Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Jacmel

Last week the builder for our school, Kyle, flew in from LA so Megan and I went into PAP to pick him up. We then proceeded to spend the week running around measuring land, looking at other schools, bugging Kyle while he drew plans, meeting with Haitian builders, etc. On Wednesday, the opportunity presented itself to go to Jacmel with two awesome doctors that had also been staying with us that week. Jacmel is on the other side of some mountains on the south shore of the island and has beautiful beaches. Vacation!

So on Wednesday morning the car we’ve hired pulls up and its this very nice Toyota truck. However, it soon becomes clear that we will not be fitting in there comfortably. Kyle and the driver sit in the front while Megan, Ritha, Amelia, and I pile into the backseat with Gabriel on top. Megan and I take turns leaning forward so the other person can have some breathing room for a few minutes. The ride isn’t so bad at first… but then we hit the mountains. Oh and let me fill you in on some Haitian driving rules: 1) Drive really fast. 2) Take up as much of the road as possible. 3) Play chicken with other drivers. Play to win. 4) Honk constantly. So this road is really nice in terms of being paved and the view is absolutely gorgeous, but I soon realize that I am getting a bit carsick. I try to just lean back, take in lots of fresh air, and tell myself that I’m totally fine and I’m not going to barf all over these nice people and this nice truck. Gabriel must not be as good at talking himself out of it though because he beats me to it and starts barfing. Megan catches some of it in her hand and asks if he’s finished. He nods… and then projectile vomits onto Amelia. The driver pulls over and I hop right on out of that car to avoid whiffing any vomit and starting a domino effect. We quickly clean up the situation and are back winding around curves and riding the brakes.

When we finally get to our hotel in Jacmel, I am SHOCKED, pleasantly, to see the accommodation. Its like we’re in Florida or something. Our room is air conditioned, you can flush the toilet paper, and we have an absolutely beautiful view of the pool and Caribbean. For lunch, and every meal thereafter in Jacmel, Megan and I eat cheese sandwiches. I think I had forgotten what cheese tastes like. Then I remembered, cheese is REALLY good. The drinks at this place were also amazing; they blend all the fruit up right there in front of you. So fresh!

After basking in the glow of cheese and tropical drinks, Megan and Gabriel go to the room for naptime while Kyle and me go scope out the beach. We climb a very long set of stairs down the side of the mountain, hop a very large gate, and then come upon our first beach. It looks nice but is covered in boats that smell like dead fish, so we decide to keep going. After walking through some corn fields, dodging a couple of motorcycles, and passing some small beaches that aren’t good for swimming, we come upon a beautiful beach dotted with people swimming and sunning. I immediately swim out and start floating around on the waves while Kyle talks to some of the Haitian guys. The day is stunning and perfect.

After a while, I swim in and sit on the beach. A Haitian comes up to me, I think he said his name is John Ronald, and starts talking to me in decent English. Of course question number 3 or 4 that he asks me is if I have a boyfriend. I say yes, because I made the mistake of saying no too many times, and he proceeds to ask me if I love my boyfriend etc. Then he points at Kyle who is still out swimming and asks if he is my boyfriend. I say no. Well JR insists that he is my boyfriend, and I tell him that I’m pretty sure Kyle is not my boyfriend. But then JR is like, “Ha, you lie! He told me he was your boyfriend!” So then I’m like, “Oohhh yea! You’re right, he totally IS my boyfriend. Haha…” In my head I am dying laughing because now I look like the worst girlfriend ever. Thank you sweet Kyle for trying to help me out with my frequent marriage proposal problem!

Later, we go back up to the pool where we have a delicious dinner of cheese sandwiches and lounge until well after dark. When we go to bed, I am reminded how awesome it is to sleep in air conditioning. We get up the next morning, have some beach time and cheese sandwiches before getting a car back to Gressier. I am feeling a bit of a post vacation slump.

The next morning we have a meeting with Thorsten, the awesome German guy from whom we are subletting our new house (the one we found on the run), to discuss the terms of our sublease. Megan, Kyle, and I head over there, Megan with her VIA in hand (VIA is Starbucks instant coffee that she is a huge fan of). Thorsten welcomes us in and offers us drinks from his mini beverage fridge: water, juice, tequila, something else, or VIA. I take a water and Kyle says he’ll have a VIA. Thorsten goes to the fridge and grabs a water and two Prestige beers. Oops, turns out we couldn’t understand the German accent and he was actually saying beer, not VIA. Hahahah, so it’s barely 9am and Kyle is having beer for breakfast along with Thorsten.

