And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in the world – so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all people.

My last few nights in Haiti were wonderful. My friends and I went out a few nights and we made sure we made some great memories!! It was hard to believe my time in Haiti was up; it had gone by so fast. Saying goodbye to everyone was tough, but I know ill be back; there is so much work to be done in that country. Walking out the door to board the tap tap took about an hour, with endless hugs from everyone.  Fanna came up to me and gave me one of her rings, she said “So we’ll always be friends, don’t ever forget me”.

I am going to miss that place, but more the people that I was surrounded by.  Not only the Haitians, but the international volunteers. They were all so inspiring. Now I know, no matter where I am in the world, I have a place to stay with loving friends in Pakistan, Austrailia, Norway, Italy, England, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, France, and China.

Three weeks was definitely not enough for Haiti. But it was long enough for me to fall in love with the place. You know, its funny: before leaving for my trip, I was so excited for what I was going to do, how I was going to help and what I could give to the people and children of Haiti. But I don’t really feel like I accomplished any of that. Instead to my surprise, Haiti gave so much to me. These people for the three weeks I was there, unconditionally poured there love on me and allowed me into their families. I still have not been able to grasp how loving and selfless the Haitians are despite all they have had to endure. It continues to amaze me.

Coming home to Connecticut was quite predictable. It was hard to transition to the first world again, even though im only home for a few days before I leave for Africa. Walking down the street is different than in Leogane’. There, everyone smiles, waves and says hello to you. Here, when youre running around doing errands, you could say hello to everyone who walks by and maybe be lucky to get 4 or 5 smiles and hellos back.

It is good to be home though, even if it is only for a short time. There is something about home that always feels wonderful and comforting.

Sorry this is so brief. But id like to keep it short and sweet.  I think I am so saturated in love right now for Haiti and all that I got to experience, I need some time to reflect on the opportunities that I got to have.

Until then, Im off to Ghana.

I will try to right blogs whenever it is accessible. 

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.

These last few days have been flying by, but not without some things to make note of! I’ve been Rubbling a lot.  Sledging, wheel barreling, and shoveling like crazy. We have had two new rubble sites that we have been trying to tackle; and yes we have gotten them done!  We sledge hammered two days in a row and finally got it cleared.  It’s interesting to work on different rubble sites; today’s site was all cement. So basically, after you sledge hammer most of it, the work becomes pretty precarious and you can’t stand anywhere without it caving in.  It’s easy to get carried away with all of the rubbling and not realize the purpose of clearing rubble. There is a family attached to each rubble site and they are victims of the earthquake.  Today I caught myself wandering in and out of thoughts about each site and what happened to the family after the earthquake hit.  Each of them were forced to leave their homes and families, and had to move into IDP camps. After we finished one of the sites, it was great to appreciate the hard work we had done and know that this rubble site was now a clean slab of concrete where the family could come back, build a new home, and resume their life.

On the way to the rubble sites each day, we always pass at least one hundred tarp tents with USAID printed on them in big letters.  USAID stands for United States Agency for International Development.  On the long ride out to the site this morning, I realized how much these infuriated me. Leogane is completely covered in these tarps.  But although it was an attempt of aid from the American people (they literally say “help from the American People” on them in big letters in red, white and blue), I see it as a mere publicity hoax.  As the most powerful nation in the world, we can’t do better? Thank you U.S. for supplying Haiti with an abundance of tarps. And no they are not even tents; they are tarps that the Haitians have put over tents and buildings or attached enough of them to make them their home. Most of the IDP camps consist of these tarps where people sleep. I guess it does seem pretty quintessential of America to do something like this. But this is not what the Haitians need.  We need to help them build a sustainable economy. We need to help them build businesses, improve their infrastructure, and help them to export more goods. They do not need millions (and when I say millions, its’ probably really billions) of tarps to put over their huts and villages.  Perhaps we are not the right ones to help other nations build sustainable economies when ours is barely sustained. Instead we are sustained by China these days, which basically means Wal-mart.  I think that the Haitians have come a long way since the earthquake and even prior to that.  But what’s great about All-Hands and the other organizations with us in the JLB (Joint Logistics Base- the collaboration of all NGO’s in Leogane) is that we are not simply handing them goods or materials, we are working with them to help them get to a place sufficient enough where they can keep working towards economical and societal improvements on their own.   And I think that it is both these organizations and the basic expressions of hope that these Haitians render that has allowed them to keep going. Not the weak attempts of aid that are said to be pouring in from America.

