Home

My Sunday was concluded with a taco and pasta dinner and then went upstairs for a nap, which, like Saturday, turned into going to sleep for the night. I slept like a baby. Jeanene and I slept in Monday morning and had a late breakfast. We took a walk to a bank, which was about a pretty long walk but was on a secluded, beautiful road. I changed some money. We packed our bags and said goodbye to the good life. We decided to take a public bus into Santo Domingo to save money and it turned out to be extremely easy. It only took a couple of minutes until the bus came, I waved it down, and it cost less than $2 but had AC and was totally comfortable. The bus dropped us right by the Colonial District. We walked for a few minutes, looking for our hotel, and pretty quickly found it. We’re staying at a place called Hostel Freeman, which at $20 is a bargain and it had the amenities – AC, running water, TV. And the location is perfect, right in the Colonial District. We spent the day wandering around the area – we saw the oldest operating church in the Americas, tons of awesome architecture, ate some KFC, looked in shops – the whole nine. There are three other HODR folks also staying at the Freeman and we met up with all of them separately. David we saw as he was coming into the hostel and we were headed out. Flynn we saw walking by as we were having a drink at a corner store. Westin we stopped while eating fried chicken. So we walked around town for the rest of the afternoon then headed to the hostel for a quick rest. For dinner Jeanene and I wandered, looking at menus until we found a cheap, delicious, and nice atmosphere restaurant. I ended up getting an amazing club sandwich. Sitting at dinner, we had a beautiful breeze and we watched some healthy looking dogs play. I felt so calm and happy. We met back up with the other guys, grabbed a drink, and sat in this town-center park. I had a last real shower before going to bed.

We got up today around 7 a.m., packed our stuff, and hopped in a taxi to the bus station. The ride was pretty smooth all the way until we got to the border. It was then that we got caught up in a jam for a couple hours. It was a real mess. We did get through eventually but pretty quickly hit evening traffic in Haiti. After about 10 hours on a bus we got to the station in Petion-Ville where we immediately got into a shuttle to take us to Leogane. Ok so we finally got back. But I can’t complain – the trip was amazing, it was just what I hoping for. It was on the shuttle on the last leg of the trip home that I contemplated a lot of things. It was especially clear at nighttime how chaotic and desperate things are in Haiti. And having just been in the Dominican Republic, I saw the huge discrepancy between the two countries that are one piece of land, merely divided by some arbitrary border.

So anyways it feels so wonderful to be back on base. Everybody has been greeting me with hugs and such, asking about my time. A lot of people have said, “welcome home”. I just had a bucket shower, which was wonderful. Of course there are a ton of new faces but I feel really fresh and ready to do my best to meet everybody and help them out and all. Tomorrow morning it’s back to rubble! In the afternoon I’m doing something related to the teacher-training seminar I’ve been involved with for a while. Back to business as usual.

Love,

Daniel