So today we split our morning and afternoon: we went back to our regular rubble sight of Boissoniere in the morning, and went to the orphanage after lunch. Our site was amazing. The team we had going on there today was absolutely fabulous. Everyone was chill and amazing, and worked their asses off. We accomplished quite a bit, and actually saw an end in site. For Abby, Breanne, and I, it’s pretty important that we finish it tomorrow so we can see it done before we leave :)

It’s been pretty cool getting to know the neighbors around our site. There’s definitely a language barrier, so most of us aren’t able to communicate with them, but they start to recognize you and call you by your name when they see you. One of them also has a baby called Junior, and he’s absolutely adorable. Today was awesome for me because most of the girls were calling me by my name, and when I asked about Junior, they totally went into their place and brought him out so I could hold him for a bit, awesomeness!

Abby and I had signed up for dinner duty for today, but then we realized we had made plans to have dinner with our UN peeps, so we had to track down two people who were willing to switch with us and let us take their lunch dishes duty, so that we’d have the night free. Thankfully, the first two people we approached were super cool about it, and I think one of them was even happy because he preferred to do dinner dishes anyway. So that worked out. We did our lunch dishes, tried to take a quick break, then got ready to play with some kids.

The orphanage is walking distance, so we just walked through the IDP camp, past the market, and we came up to a building that isn’t really a building. It’s a bunch of block walls, with no ceiling, and one room has a tarp over it with some desks in it. And that’s where we play with the kids. It was crazy. Anyhow, we walked into the “school” and it was the warmest reception I’ve ever seen: the kids were going crazy they were so excited to see us. Hands On does this every Tuesday and Thursday, so they were definitely expecting us. We divided the kids into two groups, one group with do English class and the other group would do art projects, and then we would switch them around. I was on the English round first, and there’s only so much you can do there: you have maybe 2 or 3 teachers, and the rest of the volunteers just sit around the kids and help them pronounce stuff. Art time was way better: you get to mingle a lot more with the kids, and I think this is where most of my interaction with them happened. At one point they started asking all the volunteers to draw for them, instead of them drawing, so I drew quite a few boats, some houses, an elephant that did not resemble an elephant, and a whole bunch of hearts that said “I love you!” inside of them. After about the fifth one I switched it to: “I love Alex.” Ha.

There was a group of older girls there, maybe between 12-14, and they were absolutely in love with my hair. They kept touching it and playing with it and braiding it a little. It actually looked pretty cool. The hardest part about today was definitely leaving those kids behind. There were probably four or five kids clinging onto each one of us, holding us back, wanting us to stay and play longer with them. I can’t even begin to imagine what their lives are like. I’m glad I was able to spend the time I did with them, but I wish I could do more.

After the orphanage visit, it was back to base camp, shower, dinner, relax, nightly meeting, then we got ready to meet up with our UN friends. They had originally planned on cooking us dinner again at their basecamp (and had actually gone to purchase all the groceries), but they got in pretty late from PAP, so we opted to meet at a pretty popular place near our base, and they offered to drive us back. So Abby, Reuben and I headed out around 8pm, to the dark streets of Leogane. Thankfully Abby had a flashlight app on her phone, and Reuben knew where he was going, but it was still a little scary to be walking around town on our own. There are also some long stretches of the street that have absolutely NO lighting, so it’s pretty dark. Thankfully we made it there safe and sound :) We ended up grabbing some food and a few beers, and our friends showed up soon thereafter. I can’t begin to tell you how awesome these people are. I mean, who are we, for these guys to go out of their way to come and meet up with us for drinks?! They also brought along another guy from the UN who Reuben ended up talking to for quite a bit, and since Reuben is planning on being out there for quite a while, I think that will be an awesome contact for him in the future. They drove us back home and we ended up finishing the night with another round of drinks at Joe’s bar. I definitely hope they either come out to visit, or that I have the chance to see them again at some point in my life.

Ended up the day with another roof top adventure, bonding with amazing people from all over the place. What more could I ask for? Oh yeah, sleeping in my bed with my boo ;)

A wrap up of last night: my immigration client didn’t show up, but I guess that was more of a communication error (ahem, Reuben), rather than being stood up. I guess he came by yesterday and told someone (ahem, Reuben) that he wasn’t going to be able to make it last night, and that he would come tonight at 8. We shall see.

