The Haitian Experience

Well I have officially made it back to the states. I am now sitting in Atlanta with a couple of hours to kill. The last 24 hours has been hard. I had to say goodbye to all the wonderful people that I had met over the month of January. I came across this quote this morning and I thought I would share it with you.

"Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But thats okay. The journey changes you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you... Hopefully, you leave something good behind."-Anthony Bourdain

This quote is so true. Traveling pushes you to see life from a different perspective. It often shows you what is important in life and what is not so important. Traveling truly does change you as a person. It pushes you to your limits and is usually way out of your comfort zone. That is why I love to travel it helps me find myself. Through traveling I have found that I love working with children in poverty. Even though I can't provide these kids with the material need I can provide them with love and compassion. I believe having love and compassion from others is way more important than what you own. If you have never traveled I challenge you to go out of your comfort zone and do it. I also am not pushing you to go to an all inclusive resort. (sorry) I believe that going to an all inclusive resort you will not get the true feeling of being in a different culture. These resorts are Americanized. Last night we stayed at a nice hotel and I felt guilty. The night before I was sleeping in an orphanage and the next night I was in a nice clean hotel room.  Go to the little hotel that looks a little sketchy. Those are where you meet the truly amazing people. Meet the people who are walking trough the streets they have pretty amazing stories to tell. All of the people that I have traveled with are still close friends in my life. These people may look different on the outside but they are so nice. I already miss the people of Haiti. Every person I came across out there said Hello to me. I have been off the plane for over and an hour and not one person has said hello. Their kindness is indescribable.



With that being said I will also warn you that traveling is not easy. For the last twenty four hours I have been on and off crying. I wanted to run the complete opposite direction of the airport and go back to the kids. I wanted to give them all one last hug and tell them that everything is going to be okay. I can't even get myself to look at my pictures because I fear that if I do I will start crying again. Leaving a place that you fall in love with the culture and people is so hard. It changes you. You look at life differently. I have some really great memories from this trip along with some that I wish I could erase from my memory.

Before I had left for the trip I had added some new songs to my phone. One of the songs I added was "Do Something" By Matthew West. If you have never heard the song you should defiantly listen to it. It talks about how there is poverty and pain in this world. It questions why did God create this in this world. The song goes on to say he created you to help those people. This song hit me hard on my way  to Port Au Prince last night. I know that I left somewhat of an impact on those kids. Amazingly, I think they left more of an impact on me. Even though they have very little I have learned so much from them. In my final blog I encourage to do something. Follow your dreams. Don't let anything stop you. If it is meant to happen it will happen. Trust that God will lead you to where you want to go. He has a plan for you all you have to do is trust him. So go out and live you life and be happy! Don't worry about the little things they will all fall into place!

With Love,
Abby