Time to go

It's my last week in Haiti, so of course, it's been jam-packed with craziness. Katelyn, my replacement, arrived on Monday. She’s amazing and we’ve been having a lot of fun together as I show her the ropes around here. The girls will be in very good hands when I leave, and that makes it a little bit easier for me to go. We’ve been tiring her out with lots of adventures, including the fun of tracking down her missing suitcase in the Port-au-Prince airport. We’ve taken several short hikes up the mountain with some of the kids. On the first one I managed to lose Nate. Turns out he just stopped to explore a cave and then broke his sandal so he took a while to catch up. I threatened to implement a buddy system. Then on the way back down the people at the front of the group stopped at a friend’s house to wait for everyone else to catch up. All the kids arrived and we were just waiting for Nate and Katelyn. 10 minutes later I was really starting to worry, and sent one of the boys up the hill to look for them. Then Nate appeared, running up the hill from the direction of the orphanage. I had several questions, including “How did you get down past us without me noticing?” “What have you done with Katelyn????” and “Where are your shoes?”. Turns out he’d given away the sandals Renick lent him to a little old lady walking barefoot down the gravel road, and then a motorcycle driver offered them a ride down the hill, but Nate forgot the words for ‘right’ and ‘left’ so they took a very roundabout way back to the orphanage and didn’t pass us. Eventually we all made it back, I got Nate and Renick new sandals out of the closet, and we all got mangoes. So it all turned out okay.

Yesterday we went to explore a park Nate and I discovered a while ago and have been wanting to go back to. We figured we would probably have to climb through a broken part of the fence or something, but instead it was really easy. We just gave our IDs to the guards, and they gave us park passes. A very nice manager told us that he couldn’t let us in the upper part of the park because there was heavy construction going on and it was dangerous, but we were welcome to explore the lower part. Which is what we wanted to do anyways. So we had lots of fun climbing in and around half-finished buildings and fountains and swimming pools, chasing after huge lizards, hunting for mangoes (it's mango season, and they are everywhere and delicious and huge) and of course, taking silly pictures. Although that was mostly me.

It kind of felt like we were on an Indiana Jones set.

Angel Cecelia? Or something like that. This building was designed like a greek temple on the outside, and had goats sleeping on the roof, so we referred to it all day as 'The Goat Temple'.

Nate climbed down a storm drain to rescue a chick

Banana leaves make geat hiding places, except for the feet. (No giant crickets this time Mom!)

This is (or would be if it had water) an enormous swimming pool, with a swim-up bar, and a water slide.

In other adventures, we’re trying to organize a building project with a tiny local church up the hill. There’s a team of college students coming next week from Boston, and they’ve raised money to help this church repair their building. So we’ve been meeting with the pastors to hammer out a plan and budget. It has been an adventure in Haitian planning, and has stretched our patience at times, but has also been a lot of fun. We originally sat down with one pastor and asked him to list and prioritize the needs of the church. Then we got an idea of how much money we had, and how many people were coming to help, and went back to the same pastor to ask him to provide a budget and plan for building a new metal roof, new chalkboards and benches, and installing new lights and fans. On Monday the three pastors arrived beaming with plans for a completely new two-story building. Oh Haiti. So we had a long meeting explaining that we have nowhere near that amount of money to spend, talked over more ideas for the project and explained that we want to hire two Haitian workers to direct the team. Yesterday evening they came back again with a realistic budget, but they hadn’t included the two Haitian workers, so we had to go through all that again. Luckily one of our older boys sat down with us to help translate. Throughout this last meeting it became more and more apparent the youngest associate pastor was hitting on me. I was a little slow to pick up on this, as usual. I tried to distract him by introducing Katelyn, and then the head pastor asked what denomination she was, so we were trying to explain Calvary Chapel, which prompted Mano and the two older pastors to get into an exuberant theological debate. Katelyn was worried she’d offended someone, but I assured her that this was normal, and they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. (A few months ago I attended a baptism service at their church, during which the Pastor Emmanuel and several people in the congregation had a 30-minute debate on the finer theological points of baptism in the middle of the sermon). The young pastor took this opportunity to ask for my email and phone number, and left me with a letter that could be interpreted as a marriage proposal. The theological debate was about to wrap up and Nate opened his mouth to launch into goodbyes, when Mano got a twinkle in his eye and interjected, “So Cecelia over here is Catholic…”, and that started a lecture on how all Christians are members of one church, Mano jumped up and ducked out of the room to avoid Nate smacking him and to burst out laughing, and I just laughed and thanked the elder pastors for being so supportive of my Catholocism, tried unsuccessfully to convince the younger pastor that he did not need a picture of me on his cell phone, and started the round of goodbyes that would eventually get the pastors out the door. All just a typical business meeting in Haiti, sorta. Maybe minus the almost marriage proposal.