After rubbling, Fanna and I went over to the orphanage. I haven’t written about this yet. So I figure I will talk a little about it.  This orphanage just recently began being assisted in expenses. After Unicef, Save the Children and other NGO’s refusing to supply them with some sort of aid, All Hands began giving them funds for food and their basic needs.  Right now there are about 40 or so children there. They are still severely understaffed and the children are malnourished.

Fanna helps out at the orphanage regularly, so while she was talking with the woman who runs it, I played games with all the kids. They were just as hyper as all the other children I have encountered since I have been here, jumping all over you and screaming your name which is adorable, except these kids just want any type of attention. They are longing for some type of physical contact: a hug, a touch, to be held. I wish I could have picked up and held every baby in that room, but there were just too many of them for one person.

As we were leaving, all of the little kids clung to Fanna and I’s legs.  The owner had to come and pick them off of us. The hard part of not being funded substantially by the government or an NGO is that the orphanage is so understaffed.  They just don’t have money to pay more people. There were only three women there while I was there to take care of all of those kids, do their laundry, change diapers and feed them.  I think that if more people knew what the conditions were in there, then maybe they would be willing to help. I mean if All Hands, a relatively new organization can find resources to help them, then there is absolutely no reason why UNICEF should not be donating large amounts of money if they are being funded by our government and the UN.  I am really glad I went with Fanna today, I wish I could play with those kids everyday; those children just need to feel acknowledged.

Tomorrow is back to rubble sites again!! And then maybe in the afternoon to one of the schools to help with the murals and painting!

June marks rainy season here, it has been raining nonstop for a few days now. Everything is flooded- the roads, the base, the tents and all of the streets.  My tent is soaked, which means slumber party with some of my friends in whoever’s tent has the least damage done so far!

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But i refuse to be reduced by it.” Maya Angelou

Usually as I try and fall asleep, there is always an assortment of voodoo chanting, screaming, drumming and different horns honking in the night (right outside my tent).

When I first got to base, I was deathly scared of all of these noises. I would try falling asleep but instead be tucked into my little tent and sleeping bag filled with panic; trying to calm myself down of the fear. However, now I am well acquainted with the midnight clamor of Haiti and the usual sounds.  At night when I walk up to my tent, I expect the chanting and different noises of such.   Although how loud they are is usually contingent upon whether I can fall asleep right away or not, never the less, they are quite normal and calming to me now.  I fell pretty at ease sleeping outside in Haiti.

Sunday morning Fanna and Jeffson brought me to their church.  Fanna came and picked me up on a moto at the base around nine.  Everyone was off to the beach, but Fanna had already asked me a couple of times to attend church with her and Jeffson,  I think it is important for them to bring their friends to their church. So I decided I would go!

Church was great! Long…but great.  Churches here are much more formal. The Haitians come dressed top notch. I mean fancier then some people dress for weddings, I’m not kidding! At their church there were three different classes you attend, each of them an hour long.

The last two days has been school building. All Hands is trying to move most of the work these next couple of weeks into getting the schools done.  I have been working on school ten. We had a team of about 25 go out and do rendering on it. This is a two day project. Rendering is laying down the cement onto all of the walls. Except, the process is a little more strenuous in Haiti due to lack of resources.  Here, we have to hand sift all the sand, mix the cement by hand, then apply it.  Its hard to be out there in the scorching hot sun all day, making sure you lay down the cement perfectly onto the walls. And when you have tons of little kids running around trying to help you and take over your job, it gets a little hectic. But the work ethic of these Haitians never ceases to amaze me.  They have amazing endurance and amounts of energy. They can go for hours;  which is a good thing because it keeps us internationals going with their singing and dancing!

Everything in Haiti is magnified just like their work ethic.  The amounts of poverty, the work that has to be done here, and the heat.  But it’s not only the bad: the good things too! The kindness the Haitians have, the high amounts of energy, the exuberance, the generosity, the love, the music, the dancing. Everything is so much more exaggerated! The dancing is beautiful, the colors are beyond bright, and the love that these people have for everyday life is unfathomable.  I was never expecting to experience so much solidarity and compassion in so many ways here.

Today I am out on school 11 working on the trusses, which is a process for building the roof.  The rides to and from the school to deliver the wood were quite exciting. We got stuck on the flooded river roads three times. Yes we call them river roads….this is because they are completely flooded and you are basically floating down a river when you drive on them! We also floated by a huge cock fighting party with roosters and saw a woman driving a moto! Women don’t drive in Haiti; you will probably see it once every six months, so that was pretty exciting. As usual, right when we arrived at the school all of the little girls were screaming KINZII chasing the truck.  They are so welcoming!!!

I’ll have more to write soon. Sorry if this is short. I’m trying to spend more time with the locals, volunteers and learn Creole better so that leaves little time for blogging.