Joe’s, of course, is never a lost cause though. So although my main purpose for being there didn’t quite work out, we still had a good time. Brianne, Ian and I headed over there and we pulled a table out to the open area so we could get a little bit more of a breeze, since it was pretty hot last night. My UN buddies (as I will know call them) showed up at Joe’s, along with about 20 other UN workers, so that was very interesting. Joe also tried making pizza, to see if it’s feasible to make it on a large scale and regular basis, and sell that along with drinks. I’m sure he’ll figure it out, since he’ll make a ton of money from all us homesick foreigners.

It was great to see my UN buddies again and catch up on the last couple days, as well as talk about the general situation in Haiti, and the Haitian people’s culture and approach to things. I had also talked to them about heading over there today to check out their work, but it turns out one of their drivers had a pretty serious accident last night, so I don’t think now is the best time to really bother him with my dorky aspirations.

As for today, the mayor’s office was pretty cool. We met in our office first, where I got a run down of how things go, and a chance to read the report that the team has been working on the last couple of weeks. It basically consists of all the information they have gathered from interviewing all the city officials, from what their job description is, what they do, how they do it, how do they keep their files, what could help improve efficiency, etc. It was actually pretty cool to read through and get an idea of how the government in Leogane-kind of-works. We did get done a little early though, so I was able to get some reading time before lunch, which was awesome.

Since things fell through with my trip to the UN, I joined my usual rubble sight, and had a great afternoon full of hard labor. Brianne and I ran into a little trouble in our corner of the house because the floor level was uneven, which made it really frustrating when you’re trying to pick up shovels full of rubble. I really, really like the site that I work at, and the people that usually work at it. I feel like each site has it’s own vibe. There are people that rotate sites, but I think there’s a good handful of people that stick to one place and definitely give that site it’s own personality and work flow. All the people I have worked with have been awesome: they kick ass on the site, they’re thoughtful about rotating when needed, and it’s just overall just amazing.

Funny thing today. I went to change into some shorts for the day, and I was kind of dreading it because they were fitting me a little tight when I was back home. Um….they fit me perfect! I think the hard labor and little food is working into an amazing diet! Hopefully I can keep this up when I get back home.

Anyhow, I’m making a list of things that I really want to share with you guys, just about the country in general, the situation over here, the problems that are being addressed, difficulties that non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) are coming across, etc., but I really want to spend some time on that one, so I might just save it until I get home.

One last thing: I was checking my email today around 545 pm, and Brianne came in saying my immigration guy had showed up at the door and asked for me. Hilarious, because I’ve told him multiple times that we have our meeting at 6pm, and Reuben told him to come at 8pm. It’s just funny how appointments mean nothing to some people. Of course, he didn’t come at 8pm ;)

Hope you are all doing well!

Guess what? More rubble work today! (By the way, the internet here is terrible, so I’ve been trying to upload these blogs for the last two days…to no avail. As I write this, there is a possibility you will not get to read them until I get to a decent wireless location…probably in the US.) And yes, I went back to the same site. Some of the locals already know me, and call me by my name. Oh and yesterday they brought someone else to look at my long hair again (not sure if I’ve mentioned this before or not…hope I did). Anyhow, there wasn’t much furniture to salvage today, but that made removing the rubble a lot easier, since you can just get straight to it. The only annoying thing is that you have to prep what you’re going to shovel in first, and that usually takes a bit of time. And one of the local Haitian volunteers was a little too excited with the pick axe and kept getting in my way. Oh well, we’re all there to accomplish the same thing.