Even though I know I’ll be home in two days (!!!) I can’t quite wrap my head around it. I am quite happy and settled here, and although I am SO excited to see everyone and have a wonderful summer planned, I do not want to leave here. At all. I think this just about every night as I sit on the roof, enjoying the breeze and watching the sun set into the Caribbean while eating a giant fresh mango. I am also worried that it’s going to be very difficult for me to jump back into busy American life. As I put it to a friend this week, “I am very very happy living life at Haitian speed. Which is 10 times slower than psychotic hamster on drugs American speed”. Amusing, but also true. Life just goes a little slower here, people value time much differently, and I like it this way. It’s one of the many things I’ll be trying to hold on to as I come back to the states.

Easter

My Easter in Haiti was much different than it has been in previous years. I spent a lot of it being very homesick, both for home and Swarthmore. But it was so beautiful in different ways that I wasn't expecting. On Maundy thursday, I decided to skip going to church in the afternoon because it was the last day of Kelly and Emma's visit, and they had brought everything to do tie-dye with the kids. So I spent the afternoon twisting t-shirts, shooting people with rubber bands, and trying to convince the kids that yes, the dye really would stain their skin. Overall we ended up with more dye on the shirts than on the kids, so I think it was a success. After that Emma brought out several packs of party balloons she had brought with her. The kids blew them up and predictably started whacking each other upside the head. Pretty soon one got knocked away, and the breeze caught it and sent it flying over the edge of the roof and out over the neighborhood. Everybody stopped and stared as this big yellow balloon hung suspended over the street. And then the kids looked at each other and their eyes lit up with the 'you're thinking what I'm thinking!' look. Everybody blew up three or four balloons, and then stood at the edge of the roof. On the count of three everyone threw their balloons in the air, and then watched in delight as 100 huge colorful balloons floated serenely down the hill in the light of the sunset. Everyone in the neighborhood below stopped what they were doing to watch, we nearly caused several motorcycle accidents, and kids gaped open-mouthed and silent for a moment before they set off in happy shrieking pursuit to try to catch the balloons when they finally landed. It was beautiful, and kind of surreal. I felt like I might be in a Pixar movie, or one of those colorful Sony Bravia Colour commercials (if you haven't seen their bouncy ball spot, go find it on youtube, it's amazing).

On Friday I went to the Good Friday service at Caridad parish, but I had a lot of trouble focusing. I love the Easter week services, it's my favorite part of the year. And I was frustrated that I was missing all of my favorite parts because I don't understand the language very well. I felt lonely and isolated and rushed, and just wanted 10 seconds where I could be still and pray without feeling people's eyes staring into me. It wasn't any of the things I wanted from Good Friday service. But, God is great, and he very quietly let me know several things: first that Easter actually isn't about me, at all. Second that I shouldn't take for granted the beautiful familiarity of liturgy in my own language. And thirdly that Jesus was dead, and that's about as lonely as it gets, so suck it up. (Okay, maybe that's not exactly how he said it...)

Saturday morning we decided to go for a walk. Nate's mom was visiting and wanted to see some of the city. The week before we'd climbed to the top of the mountain, so we decided to try to go the complete opposite direction and try to get down to the ocean.  I looked at a map and scouted my path from the roof, but mostly I was just winging it, as usual. Unfortunately the main road was terribly flooded - I think a water main may have broken - and trying to find a path to walk, rather than wade, was really difficult. This prompted me to turn off the main road much too early. I still knew I had us heading directly towards the ocean, I just hadn't gone as far as I wanted to reach an easy access from the main road. Instead we started winding our way down little streets, through a neighborhood. I do mean 'winding' because none of them kept in the same direction for more than a few hundred feet and it felt like we were in a maze.