BUT!…..all of the Haitians are saying my Creole is getting a lot better. So maybe I should have been more confident in Fanna’s idea of only speaking to me in Creole.  Because- it seems to be working rather quickly!!!!

Now that leaves me to tomorrow morning: Bikram yoga on the roof with Kate at 5 am!!!

Better to be content with poverty than to die a slave to wealth; better to have taken some risks and lost than to have done nothing and succeeded at it. -erwin lutzer

We use a different vernacular here for certain things, i.e. the earthquake, diseases, etc; this is because they are sensitive subjects for the Haitian people. We call Cholera here Unicorns (All Hands made it up).  This way we can talk about it but we won’t make anyone upset here when we do.  Cholera definitely is more contained here than a couple years ago. But it is still a pretty big problem every where in Haiti.

Friday I went to the hospital with Kris. She is one of the volunteers that does most of her work there.  We went around the hospital and I got to see all of their facilities.  It was great! I got to meet the director of the hospital and speak with him a little about how it has been developing over the past year.  I was invited to start volunteering there and help out with some things; it sounds great, but I really enjoy building the schools and rubbling so I may stick with that!

Later on that day was plaza play time. This is when All Hands goes out onto the street and rounds up all the kids; most of them either come from the IDP Camps or on the streets.  All the kids know exactly what time it is each week and they all coming running when it is time.  The moms always get their kids dressed up for it too, it’s pretty cute.  However…..Plaza playtime is usually pure madness! That is putting it pretty plainly actually.  Imagine 50 kids, at their highest energy levels running around screaming.  But we calmed them down eventually and had three solid hours of some wonderful dancing to various songs and games.  Waka Waka is their favorite song.  Junior came out with that song playing on the boom box and everyone went crazy! That song should probably be in the running for the Haitian theme song since everyone loves it so much.

The hard thing about plaza playtime (even though it is absolutely delightful to play with all those kids) is that the kids are coming from the streets and the displacement camps.  This makes it difficult because they are extremely malnourished and sick usually.  Some of them look okay, but others look severely dehydrated.  One little boy looked pretty bad; Kris thought about bringing him to the hospital.  But we decided to just bring him back to his mother.

It’s so cute: at the end of plaza playtime we go drop of all the kids back at their homes.  They all grab you hands and run because they are so exciting to show you where they live and the rest of their family.  It’s hard to keep up with five different kids dragging you into complete different directions to drop them off but definitely a lot of fun! But the end result….is seeing where they live. This is more disheartening.  Little kids should not be bathing in water where they can get unicorns. And they most definitely should not be sitting in piles of trash.

Compared to my first day, I am much less aware of what is around me. Or to put it clearer, you kind of get used to the poverty and everything around you. Since you live in it, it becomes a quotidian and somewhat normal encountering. It almost seems socially acceptable to live like this. Even though it isn’t; it is to Haitians.

Later that night I played soccer with a bunch of the locals for a few hours.  They are pretty intense.  Haitians+ some Brits+ me was some serious competitiveness. But quite fun!! It is usually hard to find a place to play around here. All of the soccer fields have been taken up by IDP Camps, so most of the locals don’t have matches anymore.  Here we usually find somewhere on base that is suitable for some futbol or in the JLB (Joint Logistics Base)!!  My friend Hyian left Friday as well and headed home to Pakistan. It was kind of sad. He got really close with all of us, we will miss him.

Saturday was the big wall raising for us! We worked all week to finish the foundation on school eleven to have the walls up in time! It went wonderful; the school children even sung the Haitian national anthem while we were raising them.

After the wall raising, we had a celebration on base! A full day of activities, barbequing, and dancing.  And of course a mixture of some great Haitian games.  My team won the volleyball tournament. The tournament started at noon and it didn’t end till four. It was great because we were kind of the underdogs and we were in the finals with the director of all hands and the three other staff members, so it was cool to beat them!

The rest of the Saturday night was spent at Jo’s, dancing and singing into the night! Full of  stories and wonderful laughter!

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – Anais Nin

You can always tell it is time to get up when you hear the roosters.  Usually they begin around 4am, but by 5 or 5:30am its a little bit lighter and the noises get louder.  By now, I have swiftly become accustomed to the morning clamor. In Haiti, this consists of roosters, cows, goats and dogs. It’s like I have a whole farm of animals playing a concert of different sounds for me.  This usually indicates that life as begun for day and it’s time to get to work.

