we were delayed by about 2 hours) the onboard film was “All About Steve”, presumably chosen to ease us into the hardship of the week.
A few minutes after we arrived into the sweltering Port-Au-Prince Airport we separated into six buses and slowly set off on the small bumpy roads.
The journey started off jovial, everyone filming the people who lined the roadside and the UN camps and the scampering goats, but quickly as it got dark and the faces of the gaunt people looking at us from the firelight, the cameras went away and the bus became quiet.
We arrived into the camp in the pitch black, had some chicken nuggets and found our tents by torchlight, eventually getting to bed around 11 pm Haiti time, about 5am Irish time.
We set up our camp beds and tried to get some sleep, (breakfast was only 6 hours later) As we lay in bed in the deep dark silence we wondered what we were getting ourselves into…..again!
Kieran
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