All the while this is going on, I notice this bump on my leg that looks like just another bug bite. One thing that has REALLY annoyed me here is that I have some new awful thing crop up on my skin every few days so I don’t think much of it. But after a few days it just keeps getting more red and puffy and painful. I figure its a spider bite and try to use the iphone to google pictures of spider bites. One of them looks like what I have, so I figure that’s a solid diagnoses. Two days ago it gets to the point where I don’t want to go anywhere and stay at home with Gabriel while everyone else goes into PAP to take Kyle to the airport and make a Delimart run. I start feeling pretty sick and so that evening we call Thorsten and ask him to call his doctor neighbor to see if he would take a look at me that evening. Thorsten comes to pick Megan and I up in his very nice truck (felt like I was in America while in that car… I think it had satellite radio) with the doctor and we go back to his house to have it looked at.

The doctor pokes it for a little while and asks me if it hurts, which yes, it does VERY much. And he’s like, “Mhmm. Yes, well, you have an abscess. You need to REST and if you walk around, you need a crutch.” And I’m thinking, “Where in the heck am I gonna get a crutch??” So he gives me meds and in a week he wants to cut it open and drain it. Should be exciting. So I’m just laying around sleeping a lot and being generally worthless and annoying to everyone because I can’t help out with stuff. Its been pretty miserable. Today it looked a little better, I think some of the swelling may have gone down. But yea, its been really humbling not being very mobile and hurting all the time. It makes me so, so, so thankful for the fact that I’m generally healthy and can walk around pain free! Add it to the list of things I take for granted, which seems to grow everyday here.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Mango Curry Bomb

On Saturday, Megan and I just so happen to be having a bad day; the WORST day. I can’t even begin to list off to you the things going wrong, I don’t even want to try. So anyway, at the end of the day when I figure things aren’t going to get any worse, we go for our evening run. We run to the sea and are doing a great job at blowing off steam and trying to just put the day behind us. When we get home, however, we run into that darn group of boys that is ALWAYS outside our gate loitering. They’re generally out there to yell at me when I throw Gabriel’s poopy diapers and other sorts of trash into our burn pile across from our gate. They yell in silly tones, “cholera!” and the other day they called me diaper girl, which I did not appreciate. And today they are taunting us and calling us names worse than usual. Totally not a good day for this, dudes!

I yell at them in English (you know, because that’s what I’m fluent in and all), “Haven’t you people ever heard of LOITERING!?! Its ILLEGAL!!” (although loitering totally doesn’t exist as a word in Creole) and head in the gate. Megan, who can actually understand what these guys are saying, instead walks up to one of them and starts going off on him in Creole. Don’t ask me what they were saying, but I watch as these two are going at it, slightly lost, and slightly amused at the whole ordeal. Then she turns around to come inside with me.

And then we begin scheming. I suggest that we throw a poopy diaper onto the concrete slab outside our gate so that way they won’t gather there anymore, because who wants to hang out around a poopy diaper anyway. Especially an infamous Gabriel poopy diaper, aka mango curry (because its orange and runny 99% of the time…)?? So she grabs a poopy diaper and hands it to me, then we run outside and out the gate and I slap that bad boy out onto the slab. Commence the poop hitting the fan! (So to speak.)

When the loiterers see it, they get super upset and decide to start dumping trash from our burn pile onto our front gate slab!! And this particularly “bright” individual who lives in the tent in our front yard decides to run up to the gate, open it, and start yelling, “Megans! Megans! What do we do? Ahhg!” which gives them the perfect opportunity to start dumping trash INSIDE our gate. So we’re like, “GET INSIDE AND SHUT THE GATE!” Which he finally does. And then the people inside our gate, the tent people in our front yard, start going crazy on us. They really start raising cane about us dumping our trash across the road and we’re really wondering what the heck we should do at this point. I’m feeling a bit panicky, expecting an angry mob to bust down our gate at any second and wring my neck.