When I walk downstairs to meet everyone and get breakfast, I am always thrilled to find all the locals waiting at the tables, anxiously awaiting another day to build! They usually all get up and hug me and begin speaking Creole to me. They are convinced that the more they speak Creole to me and not English, then the faster I will learn. I for one am not so confident in that. Although this language is pretty simple (no conjugations and such) it still takes time. But I am getting better with all the Creole classes I am attending!!  Fanna especially always talks to me in Creole. I think she gets a kick out of it. Usually after a few seconds of me translating and recognizing about half of the Creole words, we usually just start laughing and keep laughing because I guess that’s the easiest thing to do.

I have gotten really close with Fanna since I first arrived. She is the same age as me and extremely nice. Her, Jude, Junior, and Robinson I am closest with, they are unquestionably the nicest, most wholesome people I have ever encountered and are absolutely great!!

This morning the base managers and others finally decided that it was time that I go to the clinic. I haven’t written about my extraordinarily unusual spectrum of rashes I have on my body.  Yes more than one type. But no worries, I went to the clinic. First off is my moto burn.  Every international volunteer basically gets them at one time or another during their stay.  This is because here you can only get off on the left side of the moto bike. Of course, I don’t know why, but all international volunteers presumptuously get off on the right every time, thinking they know what they are doing.  Well don’t worry this will not happen again. I am cautiously aware now each time I step off of the motto to only get off on the left side.  This burn has turned pretty big and they don’t want it to get infected.  The next is one of two of my rashes. It is all over my hands and arms. It began on my wrist and has somehow proliferated onto both my arms, both my hands and fingers. It is little tiny bumps, more on the whitish side that are getting pretty itchy. It looks a little like a heat rash. The second rash is all over my legs. It looks a little like small pox or chicken pox. One person said scabies. It is red dots everywhere. AGHHHH! It’s funny, normally at home I would be a hypochondriac and freak out about the littlest thing, but here it is different. It is almost expected with this climate and poverty that you would have some sort of weird rash on you.  But don’t get me wrong it is still scary.  So hopefully I can get some medicine to get rid of it!

I set out for my clinic excursion on my own (everyone else had to go to the work sites). Yes, I was a little apprehensive about this, but the base manager gave me a phone to bring so that helped me be a little less uneasy about going out by myself. I took the tap tap there and arrived at the community clinic around 8:00. When I first arrived I had to walk through about 100 people waiting on either side in line ( I was instructed to go to the front by all hands), I received massive glares and had just about all 100 eyes sitting, staring at me.  This only made me more timid. But finally after contemplating in my head for about three seconds, I decided the polite thing to do would be to just say hello and be friendly. “bonjou, bonjou”, as I waived. Immediately their glares of skepticism at me turned into wonderful smiles, they replied, “Bonjou, bonjou, koman ou ye?”  Phew I thought, that went much better than I thought.  When I walked into the clinic I spent about 30 minutes being taken into various rooms. I must say the hospitals were much better than I anticipated. Although definitely not like hospitals back home, at least they were made of cement.  They are just about the only thing made of concrete here. Unless something is owned by the government, NGO’s or the UN, then it will be made of cloth, metal sheets or tarp.

I met with one of the doctors for a while and he wrote me some prescriptions for creams and gave me some antibiotics.  He said that the rash on my legs may be bed bugs or some sort of mosquito thing. They want me to go back in the morning to look at it one more time.  They said the rashes should go away in 1-2 days. Phew!!! So for all of you who were panicking, maybe I shouldn’t have written about that in so much detail. But everything is good and I received a plethora of medications to help it.

After I was done at the clinic, I had to call my tap tap driver. And after waiting what seemed like hours, he arrived and took me back to base.

This afternoon I am going to the orphanage with two others and then we are going to the hospital to work on medical kits the rest of the day. I am so excited to go to the orphanage and see the hospitals.

I’ll keep you updated. All is well here in Haiti- the heat, the people, the building, rubbling and friends are all fabulous!

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

These last few days have been marvelous!!…Other than the fact that I have been a little sick. Not to worry, I am feeling a lot better now. To start off the week, I jumped right into rubbling Monday morning.  Our site was right in Leogane, across from one of the IDP camps; it was really sad.  The family that owned the home that used to be there was extremely nice.  When I had to go to the bathroom, a woman went with me on the walk so I wasn’t alone, and after she took me back into her home and scrubbed my hands for about five minutes to make sure that my hands were clean so I didn’t get sick.  What a nice lady! Too late though, I was already feeling really under the weather: my throat hurt, my ears were blocked and my nose would not stop running. I only lasted about another hour at the rubble site before the locals made me go back to base. I assured them I was fine and I could wait it out until the lunch break, but they said I would only get worse.  I took the motto back to the base and rested until about noon. I woke up, still feeling pretty bad but mustered up enough energy to walk across the street and paint some furniture for the orphanage with a few of the other volunteers. After that I decided to go with Junior and Robinson (two of the locals) to visit concrete across town.  They mostly talked construction the whole time and I just played with the little kids in the street, so I was glad I went.  The rest of the night I just relaxed and went to Creole class.  It was a low key day. I mean it may seem like I did a lot, but Haitians are always doing a million things. They work harder than anyone I know.

