![\"Is](\"http:\/\/www.joshuastairhime.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/20150306_164245.jpg\")
<\/a>Is that a weed-eater I hear behind me?<\/p><\/div>\n
I hate the word \u201cdrone\u201d because of the negative connotations that go along with it, but calling it a quad-copter or a flying machine just confuses people, so every now and then I just have to say the word \u201cdrone\u201d. \u00a0My hatred of the word aside, I acquired one in February so I could be ready to safely fly it by the time I left for Haiti.\u00a0 After several frightening crashes and at least 8 broken propeller blades, I finally really started to get the hang of it and felt confident enough to fly it for filming.\u00a0 I wanted to use it to get a good glimpse of exactly the surroundings we would be staying in.\u00a0 Test footage from home was pretty incredible, so I was excited to see what I could capture in the field.<\/p>\n
When the time came for me to leave for Haiti, I lovingly packed the quad-copter into my box of gear, and hoped that it would survive the flight in the belly of the plane. \u00a0\u00a0It did, and as we began our time at Tytoo Gardens, I was anxiously awaiting my chance to get the flying camera out.\u00a0 I wanted to wait until it would not be a disruption to the activities going on at the orphanage, and I was waiting for a time I thought I could fly it as safely as possible.<\/p>\n
After several days, the moment finally arrived, and I was growing nervously excited as I attached the propellers and turned on the transmitter.\u00a0 After doing my pre-flight stuff out of sight behind one of the buildings, I started the motors and watched as the little white bird climbed gracefully into the air.\u00a0 \u00a0Quad-copters are not particularly quiet, so it wasn\u2019t long before I had a small audience asking me questions in Haitian that I could not understand.\u00a0 I did my best to answer questions while still keeping my eye on the bird and trying to capture great context film to use in the documentary.<\/p>\n
The first flight ended with me reaching up from a crowd of kids to grab the landing skids of the quad-copter.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t the proper way to land, but since I didn\u2019t think the kids were going to stay safely out of the reach of the propellers, I made the decision to preempt the possibility of injuring one of them.\u00a0 I flew the drone a few more times while we were there, each time going smoothly and ending with the landing skids in my hands, reaching above my head to keep the kids who had gathered below safe.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Tytoo from the air…<\/p><\/div>\n
It wasn\u2019t until the day before I left that I heard an interesting story.\u00a0 When I was showing some of the Tytoo Gardens staff the footage of the place they called home, one of them mentioned that when the kids saw me grab the landing skids, they began asking if I was going to fly up with the drone.\u00a0 They genuinely thought that this little 8 pound piece of plastic and batteries was going to pick up all of my 190 pounds!\u00a0 Ridiculously funny right? I was chuckling inside at the absurdity of it.<\/p>\n
The staff member went on to explain that some of the Haitian\u2019s who are hired to serve the orphans in the role of mothers were asking the same questions.\u00a0 They even asked if that is how I had gotten to Haiti in the first place.\u00a0 \u00a0My internal chuckling subsided as I realized what I was being told.<\/p>\n
Tytoo is only 45 minutes from the capital city of Port-au-Prince, home to the largest airport in Haiti.\u00a0 I had personally watched jets flying over on their way to land.\u00a0 Hadn\u2019t these people ever seen an airplane?<\/p>\n
The more I thought about it, the more astonished I was. \u00a0Seriously?\u00a0 By the time I was 10 I had probably been to 2 or 3 airshows, had walked around a museum full of airplanes several times, had sat in the cockpits of airplanes and had probably even flown in one to Florida at that point.\u00a0 I forget what birthday it was, but I was even given the opportunity to fly one (okay\u2026so there was a real pilot doing the hard stuff, I just got to use the yoke a little bit).\u00a0 I had grown up with airplanes my whole life, my wallpaper is pictures of fighter jets, and I spent many hours as a kid accidentally gluing my fingers together while trying to build model airplanes my parents had bought for me. \u00a0Our school even spent a day at a museum wandering around looking at various generations of planes.<\/p>\n
Really my whole life has been nothing but one of opportunity.<\/p>\n
Before I left Haiti, I was waiting on some of the adults to be available so I could interview them, and the kids came over by the cameras and wanted to be stars.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t much else going on, so for 7 or 8 kids in a row I asked a pretty basic script of questions while I interviewed them.\u00a0 I asked their name, age, if they went to school and where, I asked them their favorite subjects, and the last question I usually asked was what they wanted to be when they grew up.\u00a0 When the first kid said he wanted to be a doctor, I wasn\u2019t surprised, it is kind of the stereotypical answer you get in a country like Haiti.\u00a0 I had several kids who wanted to be doctors, a few who wanted to be engineers, and then a couple times I heard a word I couldn\u2019t understand.\u00a0 I just brushed it off the first time I heard it, smiled and said \u201cMerci, bien!\u00a0 Fini!\u201d (Thank you, good! Finished!) When it came up the second time, I tried a little harder to understand what they were saying.\u00a0 The third time it finally clicked.<\/p>\n
They were saying \u201caviator\u201d.<\/p>\n
Just by winning the geographic lottery, I had already attained something that these kids could only dream of aspiring to.\u00a0 I had flown in an airplane.\u00a0 They had probably never even seen one up close, but they knew it was a job that could bring them some stability.\u00a0 They knew it was a job that offered them the chance to travel outside of their own country.<\/p>\n
When you are Haitian, you don\u2019t just get on an airplane and visit the United States.\u00a0 Even if you are married to a citizen of the U.S., you can\u2019t just fly there without getting a visa first.\u00a0 By contrast all I had to do to get to Haiti was buy my ticket.\u00a0 When I got off the plane in Haiti, I showed them my little blue passport and paid the customs agent 10 dollars and that was it.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to fill out a form to request entry to their country.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to go to the Haitian Embassy to submit my documents before I could travel.\u00a0 The opportunity was given to me, seemingly free of charge!<\/p>\n
What opportunities will those Haitian children have?<\/p>\n
Will they ever get to see the inside of an airplane?\u00a0 Will they ever have the opportunity to fly in one?\u00a0 Even if they do, will they get to visit the United States?<\/p>\n
What about their opportunities to become doctors or engineers?\u00a0 Who is going to give that to them?<\/p>\n