Munich

Hey everyone!! I made it to Munich late but safe!! I'm having a great time and I'll tell you all about it, but tomorrow...now it is time for dinner!

Home Sweet Home

I got in late but safe last night! I am going to enjoy resting for a little while before my next journey! I had a great time in Haiti, but I'm glad to be home!

Last Day in Haiti

Today is our last day!!

Last night we had a celebration with the remaining food we had with us (cheese, crackers, pineapple, mango, and wine) and toasted to a job well done; it was quite the feast. Sarah and Christie, fellow Fordham-ites, have been my partners since the group broke off and we are the only members of our team leaving tomorrow. The other team is composed of a Fonkoze employee (also a Fordham-ite, staying until September), someone who is living in Haiti, and another Fordham-ite staying until August.

As we enter our last few accounts this morning, I think to myself how glad I will be to never see loan performer again!!! This is the computer program that we have been helping Fonkoze transfer all of the files in to. It was developed in Uganda specifically for microfinance institutions to keep track of the loan clients. The 3 of us leaving are very excited to be heading back to Port-au-Prince in a few hours. I woke up this morning filled with excitement to see my family tomorrow, but I also felt a little sad to be leaving. As with all trips like this you learn so much about the country, the people, yourself...you push your limits by stepping out of your comfort zone (or leaping out of it in some cases) but in the end you appreciate the experience. Despite our trials and tribulations we have had a good time and got some work done too!

Tonight, we will shower and don clean clothes (YIPPEE!) to go out to dinner with Christie, our coordinator, and Anne, the director. I am most excited for the clean clothes! When we left Port-au-Prince in June, we were told to pack for a week and a half or so. Then it took us much longer to do what we had to do and have been gone 23 days!! So I've been hand washing my clothes...and I'm not the best at it! I give people who can do that well a lot of credit!

Tomorrow, we will head to the airport for our 10am-ish flight. We have already planned out our non-Haitian meal at the airport tomorrow during our layover in Miami. We are making a beeline to the first restaurant we see and we are looking forward to that very much!! Then Christie and I will say goodbye to Sarah, she’s flying to Maryland, and head on home!!!

Anyway, I must return to my last hours of work! Next post will be from Connecticut, USA!! Until then...

back in gonayiv

Well we left Sen Michel on Wednesday afternoon...saying good by to Mr & Mme George was so sad! They were just so nice! We are back in Gonayiv for today, then leave tomorrow for Port-au-Prince, and Saturday its HOME!!! The time has flown by here, I am really surprised how fast this month actually went. I feel like I am finally starting to feel comfortable here and now I am leaving. That is the way it goes with short term assignments!

This is the peacock and part of our house in Sen Michel. I look forward to hearing from/seeing everyone soon!

J'aime Sen Michel

Sen Michel is so beautiful! The drive here took about 2 hours last Wednesday afternoon. It was a lovely ride here from Gonayiv; we drove through 7 or 8 rivers and up into the hills. It actually gets cool at night! This is such a nice change of pace after being in Gonayiv for so long. We are staying at a Guesthouse run by this lovely old Haitian couple. The accommodations are very simple, but exactly what you need. We each have our own room, a very nice surprise after sleeping 3 to a room in Gonayiv!!! We have no running water, we use big buckets of water to flush the toilet, to shower, and brush teeth etc. On Friday it poured, so Sarah and I took the opportunity to shower in the rain, it was the best shower we’d had thus far! On Saturday and Sunday we even watched the last two matches of the World Cup on the very fuzzy TV- it was great! What more could you need? :-)

Our host couple is amazing. They make us breakfast and lunch, its always delicious and typical Haitian dishes: eggs, avocado, bananas, spaghetti, plantains, cabrit (goat), rice, beans, or fowl. Lunch is served at 2pm and is like supper. On Sunday we had the traditional squash soup and patties for breakfast. Before we go to bed they bring us up a snack, usually a fruit smoothie or cinnamon porridge. He took us to the Biwo (branch) in the morning and offered to pick us up too. After the first day or two we decided to walk back and forth because it is a nice walk, and who needs a car! People in the town still stare at us, but here they smile too! As we walked down the street on Saturday a young girl ran after us hollering “Blanc, Blanc, Blanc” (white, white, white in Creole) and when we finally turned around and said hello, she smiled and ran back home. It was so cute!!