Last night, it started storming here; some serious rain. I had to call in reinforcements to secure my tent! While it was torrential down pouring….it’s quite obvious what everyone did right? People started running for their shampoo and soap and showering away! We had running water!!! Now don’t get me wrong bucket showers are just about the best thing at the end of the day when you are covered in rubble, dirt and cement, but I mean, water coming from something other than a bucket is quite lovely!

Tuesday and Wednesday I worked at the school. This is where All Hands is putting most of its task force right now because we are doing a wall raising on Saturday morning!!! It will be broadcasted live, on Ustream, Ill post the link, so you all can watch it!! Working at the schools is definitely harder than rubbling.  We have been pouring the foundation there all week. Luckily Junior and Jude had Bob Marley blasting all day so in between running gravel back and forth we were jamming (no pun intended). All day the little girls that live in the local village were hiding in the bushes surreptitiously shouting my name: Kinziii, Kinziiii, and then running away as fast as they could. It was nearly the most adorable thing!!! Every time and we had breaks or I could slip away from helping, I would go run around with them!

To get the foundation and rebarring done, it takes a team of about thirty people to do this successfully and efficiently.  We get started right at 8am and go strong until about 430ish, divided up into teams.  This part of the building requires major scrupulous attention by everyone who is helping. To mix the cement you have three groups surrounded by the mixer, one with dirt, then cement, then gravel.  After the water is poured into the mixer, the assembly lines begin; passing each of the buckets towards the mixer! I have never been so covered in cement! It’s actually quite delightful, being covered in gray cement all day from head to toe! Except for that it burns your skin unbearably. The whole tap tap ride home we were pouring vinegar on ourselves; I guess since its acidic it helps with the burning. Pouring the foundation was a great experience. I feel like I am actually learning quite a bit about construction, so hopefully it will be useful to me at some point or another in my future.

When I got back to base yesterday ater building the schools, I looked in the mirror for the first time in a week. WOAHHH!! Mistake! I could not tell if the darkness of my face (Native American looking!!) was dirt or a tan. I tried to put aside the notion that it may just be dirt. But either way, regardless of whether it was mud or a tan, I guess that would have to be sufficient enough because I mean it is exciting that I have become that dark!  I am really burnt on my back and no this is not the typical beach burn: this is a burnt, blistering, skin sizzling, aching burn that is so painful! In Haiti, if I don’t put sun tan lotion on every 25 minutes; I will literally fry. I miss the days of SPF 15. Now it is SPF 70 or more, if not my skin will start bubbling!!!!

Sorry I haven’t written in a while, I will try to be better.

Wings are not only for birds; they are also for minds. Human potential stops at some point somewhere beyond infinity. Toller Cranston

Yesterday was an amazing day!. Sunday is our free day here. A group of about 12 of us loaded up the tap tap early in the morning and headed for the water fall. The waterfall was in Jacmel, which is about 2.5 hours from Leogane.  We rode on the tap tap all the way through the mountains; it was beautiful.  Except for while we were in the middle of the mountain, the tap tap broke down.  We waited out in the scorching sun for a while, I couldn’t even tell you how long it was.  We waited for someone to come by, after we realized the tap tap was not fixable on its own.  Luckily a bus drove by and we all hopped on that.  There was no room for twelve us in the bus, so we had to sit on the roof.  Best thing ever!!! Driving through the mountain tops on the roof of a huge bus, it was possibly the best view I have ever seen.

After a long ride, we arrived in Jacmel.  We took Motos the rest of the way to the waterfall.  Driving through Jacmel was just like Leogane, it may even have been worse.  Most of the kids were bathing in the streets in puddles, chickens and goats were everywhere, and the streets were flooded with water and towers of garbage.  It amazes me how these people have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yet they are so happy and cheerful. They make the best out of everything. I have only been here a short time and they already treat me like family, have way more energy than me, and are always trying to help me.  Why is this? They must be the most resilient group of people I have ever met. They lost everything, after already have nothing and they can still function, laugh, smile, and care about everyone around them.  I think it is amazing how this whole country was able to bounce back to everyday life. Living in Haiti they have to endure so much, but you would never be able to tell; to me, they are the happiest people on earth!

