Saturday, June 30, 2012

Bringing Back Haiti

It's Saturday, and although we left Haiti on Tuesday and arrived back at Dulles Airport at almost midnight, we did not leave Haiti behind. In more ways than one, we brought the third world country back with us.

First, seventeen-year-old daughter brought back a complexity of infirmities that started when we left Haiti and drove in the back of our "ride" (a massive truck with 10 wheels) to Pedro Santana, Dominican Republic on Monday afternoon. Her infirmities first manifested as a sunburn, then morphed into pink eye, transitioned into nasal congestion, and topped off with a full-body rash. So, Haiti came home with us in a physical way.

Then, last night at about 10:30, an unexpected storm hit the Washington DC area, after a day that saw temperature records shattered with 105 degrees being notched on the mercury tube. The result was a power outage affecting over a million customers in the area. We lost power at 10:35, and when we left home this morning at 8:20 (to pick up 13-year-old daughter from her Southern Maryland summer camp) we were still without power.

There are scores of tree branches down in our backyard -- it's not gonna be a fun week of clean up. In essence, I am reminded of Haiti as a third world country. Without street lights, traffic is a zoo. People act like they do not know what to do when they approach a 4-way intersection where there is no light working. We have seen a dozen near misses, including our own near-miss a few blocks from our house. The oppressive heat is also reminiscent of the time we spent inland on the Caribbean island. It is often hard to breathe, and there is little reprieve when you go outside, Indeed, the mosquitoes here are worse than anything we encountered there. At least ours do not carry malaria (at least I hope not)!

After an intense week where we
  • left Haiti, 
  • came home to U.S. soil and were delayed for 30 minutes from leaving Miami because of Obama's plane leaving after a fundraiser there (with J Lo's ex, Marc Anthony), 
  • had to take 17-y.o. to doctor on Wednesday, 
  • and was sickened on Thursday by the complete trampling of freedom by SCOTUS, 
... I can only say that I will be glad when June is over... TOMORROW!

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