Day 1

UN Humanitarian Air Services operates flights daily from S. Domingo to PaP. We nearly missed ours, arriving just in time to speed out onto the tarmac and climb aboard a Cessna 210 before it took off. Flying into PaP the first thing I noticed was the US navy ships off the coast--one an aircraft carrier. In PaP harbour there are a few large ships capsized, their bulkheads suspended half out of the water. Above, the sky is full of the crisscrossing flight paths of helicopters and planes. To say the airport is busy doesn't quite do it justice. The planes land a couple minutes apart. The majority are UN and US military. Although, it seems every agency you can imagine is here, and each country seems to represented. I even saw an Estonian SAR team.

Outside the airport we were nearly mobbed by young Haitian men, eager to earn a buck by carrying  your bag to your car. My colleague ran out of small bills, so one lucky fellow earned a $20 tip--a direct donation, of sorts.

I spent all afternoon trying to get up to speed by talking with random individuals at the giant UN MINUSTAH base. No one seemed to be that far ahead of me. WFP seems well organized--by that I mean their makeshift office is well air-conditioned, with free wifi.  In the afternoon I attended a couple coordination meetings and ran into a few old friends from disasters past. Its a small world after all.

In the evening we drew up a plan for the upcoming days. I was irked about a lot of talk concerning food for work--which I disagreed with--but after some discussion it seems the issue is off the table. I stayed up late putting together a training course on food distribution, in anticipation of some hot, sweaty days to come. I got in bed at 1AM--just after typing this.