When we go on the moto’s in Jacmel, we all just randomly hopped on because we were just so excited to get to the waterfall. Except the guy volunteers had us stop. They decided if it would be better if there was a guy and a girl on the back of each moto with the driver instead of two girls with the driver. They thought it would be safer.  Our moto driver was really nice, when we were driving through Jacmel, he made sure no one came up to the moto ; he kept pushing people away.  When we started getting into the more rural area, all of the little kids were running up to us, “bonswa, bonswa.” They had me by the arms and were running with us, they practically almost pulled me off the moto! It was adorable.

We had to drive through to rivers on the moto to get to the top. Everyone else fell off their moto a few times or their moto wouldn’t make it right away…Our driver was bad ass! He got us through each one right away. The river area was really sad. This is where all of the little children sit and beg all day.  They come running up to you and cling onto you and don’t let go.  They sit in piles of trash all day; this is also the same place where they bathe and do laundry.  Anything that you have ever imagined about how Haiti looks is probably much less severe then what it actually is.   There is so much to be done here.

The waterfall was amazing! It was worth the many obstacles that we faced to get there.  We spent the afternoon cliff jumping and swimming, in what seemed like paradise.  We jumped off these two cliffs in these beautiful coves. It did not feel like we were in Haiti.  When we were climbing the rope up to leave the cove, a group of people came in with guns. They were loaded with AK-47s and m- 16s. I mean, we tried to stay calm but we kind of freaked.  We didn’t really know what was happening, but we realized that some of them were the Haitian police and military.  It turns out, they were escorting President Martelly’s son who wanted to shoot a music video at the waterfall.  Seemed a little drastic to have all of those military people, but hey….we got to shake hands and talk to the president’s son!!!

After four hours on a tap tap and a bus through the mountain tops again on the way home, somehow we made the trek back to Leogane safely. Praise God.   It was all worth it, Haitians are wonderful and the volunteers here are great.

Sorry i don’t edit these, it is just too hot here to concentrate.  I hope there isn’t too many mistakes.

“Jodia te yon bon jounen” Today is the good day.

Today was my first day at the schools. I was at school 11! We had a big group, definitely over 20 people and we were there all day from 730-5. I am burnt to a crisp and absolutely covered in sweat and blisters.  We departed for the worksite in the tap tap. When we got to the village we were building the school in, all the volunteers welcomed us. They really seem to like Americans here.

Right when we arrived we jumped into work; framing, rebarring, cement pouring, and other various tasks that I am still trying to acquaint myself with.  It was hot, really hot.  The kids here are great. They are constantly coming up to you and hugging you and jumping on you.  They say “hey you, hey you” or “blank, blank” because they really don’t know English. And I don’t know Creole, so they language barrier is hard, but I guess they are just so cute and fun we still laugh and have fun!  Once they seem you have a camera, it becomes their favorite thing. They were taking pictures with it all day, running around the site.  They wanted me to show them how to dance, not my forte! They showed me their dancing too. One of the little girls asked if I go clubbing, I said yes…(I didn’t know the right answer to say…) and they all gasped and then started laughing and trying to start dancing like they were in a club. It was absolutely the cutest thing ever. All day they were running around base screaming my name…Kenzie, Kenzie! But they really pronounce it KINZIIIIII, KINZIIII!

The little girls fell in love with the Gatorade I had.  That is another thing, I loathed Gatorade before, but that is all they have on base, the huge powdered bins of Gatorade.  I have already drank a ton.  And thank you mom for making me pack some, you were right, once I got to base, it was exactly what I needed after not having water all day.

At the lunch break while we were at the site, me, my friend Charles (a local) and a girl from Holland went further into the village to meet one of his friends. We walked about a half hour, hopped some rivers, and bumped into some cows, but we got there. It felt like I was on an African Safari.  They lived in a jungle area which was cool, in a tent way far back in the village.  We met the family and they gave us cold soda to drink.  We sat there for a while and talked before we had to make the trek back to the work site.

A few things I noticed…. The women walk around naked most of the time. The children get everything; they are so polite and offer you everything when you are welcomed into their home. They have pets, but don’t treat them like in America.  Instead dogs are pretty low in the Haitian society, they treat them more like rats or street bugs.  Definitely something I am not used to.

After returning to the base, in between rebarring and hammering, I took pictures with the kids. When we were heading back to base, driving on the tap tap, we encountered a traffic jam. In the villages the streets are only enough for one car, this is because there is usually not enough traffic that they need to have a space for two vehicles to get by. But not only was the street flooded (I mean like swimming deep kind of water!), we also had a truck trying to get by, this was a huge problem because there was nowhere to go. Our tap tap almost tipped.  Luckily, the locals took good care of me and the others.