We sit at the dinner table, eating our beans and rice by candle light, discussing the ridiculousness that has just ensued. Thank goodness Toshi is there with us, a good Haitian friend of ours from PAP. Megan asks her if we should go ahead and apologize to the people out front and although she thinks they’re really crazy, she also thinks apologizing is a good idea. She agrees to translate and we tuck our tails and go over to the front of the house to being the apology. The dialogue is long and in Creole, but Toshi translates for me as I say, “I’m sorry we put our trash across the road, we really don’t know where the heck else to put it.” Toshi cleans up the presentation a bit for me, thank goodness. Finally, like 30 minutes later, Toshi and Megan tell me that things are resolved enough and we go back to the dinner table to finish up our rice and beans. Megan decides that tomorrow we also have to apologize to the loiterers for yelling at them. I secretly think to myself that the loiterers deserved to be yelled at run off by poopy diapers and that Megan has a stinking heart of gold. But I also know that this was a bit ridiculous and feel bad about the diaper and... she’s ultimately right.

So the next morning Megan goes to apologize to them. She had a dream about one of them in particular and that just so happened to be the one she runs into in the morning. She tells him that we don’t appreciate their behavior, but we’re sorry etc. etc. And wonder of wonders, he cuts her off and begins apologizing to her for everything. He says that he could tell we were in a bad mood and that they should have left us alone. Woah. Thennnn, a little later she goes to find the ringleader of the little gang of loiterers and finds out that he has a wife and a 9 mo old baby at home! It all makes sense now as to why he is scared of cholera; a baby can die of cholera in like 16 hours. He just approached it in such a joking manner the entire time, we had no idea he was seriously afraid. So she apologizes to him and explains that if he or anyone else around happened to get cholera, she has enough medicine to treat 100 people and that he should come to her first. His demeanor instantly changes and he also apologizes for everything that the loiterers have been up to! If you knew this guy, you would know how big this is. Talk about God taking our stupid actions and making the best of a bad situation!

Now we feel better than ever about our neighbors because we know this little group is on the lookout for us. This has also opened up the door for us to give them job opportunities and get to know them better. Not to mention, it makes for a pretty hilarious story. I’ve cracked up through most of the last 20 minutes...winning.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Run to the Water (How We Found Our New House)

Megan and I always have the best of intentions to exercise, but that sort of falls by the wayside a lot. Today (Thursday), we finally get our act together, lace up our tennis shoes, and head out for a run. We really aren’t certain that we’ll be able to make it to the end of the road as neither one of us have run in ages, but we decide to head for the top of the mountain where the land for the new school is.

I talked to one of my Haitian friends last week about running, asking if they like to run and whatnot. Basically, they do not. The idea of running for fun/exercise is foreign here and they’re all really fit anyway so it just doesn’t happen. The two white chicks look extra ridiculous to the neighborhood today as we run by in work out gear, sweating buckets, and turning red. (Sometimes I like to break out in a chant of WHITE CHICKS! WHITE CHICKS! Because I think that’s really funny.)

We somehow manage to actually make it up the mountain without stopping. Well, ok, we stopped once when we passed this big group of people because we were a little embarrassed. But anyway, from the top of the mountain you get a beautiful view of the Caribbean and it just looks extra beautiful today. I spot this road down on the other side of the mountain that looks like it leads right up to the shore and I ask Megan how she feels about a little exploratory adventure run. She, of course, thinks that’s a great idea so we take off down the far side of the mountain.

At some point, while picking our way through people’s backyards and stuff, a little boy with beautiful features and the most precious smile starts running behind us. It isn’t long before we’ve made it across the highway and are basically crawling up the last steep hill that separates us from the water, all the while greeting the fine Haitian folks who think we look ridiculous (which we do). We make it down the other side and find this path that looks promising to take us to the water. The kid is still with us although he’s gone the entire distance in a pair of rubber Walmart sandal things. So we decide he’s cool enough to hang out with us and ask his name. It’s Bebeson. Cute, right? So Bebeson, Megan, and I run the last bit down this trail and find a BEAUTIFUL beach. The gravelly shore extends out from the marsh into the Caribbean and we walk around picking up shells and little crabs. It rained earlier in the afternoon so its clear enough now to see the big island off in the distance very well and everything is bathed in various shades of a peaceful blue. It is magical.

