Chritian, a French Missionary and professor from Bretagne, told me "In Haiti, you say, 'Deye Mon, Gen Mon.(Beyond mountains, there are mountains)" "More accurately" he said, "Deye pwobem, gen pwobem (beyond probelms, there are problems."
Our flight was scheduled to leave Fort Lauderdale and go directly to Cap Haitian (a 2 hour flight). The day before my flight, Florida Coastal Airlines called to say, "We had technical difficulties with our plane, we will transfer your service to air Salsa. You will leave from Miami, arrive in Port-au-Prince and then leave from POrt-au-Prince for Cap Haitian."
We boarded and they announced, "We did not count on having this many passengers. We will not be able to take all of your luggage on this flight. We will get the luggage we have to leave in Miami to Haiti as soon as possible."
We landed in Port-au-Prince and the airline representatives--in the blue shirts and red scarfs--who were going to guide us to the local airport where we would catch our flight to Cap Haitian were not there.
The Hospital Director, Shawn picked me up and we went to the Haitian Public Health Department in Cap Haitian to obtain the state-proportioned TB medications as well as serums. We drove 45 minutes in the bed of a truck over road bumps and pot holes with sun kisses and hot wind (I wouldn’t have wanted to drive through the city any other way.) They told him, "You can't get that here. You have to go to the city hospital."
We went to the hospital and they said, "This signature isn’t right. You have to go back to the Public Health Department and have them sign next to your estimation of the amount of supplies you need."
We got to the public health department at 1:55 only to hear that we could not get the signature we needed--the original form was wrong--and that the hospital would be closed at 2:00.
So, Deye pwobem, gen pwobem.
