The Surreal World: Haiti

So I’m having a bit of a stressful night and I’ll explain why in a second. For this reason, all I’ll say about the last two days was that Friday I did housecleaning in the morning with my buddy Jason then did more teacher-training stuff in the afternoon. Saturday morning there was a teacher training and that went really well. What was really cool was that the training we did took place at the first school HODR built (and it just opened last week)!

Ok so yesterday after plans changed a dozen times, I headed off to Jacmel (beach town two hours away) with Jason. Three friends, Brandi, Sarah, and Avery, were already in Jacmel and they arranged a room for us. Jason and I hopped on a tap-tap to a town just a little ways away to catch a second tap-tap to Jacmel. We waited around for over an hour at the pick-up point but all the vehicles that passed were full. We saw a couple of NGO people in a nice car so I stuck up my thumb and they pulled over. It just so happened that these two doctors and their translator were heading to Jacmel for the night in their AVIS rented 4X4. So we talked in the car and learned they work at a clinic up in a remote mountain town a few hours from Jacmel. We told them our story and in mentioning we were leaving Haiti on Thursday they made a proposition to us – we come to their clinic and stay for a couple nights and work with them then Jason and I go with their translator and take their rental car to Port-au-Prince on Wednesday and drop the car off at AVIS and stay at their base in PAP for the night and head to the airport in the morning. This saves us the money from taking the shuttle and means we don’t have to get up as early Thursday morning. More importantly, though, it means that we get to have an awesome adventure – see a new, different part of Haiti, see how a remote clinic works, spend time with awesome people, and so on (Brandi will be joining us as well). So the reason I’m stressed is because I have to pack all my stuff and make all these arrangements so I can leave for the mountain in the morning.

But today was absolutely amazing. The five of us HODR people went with the two doctors and translator on a hike, which lead us to this gorgeous waterfall. We dove off cliffs and swam all morning. I won’t go into much detail because, honestly, it was indescribable. I can say, however, that it was one of the more wonderful mornings I’ve had in a while (or ever). The last 24 hours has been pretty surreal but I’m going to roll with it.

So it seems I’m in for one more big adventure before I come home. I likely won’t have internet until Wednesday. I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Lets all have a good week.

Love,

Daniel