After we finish gawking at all the beauty of this lovely beach we turn around to head home. On the way back we look around at different houses. Megan has been looking for a new place to rent here in Gressier for several reasons, but hasn’t found anything yet. We make it back to our side of the highway and when we get halfway up, we run into this group of guys who are taking down a big house that was severely damaged during the earthquake. One man dressed in blue jeans and a polo seems to be in charge and I'm like, "That guy looks like he would know where we could find a rental." Someone calls him away at that moment and we turn to leave, but I tell her that I have this feeling she should really talk to him. We wait for a minute and then walk over to strike up a conversation.

I say the 3 or so Creole phrases that I know and then get quiet and let them talk. Turns out he has 2 properties to rent and he asked us if we’d like to go see them. Of course we do! The first one is very nice but is on the highway, so its rejected. The second house we go to is AWESOME. Its this big white house that these German doctors have been staying in and, without boring you with details, lets just say its perfect!! Megan has seen this place many times before and said she always thought it was nice and wanted to see it. That was such a cool encounter randomly asking this man on the side of the mountain if he knew of any places to rent! (cough, Holy Spirit)

The German doctor isn’t leaving until September, but he said he is willing to let us sublet the bottom part of the house. The only problem is that its massively expensive. We’re praying that somehow we’ll get a more reasonable price or find a way to pay for it. Preferably by the end of the month…. Or like now.

Anyway, in summary: great run, magic beach, cool random encounter, awesome day.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

2 Thes 1:11

"So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do." -2 Thessalonians 1:11

This verse has been ringing out in my head and my heart over the last week. My faith prompted me to come to this place, to join in the fight against the suffering that runs rampant in this country. God answered prayer after prayer in providing for me to get here. He has sustained me, he has spoken to me, he has empowered me to be a part of accomplishing the purposes he set out for me in this trip. I am in awe of the things I saw him do this very day.

He has a calling for each and every one of us. In order to accomplish great and magnificent things through us, all he needs is our "Yes."
What is your faith prompting you to do?

Monday, June 13, 2011

The Wall

Thursday was a very atypical day for me in the best way. The group that was staying with us planned a trip to Wahoo Bay which is a nice beach on the far side of PAP from us. Trevor and I decided to go with them and so we get on the bus that morning and embark upon the 3 hour journey. The beach is certainly not the nicest I have ever seen in the Caribbean but I am sure happy to have this nice getaway so I swim little bit, have a rum punch, and soak up some sun. I actually don’t need to soak up any more sun because I’ve practically changed races by now, but I guess its kind of fun at this point to see just how far I can take this tan thing.

We leave a little before sunset and I’m bound to fall asleep at any moment as I’m very prone to sleeping on buses, but as it gets dark and we enter PAP I am wide awake. There are no streetlights and very few of the buildings are lit but the streets are absolutely crawling with people. Most of the light is coming from random piles of burning trash, which cast an eerie glow on the crumbled buildings. I sit up wide eyed through the whole city. I’m not really sure what’s going on around me because I can’t see much and its very frightening. We're safe because we are on the gigantic bus, but I keep imagining myself out on those streets. There's no way I would last more than 34 seconds. It puts me in a weird mood the rest of the night.

After I go to bed, Gabriel starts crying at 1:30 or some other ridiculous hour and then the roosters start crowing at like 4:30. You should hear these roosters. Most of them sound like they’re voice boxes are broken, its really weird. We named our rooster Stalin and basically hate his guts. I'm not sure why we even have him, I guess he's the pet of the Haitians who live in a tent in our front yard. So anyway, I don’t sleep very much and am a cranky beaver Friday morning. A series of annoying events proceed to unfold culminating with my Chaco breaking - My $100 hiking sandal that I can’t very well go to the store and return. I’m standing outside the school and just go nuts yelling at Jessi (a friend of mine from Zachary. Small world, right?) about how I’m going to write Chaco a nasty email and demand they hand deliver me another pair to Haiti on the double while she patiently nods. We brought a projector with us today and the kids are going to watch a movie while the teachers meet with some mental health professionals who have been working with the kids all week.

