Swedish Fish?

I was talking to a volunteer today who was saying that he thought the third day of work is the most physically challenging. Given my current state I would have to second that. I was sore from the first couple days of work and to add to it, today was one of the most physically demanding workdays I've ever had. I went out with a dozen or so others to work on the foundation at school seven. My whole day was pretty much consistently catching buckets (which I'm pretty good at it turns out) and then carrying buckets filled with sand and gravel. And when I wasn't doing those things I was probably schlepping these 100 pound bags of concrete mix. The sun was brutal all morning but, due to the time-sensitive nature of working with concrete, we weren't able to take many breaks. Of course I could go run and get water anytime I needed it, but long breaks where we could sit in the shade and relax were few and far between.

For lunch I had a Haitian delicacy I hadn't had yet this trip - goat. I find it to be pretty delicious. Afternoon was much the same as the morning: hot, sweaty, dirty, tiring. But at the end of the day, we finished the slab. There is now a foundation for school seven to be built on! So in the end, all the work was definitely worth it.

I was really excited to get back to base because I was so tired and also because I've been looking forward to the arrival of my buddy and all around awesome guy Dan, who was here when I was. He brought me Swedish Fish! This is because when I mentioned them to a non-American international volunteer the other day, he had never heard of them. Surely this was an anomaly, I assumed. But upon further inspection and informal surveying, hardly any of the non-American international volunteers here had ever heard of, much less eaten Swedish Fish. A travesty. So I asked Dan to bring some and I passed them out at the meeting. It was a good dessert follow-up to our delicious dinner (which included for my first time this trip, plantains and spicy Haitian coleslaw)!

As usual I'm hanging out in the "internet cafe" right now, just having got out of a long Christmas dinner crew meeting. We've got our menu tentatively set. We're going to do roasted chicken, two salads, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and some other things I can't think of at the moment. It's going to be super delicious and I'm looking forward to spending some time (probably a lot of time) in the kitchen.

Tomorrow I'll be taking it easier, I'm hoping, and will be working on bio-sand filters. Basically it's a sustainable and clean way to purify water and we distribute them to the community. Details on this project will come as I learn more tomorrow. There is lots more stuff I'd like to write about but I'm just too tired, so for now...

Merry hump day.

Love,

Daniel