May 8-16

I went to the countryside on Saturday with Randall and Anita as well as Tony and Avency. It was an interesting experience driving out of Port-au-Prince, as the roads are very bad and then got ripply after the earthquake. They're settling a bit now, but it's still pretty bumpy. We stopped to pick up a man who isn't able to get out much, and he rode with us in the back of the vehicle where there was space for him to stretch out his leg. He was caught under a multi-storey building in the first earthquake, and his leg was entirely smashed. It was going to be amputated but the doctors found a way to save it. It was amazing to see how well he has recovered so far, though. He is walking a bit without a crutch, and is still healing. We drove with him into the country by the ocean and through a small town to visit a lady named Phyllis who has been doing missions work in Haiti for years. We saw the area where the grass fire had been, which was very near to her house.
We made a number of visits on the way back. We stopped at one house and drank coconut milk from coconuts that some Haitians hacked open with machetes. It was a very different experience. We also stopped at an orphanage for supper and had fellowship with the people who ran it. It was an odd and rather eye opening experience. We arrived home very late at night in the rain. It rains a lot here since it is the rainy season.
Through the week I taught geometry and helped with after school supervision. It is enjoyable to interact with the kids and get to know them better.

May 1-7

Throughout this week I've been working more in the school, teaching geometry to one class and helping in another with similar material. I'm trying to minister to the kids and gain an understanding of what they've gone through in the past few months. Some are really struggling. Each day I hear more horrifying stories about the devestation of the earthquake, and it's hard for me to understand because I've never been through that. There was an aftershock a couple days ago that shook up a lot of people, but I actually didn't feel it. It was a 4.4 quake, I believe - Randall and Anita had a crack in their wall that was open and after the aftershock it closed up again. It's freaky.
I've been out to a number of places in the last week. It's extremelly hot here, but we still walk most places. I walked up to Peitonville a few days ago to buy some food. The markets here are crazy. Amidst the rubble there are people trying to sell produce and other goods. Some of it looks questionable. There were chicken legs sitting, stinking in the sun, covered with flies. You can buy so much stuff in the market, but some of it is of a worrisome quality.
Tonight there is a dinner dance party for the students, and I'm helping to prepare the food. We've been walking to different grocery stores and figuring out what kinds of food are in the country, what is cheapest, and what the students would best like. It's a difficulty because different stores have different things, and sometimes it's hard to find what you're looking for since everything is imported. Tony and I have been working on the dessert for the event over the past few days, and it's been a lot of work and great fun. Tonight the teachers are serving the students and we are cooking the food in Tony's kitchen. I'm going to help serve and I hope that through this we can show the students that we can still have a fun time in the midst of calamity.

April 26-30

For the past few days I've been hanging around the school, helping to teach and supervise the kids and help Tony with his classes. I'm trying to I've been trying really hard to learn the kids' names and get to know them a bit. Yesterday I taught geometry and watched another class that was doing a test. I'm mostly caught up on sleep now and feel better than when I first got here. It's been more of a relaxing week since I've been staying at the school most of the time.
I met Randall and Anita yesterday - I'll be working with them a lot since I can go into the country now (the malaria medication has kicked in). We got to know each other a bit and went to supper together. It was great to finally get to meet them, and they're a very sweet couple.
After supper we took a chilling and traumatizing drive through Port-au-Prince. It's really horrific how many collapsed buildings there are. It's traumatizing because you can see the different stories that are all now flat on top of each other. Just flat. Tents abound within the parks.
It's very dusty and a lot of smashed debris is pushed onto the streets. I was scarred by how it looked at night so I can't imagine how awful it would be in the daytime.

April 24/25

After a bit of a rest, now I have the energy to talk about my trip! I left Calgary at around 2:15 on Saturday and went through security and all that fine. I got through the airport at Dallas okay, even though it was only a 40 minute stop. It wasn't any problem at all. The flights were really long and had quite a bit of turbulents, but it didn't really upset me except that my stomach didn't feel the greatest on any of the flights. I arrived there at around 11:30 Miami time, which was ahead of schedule a bit - I still had to wait until around 6:00 for the next plane. I managed to sleep a little bit but there was a really loud TV and an alarm that went every 15 minutes. There were only five of us in that area of the airport and the lights were dark and it was kind of creepy. Miami airport is disgusting and freezing cold at night. The flight from Miami left a bit late, but we got to Haiti quite a bit early. I managed to get everywhere I needed to, and got through customs and picked up my luggage okay. It was opened but everything seemed to be there. Since my flight was earlier and I went out earlier, Tony wasn't there yet, so I waited... it wasn't that bad, but it was annoying. Haitians did bug me about taxi rides and cell phones and weren't impressed that I didn't speak Creole. I only had to wait for about five minutes and then Tony came! We arrived safely back at the school after navigating some bumpy roads and traffic jams.