Better Late Than Never

I've been home from Haiti for about 9 days and I'm just getting around to blogging about it. My apologies to the 2 people who actually read this blog. I'll be better. Two reasons I didn't blog while in Haiti; 1. The internet is not very reliable and especially slow when 15 people are on it and 2. I don't have the patience to play battle with this incredibly slow and unreliable internet. So without further ado....HAITI 2012 (pictures to follow as I don't have them at present time.)

The first two days in Haiti serve several purposes: Preparation, Relaxation, and Assimilation. We spend two days preparing for the coming week by making assignments to the various location we will be visiting. We prepare and organize the various supplies so graciously donated by people for our trip.

We relax a bit, because in the coming week there might not be much of that. We lay by and play in the pool. Yes, a pool in Haiti! The Healing Hands for Haiti compound has a pool and it definitely is an amenity. The first year I went to Haiti was after the earthquake and the pool was still under construction. I can't believe what I was missing that year!

Sunday night we went to the Montana, a hotel that overlooks Port-Au-Prince. We got there in time to see the lovely sunset and have dinner. It's nice to sit down and begin to get to know the other members of the team and catch up with others you've know before.

Assimilation takes a little more than 2 days for many things I realize, but two days is what you have until you must submerse yourself in Haiti. Those of us who have been there before try to re-aquaint ourselves with the blazing heat and humidity, the mosquitos, and the local cuisine while those who have never been before try to get used to and make sense of everything going on around them and everything they are seeing, much to their dismay by the end of the trip they still will not be able to makes sense of many of it.

Sunday night we crawl into bed under out mosquito nets getting ready for the week to come! More to come :D