Another curious thing about this place: I actually hear a lot of Spanish music. Old school spanish music. Like Jose Jose, Marisela, and right now I’m currently listening to Enrique Iglesias, in Spanish. The languages spoken here are French and creole (which is a combination of French and something else), so I don’t understand why there’s so much Spanish influence. It seems that alot of Haitians actually speak Spanish. There is one translator who’s Spanish I actually understand better than his English, so I’ve chosen to speak to him in Spanish better. He’s actually supposed to take me somewhere I can buy some Haitian rap music, so I’m excited about that. Mom, Linda, Jeff, do not worry. This guy actually works for our organization, he’s been here for a long time, and he’s pretty legit ;)

I’m actually really looking forward to tomorrow. I’m taking a break from rubbling and going to help out at the Mayor’s office. We’re basically trying to talk to everyone at the Mayor’s office to see how things are done (or not) and give them ideas on how they can be improved. It’s supposed to be pretty dull, but I’m actually quite excited.

Also, Brian from the UN told me I could stop by his work sometime this week so I could see the offices in action. I actually have to email him know to see if we can set up a time, and I’ll have to figure out how I can get there. Wish me luck!

And Dad, you and Jeff are no longer the only ones in the family with a sock tan :)

Let’s see: more rubbling today! Today I did a full day of rubble removal at the same site that I was at on Saturday. Most people like to rotate around removal sites so they can get a feel for everything, but I honestly feel attached to this one property. I want to see it done! It’s one of the largest projects we have, so it’s taken a lot longer to accomplish than some of the other sites. Highlights of the day: removing about 7 or 8 stuffed animals (including a giant dog that had been suffocated by the dining room table) and salvaging some of the wooden furniture that we removed. I’ll have to admit that I have a love and hate relationship with the wheelbarrows. See, they’re really difficult. Once the pile of rubble that we’re dropping stuff at starts getting really high, a couple of guys start pounding a little path into it so we can get the wheelbarrow all the way to the top and unload it there. Well, these spaghetti arms of mine are ok hauling a wheelbarrow across tiny wooden ramps across trash infested canals, thinking everytime that this is the time I’m going to drop one of our precious wheelbarrows into it. What I’m not ok with: looking at a giant mountain of rubble and thinking I have to push this wheelbarrow all the way up. And I can’t. I made it half way, then about three fourths of the way, but never to the top. My hope is that by Friday I’ll have enough muscle built up that I can make it ;) So where does the love of the wheelbarrow come in? I’ve always thought bruises are kind of cool, the more colorful the better. And boy, these wheelbarrows sure know how to make some good bruises! My right knee is pretty much a black and blue mess. And I’m quite proud of it.

We went to Joe’s again, but this time I actually had a purpose other than having a beer. When we were getting a ride back home on Sunday from the UN folk, one of the Haitian guides was talking to me about his immigration issues, and how he hasn’t seen his kids in three years and all this other stuff. So I offered to take a look at the paperwork that he has, and he promised to come today after 7 pm. I never specified a time, other than after 7, so that was my bad. But he never showed. Today he found me right as we were loading onto our tap-tap, and he told me he had come to look for me but we were in a meeting. Yes, we were. I’m in a meeting every night from 6pm up to about 645. Hence why I told him to come after 7. But alas, he has promised to come today. This time I was more specific and told him to come between 7 and 8. He told me he’d be here at 8. We’ll see if I get stood up again :)

Where to start. Ok, one of the girls here made an announcement on Saturday night that she was going to go to a Haitian church service and anyone was welcome to go. Soon after this, another announcement was made telling us about the danger of heading to the beach during their holiday. There’s a beach that supposed to be the best beach around here, about a two hour drive through some pretty crazy mountain terrain. But this weekend happened to be Labor day weekend, and there was supposed to be massive amounts of people at that beach. They pretty much strongly suggested we not go unless we absolutely really wanted to. Abby and I crossed our names off the sign up sheet as soon as the meeting was over (Paul and Jeff, you should be proud!). So this left our morning free for church!

Church starts around 7:00, and we were forewarned that it lasted quite a while. So while we made sure everyone was ready to go, we ended up getting to the church around 7:30am. Which I guess was fine, because the church was only half full, and by the time we left the church, it was full and there were people standing in the back. There have been jokes that Haitians go by “Haitian Time,” aka, they’re always late. Anyhow, church was quite the experience. Everyone stared, of course, since there were about 8 white people who couldn’t understand of word of Creole that were sitting in their aisles. Abby and I got off to a wrong start by sitting on the wrong side of the church. I guess the men sit on one side, and the women on the other. We were promptly escorted to the women’s side of the church. There was about an hour of worship music, followed by an hour-long sermon that was being translated to us, and then another 40 minutes or so of worship music. The pastor was super nice, speaking in English to us and thanking us for the work that we’re doing in Leogane. He seemed very appreciative, and people were coming up to us after church to shake our hands. It was pretty awesome :)

But little did I know that my Sunday was about to get a heck of a lot more interesting.

