So here we are in Haiti. Finally. 34 degrees, humid and, as we confirmed today, very chaotic in Port-au-Prince. After a 3am wakeup call yesterday, we had another longish day of travel, flying over PaP late in the afternoon with beautiful sun washing over the city and mountains. PaP is huge. And if I had been doing my duties as bag-carrier/photographer I could show you a picture or perhaps a video clip of it. But apparently I’m not. And I think the 3am start made me lose my mind, at least for the day.

Jessica had arranged for the first part of our stay at the Wall International Guest House, who were to pick us up at the airport. Everything went smoothly with the airline, clearing customs was a breeze, and as we walked through the airport hoping to see a sign with our names on it, we quickly came to the conclusion that they weren’t going to be there, and were coming to grips with figuring out how we might make a phone call to sort it out. However, we were saved by a knight in red armour (or at least t-shirt) — there are airport officials who are there to help divert the onslaught of taxi drivers set on making a fare. He not only led us out to the parking lot to have a further look for our to-be hosts, but also called them several times and waited with us until we were on our way. A fantastic surprise for a brain-dead non-creole speaking ‘blan’ (white guy).

After a somewhat restful sleep in 30-ish weather and a fear of mosquitoes, we met our fixer Emmanuel, who turned out to be great. Our main instruction to him was that we wanted to get to know and be able to start to navigate PaP, as we wouldn’t be able to foot the bill for fixer and driver for the entire time. Thus began our whirlwind tour of PaP by truck. The energy and apparent chaos of the city was somewhat overwhelming to say the least.

It was near impossible to capture the energy and general scene of the parts of the city we visited – starting in Dalmas 19, heading up to Petionville, then for a quick interview at a residence in the hills above Petionville, then back through the city. It was a whirlwind of a day, but not too busy to enjoy a delicious meal at Emmanuel’s favourite restaurant.

The day was a great orientation, and was very necessary to get going, but it felt a bit too much like tourist, which left me feeling somewhat anxious.

After being dropped off at the Wall’s house around 4:30, we still had much to do, but there was little left in us. It may take a while to get in the groove of this, and I’m certainly going to have to get more comfortable with the camera to be able to be effective at all here…. but I’m sure it will all come together.