Monday, September 3, 2007

First, for those of you who have been keeping up on my journals, I realized today that I did not journal about my first travel day. I did that today for you and posted it. It should be the first one on the list, Wednesday, August 15, 2007. Enjoy the read. Ok so today was really a very chill day and kind of a Matt day. I got up at 7 this morning because I was told that some of the children started school today. That did not happen and they were all still sleeping when I got up, so I did some emailing and watched some videos on my computer and fell back asleep for about 30 minutes. After I showered and had breakfast, Heather needed me to take three of the children’s pictures for their sponsors. It was really easy because they love getting their picture taken. Once that was done and they were emailed away, I spent some time outside with the children and talking with Roland about the Junior Church program. At about 10, Wisley came back from running some errands and said that Soni was going to go to the Far West today to take some stuff to Miss Pat. Since I had not been out there in a while, Roland and I decided to tag along. We did not leave until about noon, so we just sat around and talked and played for a while with the kids. Also, one of the boys, Roland, and one of the Pastors wanted to check their email, so we did that and surfed the web via my laptop. Before we left and after we go back I experienced a different frustration that showed me a part of the Haitian culture that differs from ours. I have been trying to take pictures of the staff for the Orphanage website for about a week but every time we go to ask the Haitians to pose for us they say that we have to come back after they clean up. When I tell them that it is for the website, they think they must look clean and neat. I don’t understand why they just can’t smile and be done with it. While we were at Miss Pats, she told me what she tells her staff when this situation arises. She says, “No photo, no program.” Translated that means, pose for this action shot, so the sponsors can see the program in action or it will not be around much longer. So she tells them that the sponsors don’t want to see a well dressed, clean person, they want to see the staff working in the programs they are helping to keep going. I really liked that approach and am going to try it and see what happens. Well the trip out to the Far West was just like every other, except this time we were in the big truck, I’m talking like a 15 foot bed. We loaded it up with wood, rebar, and Miss Pats supplies off the boat and headed out into the traffic jams and people. This truck is the more dangerous one to take because the horn does not work on it so there is no warning for other drivers. It was a fairly incident free trip out except for two things. One, there was a slight detour due to bridge construction. Now when I say detour, I mean they went over 10 feet, made a path through the dirt, and cars went around. Two, there was this little dog that would not get out of the road and ran in front of us for about ½ a mile before he got tired and moved aside. When we stopped to unload the rebar, I was amazed at how hard the Haitians make every task. Instead of putting the rebar on top of the wood when the truck was loaded the rebar was on the bottom and needed to come out first. So instead of just getting two guys and lifting the wood for the couple of seconds it would take they unloaded all the wood and then had to reload it when the rebar was out, AMAZING. We saw this really big brush fire on the side of the road and a car that looked like it caught on fire. It is funny that when something happens to a car they just let it sit where it dies and people pick away at the pieces until there is nothing left. While we were at Miss Pats we got the see the feeding program they do there. They feed about 18 Gran Moun (old people) a day. They looked real grateful to be getting a meal. I also got to put some of my fix it skills to work. Miss Pat has a couple of water purifiers that are not pumping water like they should be, so I took them back to the Orphanage with me and am going to take the motors out and clean them and empty all the pipes and what not. It should be fun, I have worked with water filters before and I like to fix things for people. The next time I am at Miss Pats I am going to get her internet working for her. Jose started it but had to go to the states so he did not finish it. We spent about an hour at Miss Pats and then headed home. Only one incident to speak of on the way home and that wasn’t until we were in Port-de-Paix. There was a tap tap parked the wrong way on a one way street and causing quite a traffic jam. Unfortunately for him there was a UN truck in the line and the driver got out and was very IRATE. Needless to say, the tap tap moved very quickly. Once back at the Orphanage I took a few more staff pictures and made one of the little boys cry because he did not want to get his picture taken with his family. I stayed in my room until about 830 and then went back outside to play with the children only to find that it is TV night, and they were all in their family common rooms watching TV with each other. Seeing this as a sign for a relaxing night, I found Roland, chatted for a bit on what time we were going to St. Louis tomorrow and then hit the showers and retired to my journaling and emailing for the night. It is bed time now. Peace