Day 4

I went back to the same site today. We had a really great crew and we got alot of work done. We finished all of the walls of the hospital and we finished the trusses as well. We got one wall vertical before we left for the day. There were some good events that are worth mentioning.

1. I rediscovered the greatness of Coca-Cola. I had been yearning for something American for the past few days. I decided to go buy a bottle of Coke. It was so delicious, and it gave me some comfort away from home while I was hammering trusses and walls. In fact, I'm drinking one right now.

2. Throwing rocks at Haitians isn't a good idea. While we were at the job site, a huge mob formed. Haitians were picking up pieces of wood that we were using to build them a hospital, and one guy had a machete in his hand. They were running back and forth screaming at each other. There were two camps, one from a shanty village, another from a shanty village up the road. I asked one of the Haitians working with us what was going on. He explained that someone threw a rock and it hit a girl in the head and put her in the hospital. The girl was from the shanty town up the road and the rock-thrower was from the other shanty town. Miraculously, nothing came of the scrum. It seemed like the cooler heads prevailed. For a minute there, I thought all hell was about to break loose.

3. I don't like Haitian food. At first it was spicy and ethnic, which are both qualities that I like. The monotony of rice and beans and the funky undertones of some of the sauces have really began to bother me. Tonight I took one bite of dinner and spit it back into the bowl. I felt bad because a Haitian named Jober was sitting at the table with me and I made a disgusted noise when I spit it out. I hope I didn't offend him. I had to toss out my dinner, the sauce was putrid. I got my headlamp on and walked down the dusty pitch black street to a street vendor who was selling egg sandwiches on baguettes with butter, ketchup, hot sauce and onions. It was very good. I think I may be eating these exclusively now. Additionally, I had another coke.

4. I am beginning to accept that I am here until next Friday. The first few days were really tough. I was mentally scheming ways to get out of this situation, but I slowly began to get over the shock of having to take bucket showers, sweat myself to sleep in a room with 60 people, and use non-flushing toilets, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I still loathe all of these things, but I am living in the lap of luxury compared to 99.9% of Haitians. So I deal...and I'll have to deal until the morning of March 19, 2010.

*Additionally, the female bathroom here has some unsound structural elements, so they have now made the bathrooms co-ed. So yeah...I'll deal.

Tomorrow I am signed up to help build the fence around the hospital that I was working on for the last two days. In the afternoon, I signed up for "playtime", which is essentially playing with Haitian kids. This is totally out of character for me (just ask my younger cousins), but I figure everything that I have done on this trip has been out of character, so I'll give it a shot. I'll bring my camera too.

In closing, it is the best of times, it is the worst of times, but I'll survive. I just wish I could find a place that had good buffalo wings and a nice beer selection.

Until tomorrow, ladies and gentleman.