I don't quite know how to describe the rest of this. The three of us got quieter and quieter. This was supposed to be a fun jaunt to the 'beach'. Instead we were half-lost, zig-zagging through the tangled streets of the area i'd been trying to avoid, and none of us were having fun anymore. But we felt that the water must be just beyond the next row of houses, so we kept going picking our way along as the neighborhood went from bad to worse, and then you couldn't call it a neighborhood anymore, and then it was definitely a slum, going from bad, to worse, to desperate, to incomprehensible. Cardboard and plastic bags strung together with twine, sitting precariously a few inches above the water on a bank of trash that has slowly accumulated into semi-solid land. Here we'd made it to the bay, the Caribbean ocean! And all I wanted to do was cry, for what should have been a breathtakingly beautiful paradise but is instead a hell on earth. For the naked children scavenging in the trash next to the goats and the pigs. For the young mothers staring at us from dark doorways, too exhausted and desolate to even be surprised at our presence. For the knowledge that every storm that churns up the bay wipes out their flimsy homes and they are at the mercy of the weather and their only barely less destitute neighbors.

What a place to be on Holy Saturday. I felt so strongly that despite my maps and plans God had led me directly to the heart of all that is miserable and wrong in this city, to remind me exactly why this world needs a redeemer and convict me of my complacency.

Back at the orphanage later that afternoon, we hid Easter Eggs for our kids, thanks to Nate's mom bringing lots of Easter candy specifically for this purpose. I wasn't sure it would be a big hit, so I was amazed to see even the girls with attitudes the size of Texas sprinting and elbowing their way down the stairs with the rest when I yelled 'go!'. Watching 40 teenagers shout and scream and squeal with delight and frustration (these kids are sneaky, they find an egg, eat the candy, then replace the egg and hide to watch someone else find it and discover it's already empty...and then they laugh their butt off), I was remembering the people in the houses down by the water, and was so thankful that our kids have been able to have a happy life here.

Sunday morning Nate and his mom came with me to Caridad, where it was packed. You think churches are crowded in the states on Easter? This was insane. And that made it a little hard to concentrate on translating the mass. But it was impossible to not catch the joy that was just radiating from people, especially the old ladies. They were literally dancing in the pews every time there was music, as if to say, "I have been solemn and penitential for all of lent, and now it is time to CELEBRATE gosh darn it!" Truly wonderful. Dr. Bernard and Claudette came down for a wonderful Easter feast, and then invited us up for the rest of the day to Tomasin. So the rest of my Easter was spent covered in babies. And it was there that the restless discontent I'd been holding onto for the past few days - wanting to be celebrating holy week with Tri-Co, thinking of past Easter dinners in the friend's meeting house, wanting an Easter basket, being annoyed that things weren't in English - finally melted away. Holding my favorite baby and playing with several others, watching the sunset light up their beautiful faces, I realized that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

This is Jonathan. When I first came to Haiti he was two months old and the newest baby at the orphanage so he's been my favorite.  He always looks terrified in pictures, (this is the least petrified face of about 20 pictures), but I swear the rest of the time he's smiling, especially when you sing to him.

I LOVE this guy. Always happy. (Notice Janmbelin wrapped around my legs, very annoyed that someone else is getting my attention).

The face pretty much says it all. She may be tiny and adorable, but she is 100% full of Haitian attitude.

Valencia is totally conked out in my lap, and John and I are counting rocks. It's very exciting, we gathered a small crowd. Oh, and Emily slides into my back, I tickle her, and then she climbs up to do it again. That's also what's happening with Samuel and Nate's mom on the right.

Up up and away!

Most of you probably know that I really like to climb things. (I really dislike climbing down, but that rarely stops me anymore). Trees, roofs, sculptures, monuments, ruins...pretty much anything is fair game. Mountains have a special pull, and I have a mental list of heights that I desperately wanted to climb but didn't have time to (the Petit and Gran Pitons in St Lucia, and the bluff at Corrymeela, especially), and that I am itching to return and conquer. The orphanage is settled into the base of the mountain ridge that marks the southern edge of Port-au-Prince, so I've been looking at these mountains every day for months, and Friday I finally got to climb them!

Thursday night I looked at googlemaps and sketched what looked like it might be a route to the top on a piece of notebook paper. In several places the paths didn't connect and I just drew arrows to signify "climb straight up the hill until you find the other road". I also tried to add terrain features, and contour lines to help me follow. Mostly it looked like modern art. 

Friday morning we set out after breakfast, armed with water bottles, granola bars, and my oh-so-high-tech map. We started by just continuing up our road until we were out of the city, and the dusty road started to snake along the base of the ridge.  Eventually we decided to ditch the real road, and follow a path up a ravine (this was one of my arrows on the map). 

We know up is the general direction we want. And this donkey-path is going up. Let's do it.

Only half-way, and the view is already incredible! Also, when did the path disappear?

Whatever, paths are for sissies. I'll just climb up this ravine that's so steep it had to be terraced to be in any way useful.