I have only been here a couple of days and everyone is already treating me like family. The local boys that I met have already invited me to church with them on Sunday and back to their homes in the north. Others live in the IDP camps and have invited me back there.

It’s comforting to know they care so much.  Today, I was trying to walk into the village by myself to take pictures and my friend Jude, came running after me. He said, “Kinziiiiii. Wait security.”

I replied. Qisa, which means “what” in Creole. He said “I am your security, I protect you, I will look after my zami (friend).  I promise I will protect you.”

This was so nice and warming. That is what is so nice about Haiti; these people just are so loving and sweet. They welcome everyone.

Just after our nightly meeting and an unsuccessful trip to the market (never go by yourself to the market without a Haitian, you will come back empty handed because they tax all whites, called the blank tax. And you have no idea what is going on) I attended a Creole class with Kate and my friend Brian who worked on the school today.  Jeffson taught it tonight; he and Fanna are the ones that want me to go to their church in the morning.

Tonight, I finally had my bucket shower. Well deserved and patiently awaited!!! Even though the sweat returned to me seconds after I towel dried, it was nice to at least smell like clean soap for a second.

Im off too bed, exhausted and sun burnt. My sauna of a tent is calling my name. tomorrow is a free day. Most of the volunteers are going to a waterfall for the day or to one of the local beaches. A few of the locals invited me to church with them, so we will see what tomorrow brings! They all sound great.

drenched in the Haitian lifeee!

My second say here was amazingggg!  I woke up to various animals and kids running around screaming.  It was great!  We had breakfast which consists of oatmeal or bread, very simple. After breakfast I had volunteer orientation. This was basically just a quick rundown of life on base and more about HODR. To briefly tell you about All Hands:

All hands volunteers is also known as HODR which stands for hands on disaster response. In January of 2010 Haiti was hit with a devastating earthquake.   All Hands is a nonprofit, working on the grounds in Leogane. While I am working with this volunteer organization, I will be doing demolition, rubble removal, working in local orphanages, building school and informal programs for kids to be entertained.  All hands really focuses on building close ties with the community and the local people, they allow Haitians to be a part of the rebuilding and relief efforts which I think are so great.

Immediately following the volunteer orientation, I was thrown right into RUBBLING! This was probably the best experience ever.

To get to the rubble site, we take the tap tap. This is the Haitian form of a taxi. They call it a tap tap because you tap the top of it to get them to stop for you. It is basically just a pickup truck or something you take a hayride on.  My team and I packed up the truck with all of the materials, wheel barrels, shovels, and massive amounts of water! My rubble team was small, about 8 people.  It was really fun spending the whole day with them and getting to know the local volunteers.  There are usually five or so different volunteer teams each day: rubble, school building, bio sanitation water filters and going to orphanages.  The rubble site was probably the hardest work I have EVER performed in my life. It is basically a slab of concrete with cement bits everywhere. You have to sledged hammer all the rebar to make it so you are able to shovel it into the wheel barrel.  It is hard work. Not to mention it is about one thousand degrees here. You are constantly in a bucket of sweat. You get to a point where you don’t even bother wiping it off anymore because it comes back by the time you’re in mid wipe. By the end of my first day of rubbling, my eyes were swollen from the sweat being in my eyes for 8 hours.  I guess I better get used to it though. A lot more rubbling to come!!!!

During lunch break my friend Rochelle, he is a local Haitian volunteer, took me to the market and to exchange money. He was extremely nice.  He took me to buy a watch, so I actually have a way of telling time here, which would probably be helpful.

When we got back from rubble at night, we have dinner right away. Dinner here consists of rice and beans, rice and beans, and oh wait….I forgot, more rice and beans!  Occasionally they will throw in plantains or eggs.  After dinner, there is a daily meeting for all volunteers and people on base. We discuss the days’ activities, accomplishments and upcoming jobs for the next day.

Later on that night we went to Jo’s. I sat with most of the locals. At first the language barrier was intimidating, but they were really eager to teach me Creole.  We danced, rapped and sang for most of the night. I liked how they knew all my favorite songs!!! It was pretty great! After the bar, my friend Fanna asked me to walk her home. It was dark but two other locals came with us and one other volunteer, so it seemed safe. She took us and introduced me to her family and showed me where she lives. She lived right near the IDP Camp which was a little sad.  She lived in a shack and lived in a one room tent with all of her sisters and brothers.  It was really sad.

