Nice Shot, Colonel

It’s currently pouring rain here in Leogane. It’s nice because it tends to cool things off overall but sucks because causes the internet to not function. I’m writing this post in a Word document, hoping the net will be back up soon.

My Flag Day was really great! I spent pretty much the whole morning and a good portion of the afternoon on the computer (emailing, watching The Simpsons, etc.). Late afternoon I took on the responsibility of organizing the basketball team to go play against the Sri Lankan Army UN guys. I was able to get about six others to come along (two just to spectate). We took a few moto-taxis over to Sri Lankan UN compound – only a five-ten minute drive away. When we arrived and one of the Sri Lankans saw me I made the basketball shooting gesture and was led to the court. It was definitely makeshift but totally worked. Pretty much there was an area (less then half the size of a real basketball court) that was enclosed with tarps. There were two goals and even lights for when it gets dark. One of the goals was stuck around eight and a half feet and the other goal had a gaping hole in the backboard but really it just gave the court a little character. We ended up playing four on four – HODR vs. Sri Lanka. It was a hard fought game by both sides. As I suspected, our team had a slight height advantage overall but their team was full of really fit dudes. I must say Sri Lanka played a little dirty or, lets say, they didn’t play by all the rules I’m used to. There was fouling, a fair amount of goal tending, traveling and such. Regardless the game was still totally fun. I didn’t realize it until late in the game but in playing man-to-man defense I was matched up against a Colonel. Oh and I guess it is worth mentioning that we did end up pulling out the victory although it was a close game – 40-38. And I got to drink official UN water, bottled in a special UN plant. After the game the UN guys told us to come back tomorrow to play again which won’t work but I’ll definitely be organizing some games for the weekends. As soon as we were going to come back to base this torrential rain started. When it slowed down I caught a moto-taxi but the rain picked back up mid-ride. I came back to base soaking wet BUT the victory was totally worth the wet clothes. It’s back to work tomorrow so I’m going to try to get some quality sleep tonight. I’ve been waking up most mornings by 5:45 so going to bed early is key.

If anybody gets a chance, check out WWW.HODR.ORG - they just wrote a four-month update and there are also some pictures and other cool stuff. I also recommend becoming a friend of Hands On Disaster Response on facebook!

I hope everyone is doing well!

Love,

Daniel