Eventually we were basically rock-climbing up terraces, and then carefully picking our way across the terraces to avoid stepping on beans and corn growing there. How the farmers get up/down there to take care of the crops, or haul out the harvest, I do not know. There were lots of beautiful flowers, rock lizards, and best of all, singing birds! The only birds around the orphanage are pigeons, so it was so nice to hear and see beautiful song-birds.

Zandolit (pronounced zahn-doh-leet. Sounds so much cooler than 'lizard')

After pulling my way up one particularly tricky ledge, I turned to warn Nate about a loose rock, and then turned to find myself nose-to-nose with a cow. I about had a heart-attack. The poor cow probably did too. I squealed something very intelligent along the lines of "IT'S A COW!!!" and nearly fell back down the ledge, but caught myself, saying, "oh, it's a cow. Okay, just a cow. cool. whew." Then Nate and I stood there puzzling and puzzling over how in hell the cow got to be tied on that terrace, or was ever going to leave. If we could barely climb up or down, how was a cow going to do it?? Still wondering about that one. 

So she kind of looks threatening in this picture. But she's actually just pouting and backing away. She'd probably never seen a white person before. Now the poor thing believes in ghosts.

After stopping for a rest, passing some farmers who were quite amused to see two white kids struggling up the ravine, and encountering several varieties of stinging/thorny plants, we finally made it to the road. Probably the happiest I have ever been to see a road before (and I am using the term 'road' loosely here). This was probably the nicest part of the whole hike. The road followed a very gradual incline and wound along the side of the ridge, with incredible views of the city and ocean. 

Look how it's like we're level with the clouds. Crazy gorgeous.

 

We met an adorable donkey, a very threatening, smelly, and HUGE bull, who was luckily tied a fair ways off the road (so glad I didn't run into him coming up the ravine!), and lots and lots of really cute goats. After seven months here, I still had yet to touch a Haitian goat, they're very skittish. So with all these goats staked out by the road, and theoretically unable to escape, I was on a mission. But no matter how slowly and non-threateningly I approached, I always got rejected. :(  

King of the hill.

"Just because I'm small and cute doesn't mean I'm stupid. There is nothing in your hand."

At one point we came around a bend and saw one of the most impressive trees I have ever seen, growing out of the side of a cliff. And, of course, I climbed it, much to the amusement of a bunch of little kids who came around the bend and were shocked and delighted to find a blan way up in a tree. I'm pretty sure I overheard this conversation: 

boy - how did she get up there? 

girl - she climbed. duh.

boy - no she didn't, blans can't climb trees.

girl - that's stupid, yes they can. 

boy - no they can't! 

girl - well how did she get up there then? 

boy - ummmm...

And yes, I did climb all the way up and then down from there without help.

Shortly after this we decided to leave the road and start heading in a more upward direction. We followed a footpath that led us through a tiny village tucked into some trees, where we skirted nervously around an angry dog, tried to avoid stepping on a flock of spazzy chicks that couldn't figure out which way to run, and surprising the heck out of several old ladies and giving them something to talk about for the next week. Then the path led us out of the trees and steeply up a grassy slope. By this point Nate and I were both exhausted (we don't get much/any exercise here, so we're really out of shape) and I was stopping every hundred feet or so to rest.

Paths are for sissies? Yeah, well, that would be me at this point. My legs are done with working, thanks very much

The "top" of the mountain turned out to be a rather vague concept, and every time I thought we were there another little ridge appeared. Finally I stopped short in front of a farmer's field, unable to walk through it without destroying all the new corn. We decided this was "top" enough, and plonked down underneath a convenient tree to eat the snacks we brought and drink the last of our water (why did we think one water bottle each would be enough?). The view was breathtaking, the breeze was lovely, the grass was comfortable...so of course I fell asleep. Only for a few minutes, I think. Oops. I earned it, I guess.

Post-nap victory picture

Now that we had a second wind, we decided to wander down the mountain by a different way. We could see that we had come a lot farther east than we'd intended, so we decided to start by walking along the crest of the ridge. Here I FINALLY found a friendly goat.

Aww hey little buddy. So glad I finally found you. 

Later we started walking past some huge mansions, apparently a good road comes up the backside of the mountain. We were able to look out over to the valley and dry riverbed (dry until rainy season starts next month), and pick out Dr. Bernard's house. There were farms and fields laid out over the hills, like a green patchwork quilt. I was surprised at how much it looked like a mountainous version of Ireland. The soil is so rich here, and the land is capable of producing so much! The problem is that it's difficult to farm on steep hillsides. But with terracing, patience, and tenacity, they do it.