While the movie is playing my brain spirals as I’m sitting in the back of the church/school. I hit my wall. I would kill for vegetables, milk, a cold glass of anything, ice, clothes and dishes that are actually clean, the ability to flush my stinkin’ toilet paper and actually use soap and water to wash my hands instead of hand sanitizer when I finish using the twalet (that means toilet for you non-Creole speakers). I wish that I could actually get clean, that I didn’t sweat 25 hours a day. I just want a little deep conditioner for crying out loud and a bowl of cereal! Can I just go to church where they speak English and it doesn’t mean I’m bored when I cross my legs?!?! AhhhhHHH!

I begin to think I’m crazy. Maybe everyone who looked at me like I was a nut job when I told them I was going to Haiti for the summer was right. Why in the heck do I want to be here dealing with sick people and crying babies and no refrigerator when I could be chilling in New Orleans at a festival with the promise of a shower that is actually COLD waiting for me at the end of the day… not to mention a comfy bed???

So that’s it. I quit. I changed my ticket home and I’m leaving tomorrow…. Just kidding.

Maybe I am a little bit crazy, but I think if I didn’t hit a wall something would be wrong. I was talking to Rita today, a wonderful mom sort of lady who’s been staying with us all week, as we made the trip up to PAP in a taptap (after the trip we were covered in 3 inches of dust and all wanted to vom). Someone else seemed to be going through a similar situation and she likened it to running. When you start off you have tons of energy and feel like you can go forever, but after awhile things get hard. You have to really fight through the difficult part, and a lot of people quit there, but if you keep going runners high kicks in. And I was like, YES! That’s how I’m feeling.

Being here has been a super adventure, but now that I’ve been here a couple of weeks (which is crazy… doesn’t feel like it) the adventure is starting to wear off and let’s be honest, life in Haiti is just hard. But the challenge is growing me so much. God’s teaching me how much I can live without. All of those things that I miss are nice, but I don’t NEED them. I’m plenty happy here without them (except when I’m having a meltdown). He's also teaching me what I cannot live without. And its definitely made me a far more thankful person; there is so much rejoicing going on when I actually get to eat a vegetable or some sort of dairy product. I LOVE that 20 minutes after my shower when I don’t feel totally disgusting. Getting to watch the sunset over the Caribbean every day is like heaven. There is so much suffering here, but I get to see God take that and make it into something beautiful. I get to see orphans smile and laugh, dirt poor kids get an education, the excitement in a one of my English students when he learns a new word, and people be good to each other everyday. Heck, I even like having rice and beans for dinner every night, the sauce is delicious.

We’re staying in PAP tonight at Heartline guesthouse (the Haitian Hilton) so Rita can get to the airport tomorrow. I’m actually on a REAL computer, so I hope this post is much more legible. I had MEXICAN food for dinner tonight including real cheese and lettuce and tomatoes! My shower was actually cold and Megan and I whipped up a batch of cookie dough. I’m about to go to sleep on a lovely balcony under a beautiful night sky. I think this was just the battery recharge I needed. Here’s to getting over the hump.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Unreal

This place is crazy. Wait, did I say that already? I don't think I'm really processing everything that I see around me because it just isn't real. I knew before I came that I would have no concept of the poverty that I would see here. And it's hard to describe on this blog because you can't grasp it until you see it. Even then you have to sit and think about it for awhile.

I went with a team to a very remote part of Carrefour to build a house for a family. And by house I mean this wooden structure that would make a great playhouse but hardly a decent shed. One of our Haitian friends, Michael, drove us up the mountain through the crazy cluttered streets until we came to a dry riverbed that was about ten yards across. These people take their cars through hell and back. I cringe everytime we do ridiculous things in Michael's 4runner that an American would never ever ever do in their car. Anyway, we got the car up as close to the building site as possible and then had to carry our materials the rest of the way up the mountain, about 3/4 of a mile. We had these giant sheets of plywood and 100 lb bags of cement mix. We of course hired Haitians to carry those up which they did on their heads without using hands. I talked a big game about lugging a bag of cement up, obviously that didn't happen... But I did manage to bring up a 5 gallon water jug on my head. I was very proud. And my neck hurt.

When I took a break from working for lunch, I sat across from the woman for whom we were building the house on the door ledge. I couldn't quit staring at the flies gathering around her feet and face; she didn't even seem to notice them there. She had a baby with her who told her that he was hungry. He was very excited when I gave him the last half of my gnarly smashed up pb&j.