Most of the population of Haiti is in IDP camps (Internally Displaced Persons). At least over 60% any way, after the earthquake people were forced to flee to these places to find shelter.

A few things that I learned today about Haitian culture:

There is no trash or disposal system; it is socially accepted, expected and assumed that you will litter or throw trash on the street. However the people are immaculately clean!!

I mean really clean. Their whites are cleaner than clean. How do they get them so white? I have not the slightest idea.  Their tents are spotless, they treat them like them with a lot of care and take pride in them. Haitians dress extremely nicely, it is shocking. I have only been here a couple of days and all of the guys are constantly cleaning their sneakers.

Another thing is always dress up if you are going to the bank. I don’t know why. But you have too.

You cannot…CANNOT eat on the street. It is considered rude and disrespectful. If you buy something, you have to sit down and eat it.

People are soooo nice it is not even imaginable.

It is too hot to care here, so you have to become one with sweat. You end your day like a sweaty pig and wake up like a sweaty pig. It is great!!!

People are extremely nice and giving. It is astonishing. These people have absolutely nothing! Literally a tent, and some clothes and they are constantly trying to help you and give something to you.

I went to sleep that night, absolutely inundated in happiness and excitement. Haiti is so beautiful, the people are amazing.

Falling asleep that night to loud voodoo chanting all around the base. I couldn’t have been any more soaked in sweat, in my tiny little tent, by I also couldn’t have been any happier. I was able to drift off to sleep.

managed chaos….

This is a little late, but since you havent heard about my first day in Leogane yet, I will tell you about it so I can keep you up to date.  Kate and I arrived at the airport into the sweaty scorching sun of Haiti; it was exciting! Right away we had to wait in immigration for a while and tons of people were coming up to us trying to take our bags. We just waited. Finally a guy ran up to us and grabbed our bags and started walking away really fast. We were both highly confused. We started freaking out, running to catch up with him, then thats when we realized he was paid to come get our bags for us by the All Hands guy, (i guess that guy didnt feel like coming to meet us). We were guided into the bullet holed, jeep, being protedcted by our driver right away. He took really good care of us.  He had to lock the door and push peoples hands away as they were trying to get in the car. The ride from the PAP airport was long. Four hours too long.  Although the actual distance from Port au Prince to Leogane is only 20 miles, we had to get through the city, which meant sitting in hours of massive amounts of traffic. Kate and I were basically passed out in the backseat, in the sweltering hot, as close to each other in the middle as possible at moments in case anyone tried to get in the car.  The ride back was pretty adventurous though.  This is because the streets are pandemonium. There is no rules on the road in Haiti. I know what you are thinking, they are just a little overcrowded. NO, I mean…absolutely NO RULES whatsoever. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want; meaning it is basically a free for all.  Most of the drivers are just go where they please, ambitiously assuming that even though they are not looking, they wont hit someone.  But surprisingly, it seems to work pretty good. Kate and I were in the backseat, feeling like we were on one of those electronic bulls, just awaiting to get ejected from the car at any moment.

Finally after four hours of a treacherous transport to the All Hands base in Leogane…WE MADE IT!

Everyone welcomed us when we got to the base. I was a bit nervous, anxious, and overwhelmed but I just stayed calm and listened to all the instructions I was receiving. The rest of the day was just getting situated, learning where everything was and meeting new people.  I set my tent up on the roof; the only spaces left were along the barbed wire fence. They suggested that we be careful that we sleep there because there have been a lot of break ins.  But the guard tower is right there, so I am thinking that it will be okay….

That night, one of the volunteers, Jason took me to the local bar called Jo’s.  This is the “hangout spot for the locals and the people on base”.  However, a bar in Haiti is not like a bar back home. It is a small shack with soda and a couple of beers. Usually it is gated and you only enter to buy your drink and leave. Luckily at Jo’s there is a big patio where everyone sits.  We sat there most of the night and everyone hung out; it was good to meet all of the people that I would be working with.  While we were there, I was constantly questioned about drinking…I guess its good to know that no matter where yo go in the world you are constantly peer pressured. hmmm..    Also it is hard explaining in Creole (I am only learning) why I dont drink. Instead they take it as an offense, that yo dont like their kind of beer. I think it may be hard to stand my ground for this trip.

My first day in Haiti was pretty crazy! Everything was just so surreal.  Haiti is just such a beautiful country. Everyone is so gracious, happy and giving.  It is nothing like you see back home, actually seeing this poverty first hand and all of the damage from the earthquake, it is mind-boggling. You really cant fathom what it is like here. It really just seems like mayhem when you drive through the streets here, but people live so peacefully, and it is really actually somewhat organized, in a bizarre way.