Eventually we left the crest and started winding down the hill. At one point we found raspberry bushes along the path. They were only half-ripe, but I was so excited I ate a whole bunch anyways. Beyond that we found a very large cow standing in the middle of the path. Not as menacing as the bull, but nearly as large, and very much not moving. We faced off for a while, and then without thinking I took a step forward and did a cow wave (for those of you not in the know, this involves moving your arms up and down kinda like you're doing the wave in a stadiu). To my surprise and delight, the cow lumbered off the path. Apparently that arm wave is the universal sign for "move, cow".

Continuing down the hill, the path got worse and worse, until we were rock-hopping along a deep washed out gully. We heard voices calling "blan" and looked back to see two men and a woman standing a little ways behind us motioning for us to come back. They were wearing the uniform of the work crew we'd seen working on the road at the very top of the mountain, and they told us that the path we were following had fallen away from the mountainside a little further down and was very dangerous. They asked where we were going, and when we said Ft. Mekredi they all beamed and motioned for us to come with them down an alternate 'path' that they could follow without hesitation, but I could barely make out. So we zig-zagged down the steep mountainside behind our new friends, hopping down rocky slopes at high speed. I felt like a very tired and dehydrated mountain goat. After nearly an hour of descending so quickly my ears were popping, we came to the edge of the city, and one of the guys stopped at the first vendor we passed and bought water for all of us. So kind of him, and he had no idea how much I needed it; I was starting to feel woozy. After threading through a tangle of alleys we popped out on our street, just above the orphanage. Our guides led us to our door, smiled goodbye, and then parted ways to their own homes. I have no idea how far out of their way they went to bring us home, but we were so so grateful! Yay for random kindness of strangers.

(P.S.Thank you to Nate who took all of these wonderful pictures!)

Life is good...

...because I have this to play with every day.

Three of this, actually. :D

(PS: Darren - you cannot simply cannot argue for hedgehogs in the face of this picture)

The other side of the island

At the beginning of March I went to the Dominican Republic with my parents to visit friends from Virginia who are living in Santo Domingo for two years on a state department posting. I took the bus from P-au-P to Santo Domingo, but I made the newbie mistake of trying to travel across the border on Thursday…which happens to be market day. Fail. So I paid for that by spending over four hours crawling through the border, moving about a bus length every 20 minutes. But I didn’t have it so bad, it was actually the most comfortable bus I have ever been on, and we got to watch a bunch of movies. Four Jim Carrey movies in a row (dubbed in Spanish), then No Country for Old Men (Spanish subtitles), and then German crime thrillers dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles. Quite the experience.

 I was rather flummoxed by the whole customs system at the border. It’s so random and inefficient I think they would actually be better off not even trying to regulate things. It’s not for the faint of heart. The bus stops next to a building that doesn’t look any different from the others, everyone is ordered off the bus, and the driver has all of your passports (or so you’ve been told) so you’re standing in no-man’s-land between countries with no passport. Nerve-wracking to say the least. Then you see a large group of young men shouting and arguing in Spanish and Creole, hauling all the luggage off the bus. You run over and finally establish that they’re just porters, trying to grab your bags and carry them inside for you…for an exorbitant fee. I told them very firmly in three languages to unhand my baggage because I wasn’t going to pay them, and carried my things inside, where a man (supposedly a customs official, with no ID or uniform) directed me to place all my bags on a table, then he dumped them all upside down, roughly searched through the pile, and then tried to convince me to pay him for his trouble. First he asked in Spanish, but I was listening for Creole and didn’t understand. Then he tried Creole but now I was trying to listen for Spanish, and didn’t understand again. He gave up, so I just packed up my things and went back outside, to see that about half of the passengers had simply collected their bags and were waiting by the side of the building. No one seemed to notice or care that they were skipping the customs building entirely. Eventually all the luggage and passengers were chaotically bundled back on the bus, and we crossed the border, although I still had no idea who had my passport, if they had shown it to the proper official, or whether I was entering the country illegally. A few hours later the driver’s assistant finally got around to handing back everyone’s passport, and I saw that it had been stamped. So at least one part of the border crossing was semi-regulated.  I guess they just trust that the passenger on the bus is really Cecelia, not a 50-year old Indian man named Jamil who’s stolen her passport.

