July 9- travel from Haiti

We made it from the island to Port au Prince on the 30th and were thankful. We picked up Dr. Marilyn and Kathy at the little airport and made our way up to the guesthouse. We tried a new place to eat- MacEpi. We had hamburgers, fries, a chicken burger and chicken pieces-very good.

At the CSI guesthouse [Christian Service International]we all enjoyed naps and repacked our bags. We were able to pack about 120 pounds of Moringa seeds that had been inspected in Port-au-Prince. Supper and bed.

Up and to the airport. We were there the required 2 hours before our 9 o'clock flight but stood in line longer than that as the line didn't move for a while. The flight out of Miami was delayed and so they were trying to rebook people.

When we finally got to the ticket counter and our several-hour layover in Miami was down to one. We were given meal vouchers so we enjoyed a bite to eat before boarding the plane.

In Miami our hour layover quickly evaporated as we spent a couple hours in agricultural customs as they tried to fingure out what to do with the seeds. We had the paper work but the volume of seeds was a problem. Finally Cory got things straightened out and we went to get new flights.

A great visual lesson was observed while waiting in customs. We watched 2 different people who had been caught with mangoes in their bags talk with the authorities. One protested about her innocence for over an hour - that she hadn't known that the mangos had been put in her bags. This individual ended up with a $300 fine. The other appologized and was on his way in a few minutes. Now when the kids start to protest thier innocence-we just say "Mango".

We ended up spending the night in Chicago. The nice lady at the airport desk chatted with us about Haiti a bit. She had visited for a few hours but was worred about diseases. She deceided to put us up at a very nice hotel. We enjoyed a mid-night supper and almost 5 hours of sleep.

We then took the short flight to Grand Rapids on Wed. morning. We were thankful to get home. There were storms that afternoon and we lost power for over 12 hours. Sounds familiar. We received a rejoicing E-mail from ECHO that the seeds had arrived.

A good trip. Only 12 hour delay. PTL