After spending two days in the Dominican Republic we began our journey at about 3:30 a.m. CST.\u00a0 We boarded our first bus in Jarabaco, D.R.\u00a0 We drove to the Capitol city of Santa Domingo.\u00a0 Most of us are used to booking on line or through sites such as Travelocity and others.\u00a0 We had to purchase tickets for each leg of our trip each time we arrived at a destination.\u00a0 When we reached Santa Domingo we met our entire group and Scott went in to purchase our tickets.\u00a0 There are 10 total.\u00a0 Our host in the D.R., Michael and Lisa Ballentine drove their pickup and took two others with them to complete the advance work for our team.\u00a0 The remainder purchased bus tickets and waited about an hour to board and another before we departed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
One thing I\u2019ve never experienced before is a meal served on a bus.\u00a0 We were not five minutes into our trip before our \u201cbus attendant\u201d passed out a full meal consisting of cooked beef, rice, beans and salad.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been very careful about what I\u2019ve eaten and was a little suspect of the meal.\u00a0 I asked Scott Steelman, \u201cIs our food safe to eat?\u201d\u00a0 His response was. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you in a couple of hours.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s now quite the response I wanted to hear.\u00a0 I ate some of the meat and the rice but stayed away from the salad and beans.\u00a0 Eight hours later I\u2019m no worse for the wear.\u00a0 I did bring a ton of power bars and trail mix and ate some of those the remainder of the trip.\u00a0 Upon our arrived at our \u201cmotel\u201d in Haiti we were served a large serving or cooked chicken with vegetables and rice.\u00a0 I mostly ate the rice but did each some of the chicken.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most of those on our bus slept the majority of the nearly 8 hour trip.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I slept over 20 or 30 minutes total.\u00a0 I wrote some in my journal but spent the majority of my time looking out the window.\u00a0 The Dominican Republic has many mountain ranges and they dotted the landscape throughout our trip.\u00a0 There were even a number of very beautiful lakes, especially toward the end of our journey.\u00a0 One thing was very apparent.\u00a0 The further we drove from the Capitol city, the poorer the people were.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about driving from Germantown into rural Tennessee.\u00a0 It started out poor and just got worse.\u00a0 Similar to what I described yesterday, it\u2019s hard to imagine people living in such conditions.\u00a0 I just couldn\u2019t help but wonder how the landscape could be so beautiful and the inhabitants so poor.\u00a0 Nothing prepares you for the experience but it got worse as we drove into Haiti.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After crossing the Haitian border about 6 hours into the trip, we pulled into a bus station.\u00a0 The ground is a white, limestone and covered the feet and legs of those walking around.\u00a0 We waited for about twenty minutes but no one except the driver left the bus.\u00a0 We drove about 100 yards to an immigration office.\u00a0 I thought we would exit with our bags but a few minutes later a young Haitian woman returned with our passports.\u00a0 So much for border security, but then again most of us were there to help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sun was beginning to set and about two hours later, in total darkness, we entered Port-du-Prince.\u00a0 The only lights were headlights and at some points you would see electricity.\u00a0 At first I couldn\u2019t see any destruction, just very poor living conditions.\u00a0 As we entered the heart of the city it was if someone took a sledge hammer and began chipping away at the building, finally just leveling them.\u00a0 Believe it or not we secured three hotel; okay, motel rooms for our group.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it was a great place in 1939 but we\u2019re still lucky to have a roof over our heads.\u00a0 The other part of our team had sent a driver to meet us at the bus station but after waiting 30 minutes we decided to take a \u201ccab\u201d.\u00a0 This was interesting.\u00a0 When we stepped off the bus we were mobbed with taxi offers.\u00a0 None of us had ever been to Haiti so we were trying to absorb the situation.\u00a0 I know you\u2019ve heard the expression \u201cshooting fish in a barrel\u201d.\u00a0 I felt like a fish and the taxi drivers were our predators.\u00a0 About a dozen of them stayed around us looking to make a deal.\u00a0 After several failed attempts at trying to reach someone, we decided on a driver and started to negotiate the fare.\u00a0\u00a0 Anyone want to take a guess at what a twenty minute cab ride cost for 6 guys in downtown Port-du-Prince?\u00a0 The deal started at $100 U.S. dollars.\u00a0 Compare that to the $20 fare we paid for an 8 hour bus ride.\u00a0 We settled on $50 for the entire group.\u00a0 Our cab was an old Lexus SUV.\u00a0 After loading our luggage in the back, me another guy rode on top the bags and the rest in the front and back seats.\u00a0 The view was hard to describe, let along put down on paper. It was dark and I couldn\u2019t see much but what I did see could only be described as destruction; like a bomb went off.\u00a0 If our plant ever experienced a nuclear war or major devastation I think I got a glimpse of what it\u2019s going to be like.\u00a0 Amazingly, our cell phone worked about 80 percent of the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Right now we\u2019re all tired and sitting around with our laptops checking email and writing.\u00a0 I was promised by Bart that we would be staying at the same hotel, excuse me motel, as Anderson Cooper and the CNN crew.\u00a0 I\u2019m in the restaurant and haven\u2019t seen him yet.\u00a0 Bet he\u2019s already turned in for the night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tomorrow we\u2019re going to see the worst of the worst and begin our water filter distribution.\u00a0 I bet Anderson will sleep better than I will tonight and I\u2019m very tired.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blessings,\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paul Stanley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After spending two days in the Dominican Republic we began our journey at about 3:30 a.m. CST. We boarded our first bus in Jarabaco, D.R. We drove to the Capitol city of Santa Domingo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[114,126,283,327],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-paul","tag-dominican-republic","tag-earthquake","tag-haiti","tag-paul-stanley"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n