The most pointed experience of the last few days came when her neighbor asked us if we would come to her house and pray for her. We took an interpreter and went down a path to where she lived and found this half corrugated tin half cardboard shelter thing. Her baby girl was running around outside without a diaper on. Seeing her home and hearing her story really brought all of this home. We pass by the most extreme poverty everyday here but putting a name, a face, and a story with it helps you to understand. I know that I'm still too white and privileged and will never truly know what it's like to live in a house made of trash that lets all the rain in and has mud floors, but it hits me in the heart. Once you've seen it, it's impossible to ignore. The other things in life that I could be pursuing seem pretty pointless if they aren't to end the plight of the poor, the downtrodden, those who have little hope or have lost it altogether.

All of the groups finally left so it's just Megan, Trevor, Rita, and myself in the house now. I really got attached to those people and it was not fun to see them go, but wow things are peaceful. We have just embarked on a massive cleaning expedition that could ultimately kill us all. Eeesh. Wish us luck, I gotta go help now.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Simon Says

This place is crazy. I don't even know where to begin talking about the last few days.

We went to anther orphanage a few days ago, but this one was out in the country right past this Korean UN base that has more infrastructure inside it's walls than the the twenty nearest villages combined. It was nice. Dirt dirt poor, but it didn't have a dark air loomin about it like the orphanage we visited the day before. When we got out of the car all the barefoot children in rag tag clothes ran up to give us hugs and kisses. We happily did crafts with them and handed out shoes, clothes, and toys to these sweet kids. The best part though was just getting to hug these kids. Who knows the last time someone gave them a good hug.

The orphanage in Carrefour and those kids were still on my mind though, the place can't get shut down soon enough. Everyday we learn more about the horrible things that take place there. God keeps reminding me that the last will be first someday, even if it's not here and even if it's not now. I trust in that promise.

We took one of the kids from there, Gabriel. Sometimes the guy that runs the place will let him out because he is such a sick kid. Gabriel is so beautiful and fun, but as you may expect, he has issues. I curretly want to kill him because he's throwing his nightly tantrum right now as Trevor, megan, and I try to sleep. It's my turn to sleep on the floor with him. He seems to be chilling out so i'm going to cut this short.

I taught my first English class today though and had a total blast! I had to act like a complete ham to get them to pay attention to me. I danced and flailed my long limbs around. I'm sure they were like "...Omg look at this crazy white lady." It was people of all ages, teens to old ladies like sweet Mary who asked me if I would be back on Wednesday. They were supposed to be the advanced group, but I figured out pretty quick that this was not the case, ha. I got a lot of blank stares while trying out the initial lesson plan so instead I asked them if they wanted to play a game. We all like games right? And they sort of stared at me again. But I taught them how to play Simon says and it was great! One guy who took a turn being Simon was doing fine until he said, "Simon says touch your ass." And I was like, wait, what??? And he was like,"Simon says touch your ass!" I jumped up real quick to inform them all that this was a bad word that they should not ever repeat. They thought that was great. Then another student asked me what a boob was by poking the woman next to him. At first I thought he was talking about her shirt or the flowers on her shirt until he gave her another good poke. Someone in front of them chimed in to inform me of what they were really talking about and I was like ohhhh! Boob, I mean, breast! It's a breast everybody. They thought that was great too. Haha it was hilarious.

I'm going to go with a group tomorrow to do some construction work because for some reason I really enjoyed doing that in Mexico and Guatemala so I bet its fun in Haiti too. I'll let you know. I have to go lay down with Mr. Tamtrumpants now.

Friday, June 3, 2011

I'm typing this from an iPhone so I'm sorry if it's a huge mess.

I wish that you could see what I saw today withyour own eyes because there's no other way you could understand what it was like. We drove into the next town over today on the way to PAP. The slums get thicker there and we get off the main road driving through trecherous mud passing tent after cement shack after trash pile until we pull up in front of an orphanage. I've been too a couple of orphanages but really didn't know what I was getting into. Before we walked through the door, Megan looked back at me and said, "Warning. this is bad."

We walked through a bare cement hallway into the backyard where at least 50 kids were mixed I'm with the church group that's staying with us right now. Immediately a little boy runs up and grab my hand and someone drops a baby into my arms. This baby's hair was half braided, someone just stopped in the middle of fixing it and stuck a comb in it. She had a torn shirt, no bottoms and wasnt even wearing a diaper. It was the most lifeless baby I have ever held, she would barely respond to my voice or follow anything with her eyes. As I kept looking around I noticed almost all the kids were sick, some with scabies, some coughing or weezing; all of them were starved for attention.

