Heddy’s journal 3/18/2010, Day 1 Flight delayed, slept a little on the plane. Chaos at airport. No conveyor belt system for baggage because the old building is no longer in use – this is a new one. All the bags are carried in by airport employees one by one and placed in random areas at which point everybody floods in and tries to find their own bags. Lots of crowding and shoving as the panic of “where’s my bag?” seems to fill the crowd. Lots of volunteers wearing t-shirts: Virginians for Haiti, Haiti Relief, JOY… This goes on for a good hour and a half to 2 hours. Finally locate our final and probably most important piece of luggage – the clown trunk – and head out of the airport. Outside, people hanging through bars watching the arrivers come out. A guy immediately grabs our bag and begins leading us somewhere…do we know this guy? And we hear a voice yelling Sarah’s name, it turns out to be our host from Plan International, and no, that guy was definitely not with her.
Driving from the airport to the hotel – collapsed buildings, devastation. We arrive at the hotel but are unable to sleep indoors because the building has not been deemed safe since the earthquake, so we are outside in tents for the night. We rehearse for what will be our first of many shows tomorrow. Paddi, the Irish security guy gives us a very intense security briefing.
It’s all a bit terrifying and amazing. Such will be this journey, I think. -Heddy