Immediately after crossing the border it was like being in a whole different world, not just a different country. Hard to believe it was the same island. Just so much more developed, and not so devastatingly poor. The courthouse and police headquarters in a little podunk town about an hour after the border was bigger and nicer than many of the national government buildings were in Port-au-prince…before the earthquake. After 10 hours on the bus we finally started coming into Santo Domingo, which was so much larger than I expected. As I told Dad when I got off the bus, “I didn’t realize Santo Domingo was, like, a real city, with roads and buildings and stuff!” Yes. Not so eloquent, but really, I was surprised by roads without potholes, and skyscrapers, and shopping malls. Also parking lots! Those don’t exist in Port-au-Prince. 

I had a wonderful time with my parents and our friends the Conaways. We stayed in their lovely apartment (enjoying the 19th floor ocean view), toured the state department offices where Mary Sue works, and visited the orphanage Vern works with (Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, the same organization that runs the children's hospital where mom works in Haiti). There we got spoiled with yet more adorable children, toured the bakery and got fresh bread, visited the special needs house, and then got invited to tea with a bunch of the volunteers at the house of the orphanage director, who happens to be Irish, so the tea was wonderful. I got to meet several of the orphanage volunteers, as well as some peace corps volunteers who live in the area, and hear about what they do.  

Kattia, in the special needs house at NPH Casa Hogar in the DR.

After all that, we headed to Vern’s favorite restaurant, which happens to be on a beautiful beach.  I’ve been looking at the Caribbean ocean every day for six months and FINALLY got to actually touch it! We did a lot of snorkeling; in one 20 minute swim I found at least 30 kind of fish, lots of coral, a sting ray with ruffly edges, and a 3-foot long sea snake. The next day we joined a very international group (Spanish, French, German, Danish, Russian, Dominican, and Haitian) for a boat ride out to an island called Catalina where we spent the afternoon snorkeling. Dad and I were standing on the empty beach talking about how this would be a perfect place to take some Captain Jack Sparrow pictures, if only we had a bottle of rum…and we looked down at our feet and there was an empty green bottle tucked into some seaweed at the waters edge. Many silly pictures followed.

Captain Jack Sparrow..."but why is all the rum gone?"

Caribbean! Beautiful, blue, very warm water.

Sunday we walked around the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. Lots of very old buildings built by Columbus, or someone related to him. In a church where lots of famous people were buried, we stopped to admire a fresco on the arched ceiling. A tourguide jumped in to explain that this fresco represents hell on the left side, and heaven on the right. “When I die, heaven is where I want to go so I can be with John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Michael Jackson.” An interesting trio, no?

We also visited a big fort (apparently I didn’t notice the names of any of the things we visited). We walked the walls and turrets, climbed on the cannons, sat on the more modern tanks and machine guns on display, and explored the castle at the center. Later, at the impressive ruins of the oldest hospital in the Western hemisphere we saw more pigeons than I have ever seen in one place, ever. And consequently, no one actually wanted to walk into the ruins for fear of being pooped on.

At the end of our walk we met up with a large group of the Conaway’s friends to have dinner at a restaurant where all the waiters were dressed like pirates. Lots of fun, and fantastic food. The next day after dad left for the airport, mom and I returned the colonial zone and just wandered around window shopping, eating ice cream, visiting the amber museum, enjoying the sunshine, and walking home along the ocean. It felt more like Europe than the Caribbean, and a whole world away from Haiti. That night we decided to go see the movie Rango. We sort of forgot that of course the movie would be in Spanish, but honestly I think it might have been even funnier in Spanish than it is in English. I’ll have to watch it again when I get home and compare. Despite not understanding most of the dialogue, mom and I still laughed our heads off and had a great time.

On Tuesday we took the bus back to Haiti with a ridiculous amount of luggage (Mom brought all sorts of supplies for the children’s hospital and therapy center), and enjoyed the beautiful drive through the mountains to Port-au-Prince. The border crossing was much faster without the market day crowds, and this time they didn’t even bother taking the luggage off the bus. Mom spent a few days with me at the orphanage, and then went over to the NPH hospital in Tabarre, where she did pool therapy and started to train some of the Haitian employees in pool therapy as well. I went to visit her right before she left, and had a great time playing with kids in the pool, playing with the kids in the abandoned baby room at the hospital, and later going out for drinks with several of the amazing NPH workers. Our group consisted of an Irish physical therapist, two Argentinian physical therapists, a Canadian nun/occupational therapist, a German social worker, two Haitian girls my age, and then my mom and I. A ridiculously fun group of people, and I could totally see myself being them in a few years.