This was an exciting weekend for Yanie (and Amoce). We spoke with Amoce late yesterday and found out a lot of the details of their whirlwind weekend!
Early Friday morning they took a bus to Port Au Prince to go to the Embassy of the Dominican Republic to seek their visas. He had printed out email letters from the hospital administrator and from Mustard Seed, as documentation of their ‘invitation’ to enter the DR for Yanie’s full hip replacement surgery. Amoce said the visas were granted very easily and that the letter from the hospital administrator was especially helpful.
That evening Yanie went to Amoce’s cousin’s house to stay in Port, while Amoce returned to Les Cayes. He went back to pack his belongings, collect a phone that he could use for the DR and pick up airplane tickets. He needed to pack sheets and towels for each of them because they are staying in a Nazarene Camp next to the Hospital Elias Santana, a Christian Medical Missionary hospital in Santo Domingo. He returned to Port on the 2 p.m. bus arriving late in the evening.
Early the next morning they got up and flew Tortug Air on the 10:30 a.m. flight from Port Au Prince to Santo Domingo. This was Yanie’s first ever flight and Amoce said she slept through it!! I don’t quite understand that. He also said it rained during the whole flight; perhaps she was just frightened. (Judy Foster said it’s been raining non-stop.)
When Amoce phoned us he was delighted to tell us that he has enough Spanish to be able to negotiate cab fare with the taxi drivers and to give directions to where he wanted to go. On the way to the camp they stopped to buy minutes for his telephone. He also phoned Nicole, the hospital administrator. Amoce was surprised that the Haitians he’s met in the DR don’t know kreyol; they only speak Spanish. That was our experience back in 2005 also. Only the old and gray Haitians knew any kreyol; the younger ones just speak Spanish.
Yanie is scheduled to see the doctor today; Dr. Mehne is only there for one week, so if she is a candidate for the surgery she will get the surgery some time this week.
[As an aside, Amoce is also very thankful and excited because this trip is offering him a chance to see his step-sister, Rick Christopher's mother. He spent a week looking for her after the earthquake, and found that she had moved to Santo Domingo.]