As my time in Haiti is waning, I am really glad that I got a chance to come to Sen Michel. It is truly beautiful here. Yes there is still poverty, but here the land is still beautiful. Gonayiv is a city, and like most cities, nature has been pushed out and taken over by humans. In this rural area, the poverty has not yet overcome nature. The air still smells fresh, the litter isn’t everywhere, and people still have banana, mango, avocado, and lime trees in their backyard. While we do have electricity, we don’t have running water, rarely have phone service, and have no access to the Internet. But the people are friendly and full of spirit, which is more important than anything.

In the evening there is a group of boys that plays soccer in a field across from the house. We can hear people signing well into the night. On Monday, our next-door neighbors had a prayer service in their back yard, and they continued to sing despite the massive thunderstorm that came upon this little town. I awake every morning around 5-5:30ish, before the sunrise, to the sounds of the roosters crowing and the peacock sounding off, yes there is a peacock here! I love that time of day here as opposed to that time of day in NYC, where it is likely that a horn or screeching brakes or trucks flying awakened me as they pass through my street! In Sen Michel, The moon is so bright when it rises that it eclipses the light of the stars until it goes down in the morning. I get to see the early morning stars so clear just before the first few rays of the sun start to cut the sky. It is truly beautiful in many ways here.

So hard to believe that there are only a few days left in Haiti. The time in Gonayiv passed so slowly, but in Sen Michel the time is flying by!

Tap Taps, Spirits, and a Change in plans...

This is a picture of a rainbow after the storm. We get rain almost every afternoon, but one day we had this beautiful rainbow when the sky cleared. If you look close enough, you can see that it is actually two rainbows!

For the past two days, we've had...driver complications...so we've been taking Tap Taps to get to and from the office. Essentially the Tap Tap is a pick up truck with 2 benches in the back and metal around it. You get one either at the station, or you hail it like a cab. Its like a Manhattan Bus or Subway in the sense that you shove as many people as possible in the space available. Some people are sitting; others are standing and holding on with all of their might! And then, similar to the bus, you let the driver know when you want to get off. Instead of pressing the ding dong strip, you tap on the side of the truck to let them know to pull over and let you off. It is an experience to say the very least!!

Another experience is being called a Loogawoo (I know I spelt that wrong). That is the name of the evil spirit here. The spirit come and takes things or children from the people. They are calling us this because we are white, which means we are likely to be working for some NGO. This is true, we are working for an NGO, but in the past there have been some rogue NGOs that have tried to swindle the people of this country, so we are suspicious.

Finally, we are leaving Gonayiv this afternoon!!! How exciting is that! I am so happy to be moving on to Sen Michel and see something different than the city! Onward...

Thursday is the magic day...

Good news! We are hitting the road again come Thursday. It doesn't matter if we are done or not...we are leaving Gonayiv!!! It looks like I'll be heading to Sen Michel. I have no idea if I will have internet access there...we'll see!!!

See you in a week and a half!

A day at the beach...

We finally had a day off!!! It was so amazing! We went to the beach about 2 hours away from Gonyiv and it might as well have been a galaxy away. The sulfur smell of sewage was gone, the trash everywhere, the homes, the endless poverty ...Gone all of it. It reminded me that this is a place that should be paradise everywhere, not just in these resorts for rich people.

It was a nice change of pace for us, but it was not the reality of Haiti, more like the dream of it. We had an amazing day. Swimming in the ocean, laying in the sun, relaxing, and dancing! In addition to it being our day off, it was also the day off for members of the Brazilian Army stationed in Port-Au-Prince as members of the UN Peacekeeping force here. Did I mention that we had a blast!

They were all very friendly, and despite our lack of knowledge in Portugues, and their lack of English, we all were able to communicate just fine, mostly through spanish and gestures. It was a regular party! I spent some time speaking with their commander about the mission and we were able to get across that they were staying until December before returning to Brazil. So maybe the communication wasn't fabulous, but it worked. Most of the Soldiers were about my age, plus or minus a few years. They all spoke about missing their families in brazil and how hard it was to be so far away from them. I thought about my friends who are currently stationed around the world with our military and how hard it must be for them. I was also pretty sure that their days off were not spent at a beach club... Anyway, we returned to reality after our fabulous day and remembered what we were really doing here and who we were supposed to be helping. We inhaled the foul smells of the town and began our work again this morning with an extra bounce in our step after being revived at the beach!

Miss you! T-12 days until CT!!