We left church and headed back to our bunks. It was so hot that we were sweating while we just laid in bed. Abby and I got a bit adventurous and tried the famous Haitian egg sandwich. Yes Jeff, we bought it off the street. And it was delicious. And I haven’t gotten sick yet (and it’s already Tuesday!). It’s basically bread, a little butter spread over it, scrambled eggs, ketchup, some green leafy stuff, optional hot sauce, aaaaaaaaaand I can’t remember if there was anything else.

So there we were, laying in our bunks, not sure what to do with ourselves for the rest of the day (Sunday is free time all day). One of our bunk neighbors, Ruben, suggested we head to the beach, which sounded fantastic since it got us our of our bunks. Ruben was nice enough to wait for us to get ready, so his friends left without us, and we headed out on our own. Thank goodness one of the local Haitians, Pierre, was right outside our door as we were heading out, and he volunteered himself as our guide for the day. I honestly don’t know where we would have ended up without him. He told us how to flag down a motorcycle that acts as a taxi around here. Abby and Ruben went on one, and Pierre and I in another. So this is something most Haitians probably don’t see on a regular basis: white girl in the middle of two Haitian men on a tiny motorcycle. Ha!

Anyhow, we made it to the beach (which has cement stairs into the water), and we were able to get a table, but not before we realized that I didn’t have my wallet and we were broke. We couldn’t buy a beer–or anything else for that matter-since we had to save whatever money Abby had to get back home. So instead we just sat and looked at everyone, and then Ruben, Pierre and I decided to get in the water and play some frisbee with the locals. It was all fun and games with the little kids, but once the 14-year old boy started grabbing my leg, I was outta there and back to the table with Abby :)

And THEN comes the most interesting part. We saw two other white guys who happen to work for a major construction company doing work over here, and so we struck up a conversation and they pulled up some chairs. Their friend Brian joined us a little later, and lo-and-behold, he works for the United Nations! As those of you who know me can guess, I started asking him a ton of questions about his job, what he does, and basically any advice I could get. I even put my law school networking skills to good use and got his contact information.

Brian was cool enough to offer us a ride back into town, so we got to spend our money on a round of beer, and Brian even went to far to offer to make us dinner at the UN Headquarters…if we were interested, that is. HELL YEAH. I still don’t think that night was true. We got to see the UN HQ set up, eat in their kitchen, drank some red wine, ate some amazing food, and got to meet more really cool people. One guy I met is from Argentina, and another one was actually from Guatemala. I had such a great time talking with all of these guys, in the middle of a rain storm, in Haiti, at the UN headquarters. Yeah, that happened. To me. And yes, I took pictures of my badge and in front of the UN sign!

Anyhow, they brought us home, and I got to experience my first “rooftop club” experience. I was able to be one of the cool kids that stays up past curfew, sneaking up to the roof and just talking (in whisper voices, of course), and admiring the sky and the cool breeze. Awesomeness at it’s best.

Nothing else really happened on Sunday….except an earthquake in the middle of the night! I honestly didn’t feel it, and only woke up because everyone was walking to the middle of the courtyard. The only casualties were those caused by people freaking out, running out of their bunks, and falling onto other people. They’re obviously not from California. Abby didn’t even make it out of her bunk!

A little sidenote: Jeff should be proud of the amount of sunblock I’m wearing. I’ve been here for 6 days and I have gotten some color, but not burned. Go me! I also can’t believe my stay here is so short. This is exactly what I want to be doing, and aside from missing friends, family and my husband terribly, I honestly think I could stay here way longer if all other responsibilities weren’t waiting for me.

But alas, I am here, and taking in every single moment.

