For anyone who was interested and read through the stories from my trip to Haiti, I could not find the email that ever said that I actually made it back to America. Sooooo I figured I would recap just slightly on how things worked out in the end.
I did finally get a flight, which cost about $2500 because the only option was first class. So the next day I went back to the airport, and was supposed to check in with delta airlines to get my flight for air-france. When I went up to the counter they told me that "the flight didn't exist." By this point I almost wanted to just start laughing because it was so ridiculous, but I remembered what I was told about how Haitians don't like to wait in line and if I wanted answers I should march right up to the counter. So that's what I did, I skipped the lines and went right to the counter.....and they found my flight. Mislabeled it or something, couldn't totally understand. I was luckily able to land that flight back to Miami, and from there spent a night in the airport waiting for my next flight to Atlanta, and then from there finally back to Chicago. It was a long flight, especially having not showered in quite some time, but being first class for part of it, and convincing them to give me business class for the rest, it made it endurable for sure.
When I finally made it back to Chicago, I was lucky to find out that the surgeons I was scheduled to work with for my rotation actually canceled surgeries that day, so I was safe.
I commenced a long discussion with JetBlue, trying to get them to refund the costs of me getting home. At first they claimed they weren't responsible for "acts of God," however, when I explained to them that they told us at the airport it was a scheduling error.....well I got the same response lol. Ultimately I started tweeting them (first use of twitter ever btw) and they responded pretty quick. Guess they don't like people posting horror stories in the twitterverse that they cannot control.....so they ended up refunding the original flight, giving me some compensation to pay for the other flights, and a flight credit to use in the future. So, pretty much all worked out in the end.
It was a great trip and I learned a lot. Writing this so far away from it (8 months) it seems like forever ago. But, if any of you are reading this now, just know that things are going well and I hope to go back to Haiti in the not so distant future. Thanks for all your support.
-Aaron Tabor
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