In the fall of 2008, I was lost. I had just arrived at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. My instructions from Lenny were to wait for a man named Nader (like Darth Vader), and to NOT GO OUTSIDE. Nader was the man who was supposed to taxi me to a smaller airport to catch a propeller plane to Port-de-Paix on the northern coast of the country. Well, after getting my bags, I just kept walking. Wouldn’t you know, I ended up outside after all.
Although it was just like Lenny had described it to me, it was a far cry from the peaceful view of the city that I had observed on my flight in. A sea of people, at least 10 deep on each side, were beckoning and hollering at me as soon as I came into eyeshot. Since I don’t speak Creole, I couldn’t make out what was being said to me. I picked up on a “taxi” here, and a “American” there. A Haitian woman approached me and offered me a taxi ride. I told her that I was looking for Nader, and she said that Nader was not there. I didn’t want to offend her, but I also didn’t want to go with her. Suddenly, a man in the middle of the crowd yelled “Sack!”, which I have come accustomed to responding to, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
My relief was short lived though, as this man was not Nader, and he informed me that Nader was not there, but he could help me. Because he had called out my name, I had to trust that he was a friend of Nader’s and would be able to help me with the rest of my journey to my friends. I told him that I was scheduled to fly out on a Tortug’ Air flight to Port-de-Paix in less than 90 minutes. ”Port-de-Paix?” he said. ”We go now!”
The roads in Port-au-Prince are not all paved, and those that are are not painted for opposing traffic to each know which lane is theirs. It was one of the more white knuckled passenger experiences of my life. When my driver wasn’t zig-zagging through oncoming traffic, he was laying on the horn with the drivers in front of us with the audacity of driving at a reasonable speed. But, all is well that ends well, and we arrived at the regional airport in time to catch an early flight to Port-de-Paix. My driver negotiated my ticket exchange on the earlier flight, and I wished him well with a five dollar handshake.
Sitting in the final airport of my trip (I had been in the Phoenix Sky Harbor and Miami International Airport just the day before), I was anxious for the reunion with my best friends from college: Lenny and Warren. The last time that we had all been together was at our mutual friend Phil’s wedding in the summer of 2003. Our time apart (five years) had been longer than our time together (four years of college), and freaky coincidences had kept us apart. Warren had asked me to be a groomsman at his wedding in 2004. My son’s imminent birth prevented me from participating or even attending (a pretty understandable excuse). My involvement in Lenny’s wedding was preempted by my daughter’s birth in 2006 (again, an understandable choice). Randy was a little sullen when the birth of my third child did not coincide with his marriage.
When people around me started moving towards the gate, I figured it was a good time to follow them. I ended up with a seat in the front of the propeller plane just a few feet longer than a Suburban. This was the view in front of me: 
while this was the view behind me:
After flying in jumbo jet for my most of my life, I was not prepared for the amount of turbulence that a plane this size would experience, even on a clear and pleasant day. I decided to grab my camera and document my own death, were it to occur during this harrowing flight. I got a decent shot of the city:
Glad to still be winning the fight against gravity, I managed to snap a shot of the Haitian mountains (and a bit of the propeller):
Less than 45 minutes into the flight, we were descending. The shadow on the ground became larger and larger:
Finally, with children running and waving along the dirt runway, my plane landed in Port-de-Paix. Instead of collecting my bags at the baggage claim, they were handed to me as I walked toward the airport building. In the new sea of faces at this airport, I looked for any that I would recognize, but to no avail. My early flight had put me in the right place, at the wrong time.
Not knowing how large the city was, or if anybody knew of these American guys named Warren and Lenny, I blurted out the name of their school, to nobody in particular. ”Sonlight?” A man next to me asked, in confirmation. ”Yes! Si! Oui!” I said all at once like the confused outsider that I was. Holding up a cell phone, he said: “I call Sonlight.”
After looking at this man’s clothing, I immediately felt an odd sense of familiarity. He was wearing the jersey of the French soccer star David Trezequet, number 17 from Juventus.
He punched in some numbers and handed me the phone. A Hatian voice greeted me on the other end. The voice informed me that Lenny and Warren were busy and unable to come to the phone. He would have them come to the airport to get me as soon as they were located.
So, I waited. Even though my new buddy with the Trezeguet jersey had made me feel more at ease, he was suddenly gone. In case something were to happen to me, I still had the strange urge to document it on film. So I took in my surroundings, in HD:
After about 30 minutes, my main man with the zebra stripes ran up to me.
“Sonlight? Sonlight?” he called out towards me, with his eyes and hands beckoning me to follow him. I grabbed my bag and stepped through the gate into the city. Just a few steps away was a banged up old pick up truck with the brake lights on. Then, the brake lights turned off, both the passenger and driver side doors opened, and both of my friends emerged with grins even goofier than my own to welcome me to their home. While I wasn’t able to capture that moment with any lenses outside of my physical body. I made sure to grab a shot of the two of them before we settled in for the ride back to their homes and families. I spruced it up in iPhoto a bit, just for dramatic effect:
Warren (left) and Lenny (right)
To be continued…
