Personal Narrative: My Trip To Haiti

My Trip to Haiti

It was the beginning of my junior year in high school and there had been much talk about a school trip to Port Au Prince, Haiti, Only ten students could attend this trip, applications had opened up in November and for me a trip to Haiti sounded like just a dream, I thought I was not able to afford it. The idea for the possibility to travel to a new country and be exposed to a brand new culture excited me, I made the decision to apply anyway. In December, I received news that I had been chosen as one of the first ten students from my school to go on this new service trip. I was so excited that I was even qualified, but also worried because I knew that the price was still an issue. My teacher explained to me that there was a

When we stepped outside it was noisy and hot. We took a Tap Tap (“a bus used for longer journeys. Tap taps are gaily painted buses or pick-up trucks that serve as share taxis in Haiti.literally meaning “quick,quick””) we were shoulder to shoulder in the back of this with our luggage stacked on us and music playing as loud as it could have been with no room to move, and as we drove to the place we were staying we saw this new culture with women carrying baskets on their heads filled with groceries and other goods for their families and we saw farm animals tied to poles on the side of the road, garbage everywhere and so many people that looked like they had nothing, I was surprised to see all the locals with nothing but I was surprised that they all were dressed up nicely I later learned this was because it was Sunday and they took their religion and trip to church very seriously, even in the hot weather the men were in formal shirts and khakis there was no way I could have prepared myself for this brand new culture, The first drive was a life changing experience that I will never forget, the sights, smells, people all looked so unfamiliar from what I had grown up to see. While there we planned to spend the majority of our time working on one of the very few public schools that Port Au Prince had to offer to these children, “In the early 2000s, about 90% of schools were private.” Meaning that in these private schools they expect the students to pay a tuition fee that the majority of families could not afford making it nearly impossible for these students to get the education that every child has the right to have. Our job at the school was to make a computer lab for the students and faculty. While there we were informed that the public school shared buildings with a private school and