Day three was rough, but amazing. Abby and I signed up to do rubbling in the morning shift, and work with the children in the afternoon. I honestly can’t tell you which one was more difficult. The day starts with the project leader getting together all the tools you will need at your site, this includes shovels, sledge hammers, pick axes, and as many wheelbarrows as you can get away with. We work on several different sights a day, and each site has their own need for these tools, so it seems like tool distribution is a touchy subject, since there aren’t enough of anything, really (wink, wink–in case you want to donate any of the above mentioned tools!).

So once all the tools were gathered, we proceeded to load everything up on the back of a pick up truck, locally known as “tap taps.” Once all the tools and wheelbarrows are in, you still have to fit 15 people in the back. This means we’re all sitting on an iron gate that surrounds the back of the pick up truck. Sounds safe to me! It’s actually really nice because you get a good breeze going, but you do have to brace yourself for all the rough spots on the road.

We finally got to our site, and it’s pretty incredible. Right in between two houses that are standing up perfectly fine, there is an endless pile of rubble. The whole house just crumbled. It’s insane. There were a lot of children coming out to meet us as soon as we got there. Abby and I had been forewarned that the children like to help out throughout the day. It’s cute, and it’s nice, but sometimes you spend more time making sure you don’t hit them or hurt them, and sometimes you kind of need to use the shovels they’re using :) There was one volunteer at our site who was pretty familiar with the kids, since she’d been working at the same site for a few days, and she was absolutely amazing with all of them. She basically had them all working in one area, so the rest of us could focus on the other areas without having to worry about hurting them. By the end of the day, I think they might have accomplished more than the rest of us!

So. Rubbling. Probably the most difficult and grueling job I’ve had to do. You’re constantly shoveling rubble for hours, under a sun that is insanely hot (not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I think Haiti needs it’s own brand of sunblock to protect against the intensity of the rays over here). I think one of the most difficult tasks was actually carrying the rubble in the wheelbarrows to the dumpsite. I’m ashamed to admit that I wasn’t very good at this job–my arms felt like noodles after just two trips. My arms felt like they seriously couldn’t hold anything up for a second longer. All the project leaders are really going about distributing water breaks to everyone, and letting everyone know they are free to take shade and water breaks whenever they need them. It’s actually pretty crucial to do this over here. The sun is so intense, and the work so exhausting, that several people have ended up in the hospital already. I definitely preferred to look like a little bit of a slacker and sneak in some water, instead of ending up in the hospital for the rest of the day.

A couple thoughts. It’s surprising how many Haitians are sitting around all day, watching us. The children are the only ones that are excited to help with the work. Less than 200 feet away there was a group of about 5 or 6 men, sitting on their bikes, well dressed for the most part, just shooting the shit. I guess the day before one man starting shoveling, and then asked to be paid for his work. I understand wanting to be paid and needing money, but if you’re not going to be doing anything anyway, why not help get your city back up and running?

Abby and I spent the end of the morning shift leveling a woman’s house. Turns out she actually wanted all the rubble to restore the level of her house, which is fantastic because there is little room left anywhere for rubble. So our job was to direct everyone to the right house, and I was working on moving rocks and dirt once it was dumped so we made sure the woman had a semi-even surface :) It’s a lot harder to do than it sounds!

The afternoon was spent with the children. We thought this was going to be the easier job, but I think it was just as difficult. We had quite a few children with us, and the culture is just completely different (duh). Not being able to communicate with them was also very frustrating. The biggest problem I saw was they are just not used to sharing. They see art supplies they’ve never seen before, and they each want their own, but there are always limited resources. It was definitely enjoyable to hang out with the kids for a bit, but I’m looking forward to working at the orphanage on Thursday a little more than play time with the neighborhood kids.

Saturday night we went to Joe’s bar, like we do pretty much every night. It’s right next door to our place (sorry if I’m repeating, but I’m too tired to look back at the last blogs and see if I already explained this), so it’s a very convenient place to go grab a drink after our nightly meeting and before lights out, which is at 10pm. It’s actually pretty funny: the bar is run and owned by the same man who rents us the space that we’re in, so the generator runs the whole place. Around 9:55, all the lights in the place turn off, including the bar–leaving people stumbling in the dark to get to their bunks and tents.

