444 BAGS

With forty 50lbs pieces of luggage stowed safely in the belly of our plane our adventure officially begins. There is truly never a dull moment when travleing to and from Haiti. I managed to pay for an overage of 6 pieces of luggage on the internet. I was surprised the transaction was processed but now this meant I was the proud holder of a receipt that said I paid for 6 extra pieces of luggage. Now to see if this would hold water in "JFK Court". Sure enough...it almost didn't.

Because of the size of our group and the overwhelming amount of bags we carry....the situation can quickly get out of control. This time as it usually does...it did....but always in our favor. The last time we traveled the check in agent wasn’t paying attention to our slightly overweight luggage. This year...Our check in agent lost track of how many bags we had already checked in. By the time she did realize it they were already on the belt and heading to the plane. We spent a good while explaining our cause and our need to bring all of our bags, supervisors were called, rules were explained, we were sternly reprimanded but in the end...All 40 of our bags made the flight. Phew and Thank you God!


Arriving in Haiti in is no walk in the park. We  experienced the fighting baggage handlers our last trip. This trip they took it to a whole nother level. 40 pieces luggage equaled almost 40 individual helpers. Everyone wanted to carry a bag and everyone wanted to get paid WELL. It made for a very frustrated start to our trip. While we sat in "comfort", in the back of our U-haul truck, we witnessed a girly slap fight between two grown men. The rest argued about who helped and who didn’t help and who should  and shouldn't get paid. It was a sad an unfortunate display of the state of things in Haiti. With  bewildered volunteers we assembled a frustrating stash of money to pay an insatiable group of men. They counted the money and  pretended to be insulted by the US money they had collected. They motioned to give it back. Finally, they resigned to keep it and the crowd dissipated. WELCOME BACK TO HAITI!