There was very little space and few beds, Many of the kids sleep on the floor. The rooms are empty and a dull yellow paint is peeling off the walls. What really killed me was when I noticed the bathroom was a very shallow open pit in the middle of the cement backyard. I sat there holding that limp baby singing Flags by Brooke Fraser to myself trying not to cry as I watched all the kids play with the only people that love on them: a bunch of strange white people that would be leaving them shortly. It was truly hell on earth. All I could do is pray for some ray of hope, that justice would be served.

I'm running out of battery but I want to say i'm really proud of myself because I just or the worlds most notorious and obviously PTSD orphan to fall asleep and he's laying next to me. Good night from is both!

P.S. Eat your vegetables and enjoy them! I would so kill for a carrot stick or a tomato!!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Day One

I'm heeeeeyurrr! What a trip... Stephanie and I were on the way to replace my Walmart watch that broke when I jumped in the pool with it on (because it said water resistant up to 100ft!! I was incredulous) when I discovered that my shampoo had exploded in my suitcase (I put it in the protective plastic pouch of my suitcase too, but it still leaked. Again, incredulous). So instead of enjoying breakfast we had to go home and clean that up. We then raced to the airport. The ticket counter lady threatened to not let me on the plane because she didn't think I had a return ticket... after I got that straightened out I found out my flight was delayed. I really wanted ice cream, but I was in a pretty lame terminal that only had newsstands and a gigantic rum bar, so I picked up a banana instead. After about 4 hours of trying to entertain myself in the lame terminal, we finally took off. I made a nice Haitian friend on the plane though and our snack included Toblerone so I was quite happy.

I could make out some of the island through the clouds before we landed. The deforestation was very evident as was the abundance of tent villages. I could see some rebuilding taking place as well though. It was overall rainy and very dreary when we landed. I was SO happy to see Megan at the airport, REUNION! We grabbed my stuff and drug it out of the "terminal" which was this one room complete with customs, a restroom, and one luggage carousel which would rotate your luggage out into the rain if you didn't grab it the first go-round. Outside the door there were lots of dudes hanging out trying to grab your suitcase so you'll ride in their cab but Megan shooed them off with her excellent creole. We drug my stuff through the mud puddles and to the van that awaited us, owned by a lovely Australian couple that run a guest house in PAP.

The traffic was really bad so I had plenty of time to gawk at the sites of a rainy day in PAP. There's a lot of cement and mud and people running around. We drove by the largest pile of trash I've ever seen stacked in a ditch between what looked like people's houses. Trucks would get impatient and swerve off the road driving through these mega pot-holes (yes they rival those of New Orleans) splashing mud everywhere to make it a small ways ahead of the crowd. Our driver that was supposed to meet us at the guest house and take us back to the Gressier tonight got sick of waiting for us and left before we got there so we're staying the night here.

It is NIICE. I'm getting so spoiled tonight. We had Haitian spaghetti for dinner which means someone put shredded chicken on top of the pasta. And we had cheese! And a salad!! It was too awesome. This place is large and equipped with lots of fans, a very functional shower, and computers. Megan says this place is luxurious and all the rules are changing when we get to Gressier tomorrow. Did I mention you can flush the toilet paper here? Oh yea. Well we leave the PAP Lap o' Luxury guesthouse bright and early tomorrow, and then the real adventure begins!

P.S. We actually don't have real internet yet in Gressier so unless that happens soon I won't be able to update this thing very often, unless I do it from Megan's iPhone. Blogging from a phone - yikes. We're hoping to get a wireless card before the end of the week though!

P.S.S. I'm about to sleep under my first mosquito net! Weee!

Its Here!...?

I can't believe that its finally here! No really, I can't believe it.

I spent the night in Boca Raton last night with a good friend of mine and asked her to spoil me before I leave America. She did a great job. I've been wandering around saying goodbye to everything that I take for granted every single say like my car, cell phones, my computer, a/c, electricity, tap water that I can drink & brush my teeth with, stores, hair gel, lettuce. Yep, things are about to change a LOT. Here we go!