All in all, a very tiresome but awesome day :)

Where did we leave off? I believe the last time we spoke, I was in the Miami International airport, waiting for our flight to Port Au Prince (“PAP”). Well, as some of you may have seen on my facebook profile, the plane was not what Abby nor I expected. What we expected was a tiny airplane, maybe even a little jet plane. Because really, who all is going to Haiti?? Well…apparently a lot of people. It was one of those planes that has three seats in the middle, and two seats on either side; so instead of your usual 5 seater row, there were 7. There was a giant surgical team that was flying on board with us, but the rest of the people were actually Haitian. There were a few people in wheelchairs, and I’m still wondering if those were people who were airlifted out at the very beginning, and are just now returning home.

So, flight was fine. A short one-and-a-half hour flight from Miami to PAP. A little turbulence, nothing crazy. Got a nice snack pack (another wonderful surprise from American Airlines!). No pillow this time, but I guess that’s because it wasn’t over night and it was such a short flight.

During the landing, Abby and I were scoping out the country. Most of it seems fine, from an aerial perspective. But the one thing that does jump out is all the blue tarp that you see spattered about. And you can begin to see the tent cities splotched every here and there also.

Being in the PAP airport was something else. I used to make fun of the airport in Guatemala (before it was renovated), but nothing, NOTHING compared to this. One airstrip, no real air conditioning. We had to wait in a crowded and hot hallway so that buses could drive us 200 feet to customs. Mind you, customs is basically a giant warehouse, and by warehouse I do mean that the ceiling is made of sheet metal. Which means it’s really, really hot inside. They had fans inside, but being in front of those was actually worse, since what you got blown in your direction was 99 degree air. But all the airport staff were really nice, and very helpful. We tipped some guy to get our luggage-not that he really gave us an option, and headed out to wait for the rest of the people that were sharing the shuttle back to the base camp. Ian, from London, had already been waiting for us for a couple hours, and we had to wait another 40 minutes or so for two other girls who were coming in on the flight after ours. We were specifically instructed to wait BEHIND the airport gates. It was no surprise why. There were about two dozen men wearing a grey uniform shirt, and these are the men that “help” you with your luggage–except they get a bit aggressive. After waiting almost another hour for our shuttle to arrive, there was some confusion as to what man had carried our luggage, who had loaded it, and who needed to be paid for it. Our driver had to drive our of the airport while three men were sticking their hands in our windows asking for money.

Now comes the fun part: the drive from PAP to Leogane. It probably took a good 45 minutes to an hour to just get out of the slums of PAP. I’ve seen slums in Guate before, but this was crazy. I had to wonder which ones were pre-earthquake and which ones were post-earthquake. The streets were insanely crowded: there was rubble everyone, people everyone, and cars everywhere in between. There was rubble in the median, rubble on the sidewalks, dump sites of ruble, people selling stuff on the of everything, houses half collapsed waiting for someone to fix them, someone who probably has already moved on and forgotten about it. People flirting, people painting, people welding, people selling, people walking from school, people walking to wherever it is that life is taking them. While taking all of this in (6 people in one car, and few words were exchanged-everyone was lost in thought), all I could think was: where would I start? How could you possibly fix this? Where would you begin to organize the clean up and reconstruction of such a behemoth?

Amid all of this, our driver gave us a heart attack a few dozen times. I mean, there’s Guate driving, and then there’s Haitian driving. Not just crazy, but INSANE. Of course, pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way, and our driver made that clear. And secondly, anything goes. This includes driving on the wrong side of the road, with oncoming traffic, for a prolonged period of time. Yes, I’m serious :)

Thankfully we made it safe and sound. This is getting a bit long, so I’ll wrap up the rest of the day as quick as I can (and thank you for reading this far already). We got to pick our bunks out (thankfully Abby and I got ones together), and waiting until everyone got back from work for dinner (beans and rice) and our nightly meeting (more about those later). After people took showers and got settled in, we headed to Joe’s bar right next door for a couple cold ones. One thing you need to understand: nothing is cold here. The water is lukewarm, the milk is lukewarm (no more cereal for me). So COLD beer was aaaaaamazing.