A Tap-Tap Experience: Part 2

Here is a picture of what some
of the roads we drove on looked like

So there we were. In the back of the tap-tap trying to figure out how we were going to get up the hill. It had thankfully stopped raining for the moment. When we were told that the tap-tap driver wanted us to stay on the tap-tap instead of getting off, we all looked at each other thinking: OK, so what is he going to do? Our driver slowly backed the tap-tap down the hill and around the corner and stopped a little ways down the road from the hill. All was still for a minute. Then all of a sudden we heard the driver floor the gas pedal and next thing we knew we were zooming down the road. We all immediately held on tight and started screaming and yelling our heads off, praying that it would all end well. We barely made it around the corner and then started up the hill. About half way up we felt the tap-tap fishtail severely, as it struggled to make it pass the spot where we had kept getting stuck. Then the tap-tap actually started moving further up the hill. Next thing we knew, we finally made it to the top! We all stopped screaming and started cheering, happy that it had ended okay. This experience definitely made me a little bit more appreciative for seat belts.

A Tap-Tap Experience: Part 1



This is what a tap-tap looks like.
 I'm in the tap-tap behind this one and we are just
coming out of the river we crossed.



This is a little video clip of what it is like to be on
 a tap-tap ride, driving on the mountain roads in Haiti. 



Another way of transportation I experienced while in Haiti was a tap-tap. A tap-tap is a big truck that has benches along the edge of the bed that you sit on, you tap it if you need to stop, and you tap it when you are ready to go, tap-tap. These trucks would also go pretty fast, which got interesting when we would be driving through the forests and have to hang on and watch out for low-hanging branches at the same time. We would ride the tap-taps when we would go to visit other nearby villages. One day, I had a very interesting experience during a tap-tap ride. It was on a very rainy, hour long tap-tap ride back to the mission after visiting a village. Let me tell you, sitting in the back of a tap-tap for an hour in the rain was an interesting experience in itself! Because of all the rain, one of the tap-taps had trouble getting up a hill. It was, of course, the one I was on. When we went to go up the hill, our tires started spinning about half way up. Our driver backed the tap-tap down the hill and tried zooming back up a couple more times. After that not working, we asked the driver (through a translator) if we should get off to make it easier for the tap-tap to make it up the hill and then just get back in when it made it to the top. The driver told us to stay on the tap-tap. To be continued….

I Survived the Bus Ride!

This is a picture of our buses. 
They are probably the coolest looking buses I've ever ridden in.

Our traveling didn't end when our plane landed in Port-A-Prince.  As soon as we made it through customs, we headed straight to these buses that were waiting to take us (and other groups that have come from all over the U.S.) on a 6-8 hour bus ride to St. Louis du Nord, where we were going to be staying.  These weren't just any ordinary buses, they were like school buses on steroids!  These big,colorful buses were driven like tanks.  The only problem was although they look really cool on the outside, the inside is really small. You can fit 2 people per seat, but the isles are really close together so there is pretty much no middle isle to walk down, you have to walk on top of the seats to get to your seat.  Most of the roads we drove on were small, unpaved, pothole filled, one-lane roads. There weren't any stop signs and I only saw one traffic light during my entire stay in Haiti. The further we drove into the mountains, the more bumpy and crazy the driving became.  I've heard people say that New York taxi drivers are the craziest drivers; but they have nothing on Haitian drivers!  We were in a bus, on mountain roads, and our bus driver was passing cars in front of us and narrowly missing cars that were coming the other way!  They were driving the buses through rivers and streams and at times, it seemed like the bus drivers were racing against each other trying to see who would get in the lead. We were really happy when we finally arrived at our destination, but we were even happier when we found out that we didn't have to take the bus back to the airport when we would leave! 

The video below is a short clip I took on the bus ride of us going past a tent city in Port-A-Prince. The reason it's all tinted red, is because the windows on the bus are tinted red and mine wouldn't open.

The Adventure Begins

This is a picture I took of Port-A-Prince from the window of the plane.
All the blue dots are tents from tent cities.

This summer, I got the amazing chance to go with 16 other people from my church youth group on a mission trip to Haiti. We went to help out an organization in Haiti called Northwestern Haiti Christian Mission.  The trip was challenging in every way possible, but an amazing experience, none the less.  Getting ready for the trip definitely wasn't easy, either.  Thankfully, I already had my passport taken care of, but I had to get shots (I think it was about six shots....typhoid & flu hurt the most),as well as malaria pills, and I had to do lots of fundraisers and odd jobs to raise all the money; because I definitely didn't get to Haiti on pocket change!  Then, after all our hard work, my group boarded a plane to begin our adventure.  We first flew to Miami and spent the night there.  Then, the next morning we got up early and began our traveling once more, this time we would be leaving the country. We weren't really sure what to expect, all we knew was that we weren't going to be coming back the same.  Change in some way or another is hard to avoid on a trip like this.

Intro

My life has been filled with ups, where everything seems to be going great and nothing stands in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish, and downs where I feel like I've lost all hope of ever hoping again. It's filled with stories of life and death. At times, my life has seemed scary and I've worried if I'd make it out okay.  It has been surprising and exciting to look forward to see what will happen next.  My life is also filled with times of such joy and awe I can only stand back and try to take it all in.  The best way to describe my life? It's an adventure.  One thing I have learned along the way is: if God is at my side, then I don't need to worry about what tomorrow holds. I can stand confidently; knowing that it's all going to be okay because I know how much God cares about me and how much He loves me.  So I'm not going to just go through my life wishing I had a better car, or a better house, or a better job, or that I could be older, or younger.  Instead, I want to live my life satisfied with what I have and to be with God every step of the way.