Do a Little Dance

As I figured it would be, Saturday was a pretty laid back day (relatively speaking). In the morning I got together with the same two volunteers as Friday to continue working on an emergency hurricane plan for base. We determined the space we will use in the event of a hurricane – we’ll go to a bakery/storage area connected to base. We also got all the windows measured that we will need to cover with plywood. Through this mini-project I’m learning a lot about the extensive nature of putting together safety plans. There are so many things that need to be taken into account it pretty much makes my head spin. But we’re going to keep working at it because hurricane season is upon us so there is a fair chance that several hurricanes will make landfall this season. After lunch I was on dishwashing duty so that took up my rest time, but everyone’s got to pull there weight on base in order for 100 plus people to be able to peaceably live together. After lunch I went to the side of base where we were holding Plaza Playtime. It started with my being led around Leogane by this little Haitian boy, rounding up all the kids we could find to come to the playtime. I had been asked to round up the kids and I think I possibly got too many of them. It’s okay, though, it all worked out. Sort of. We had one group of kids doing English lessons and the other group doing drawing and painting. After each group had done both activities there was a free-for-all playtime. There were all sorts of sports being played, kids being chased, and so on. It was definitely chaotic – even more so because all our translators were busy so it was pretty wild. Despite being really tired at the end of the workday, it was a really good time. Last night I just hung around with people and even got some soft-serve ice cream at Joe’s next door.

Today, my day off, has been quite nice so far. In the morning I watched The Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. It wasn’t the greatest film either have done but it was entertaining. Now to understand what happened next in the day I need to give some background. The WakaWaka is a song by Shakira that has become the theme song for the world cup. There is also a campaign behind the song – education for all children in the world. There is a contest to submit an original dance to the song and put it on youtube. One of HODR’s project coordinators, Lenka, choreographed a dance for the song. We’ve been practicing it for some weeks and today we finally took it to the streets. We had a pick-up truck decked out in decorations, a HODR banner, and a sound system in the back. A bunch of volunteers, both international and local, walked behind the truck all around Leogane, dancing. It was pretty awesome. Along the way, residents would join us, dancing and having a good time. The whole thing was filmed, of course. When the video is complete I’ll post a link to it or something. So that took up a couple hours this afternoon and since then I’ve just been bumming around. I watched another movie and read some. Sunday’s are so, so, so nice. It just started raining so that should mean we’re in for a cooler evening. Tomorrow it’s back to work!

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Love,

Daniel