Haiti, Day 3

It is only 8:30pm, but I am fighting to stay awake.  Today was a very long day!  Got up at 6am, posted some pictures on my blog, got dressed, ate breakfast, and hit the bus at 7:45am.  We headed to World Relief, which is an Evangelical NGO.  We spent the morning in lectures from various people from the organization.  The director of Haiti spoke, as did his soon to be replacement, a man who specializes in agribusiness, and another man who works on organizing the church communities.  It was very interesting.  I really appreciated the man who is going to become director of the Haiti branch of World Relief.  He was very honest and said Haiti has a long way to go, he wasn’t very optimistic, and he can’t see it improving too much in the next ten years.  He also went through a list of problems that NGOs tend to run into, which was great.

The talks went until about 12:30pm, we ate lunch (the rice was delicious! It was full of lima beans, carrots, corn, green beans, etc. Yum!), and then we hit the bus.  A man from World Relief, Nate, took us out to a farm that they helped fund and set up.  This farm was a massive piece of land that was divided up into sections that were run by different families and close friends.  Each group decided what to plant and was in charge of taking care of the section; however, they do help each other out when it comes to planting and harvesting.  We were led around by three men (one old, two young).  They did not speak English and were so nice.  They would warn us when we would come across barbed wire and were very patient with us.  One time, the older man stopped me and pantomimed that the plants we were about to walk through would itch my arms, and that I should hold them over my head.  So adorable.

As we wandered around the land, we came across a very small tin shack.  There were several people there and two women were sorting okra.  The women were wearing very thin, worn clothing, and had no shoes on.  They greeted us warmly and graciously posed for pictures for several of the students.  As we stood and talked to them (through our interpreter, Harold) they went and collected several ears of corn and gave it to us in a large sack.  It was amazing.  Here they are, clearly very poor and trying to survive off the land, and they are offering us some of their crop.  It truly rendered us all speechless (except to say ‘merci’ of course).  As we were leaving, two of our tour guides offered to show us their land as well.  So we all loaded back on the bus, drove a short ways, and met them at their farm.  You could tell they were very proud of it, which I loved.

After we left the farms, we headed back to World Relief to drop Nate off.  Next we headed to a grocery store, called Eagle Supermarket.  It was surprisingly nice inside and had an entire aisle dedicated to alcohol.  It was also guarded by several men carrying rifles.  Can you imagine?  Even a grocery store has armed guards.  

Well, that’s about it for this evening.  I am ready for bed and we are leaving at 6:30am tomorrow.  Which, of course, is way too early.  Anyways, things here are pretty good.  I am getting more used to the heat and humidity but the bugs are driving me a little crazy.  Well, to clarify, the bug bites are driving me crazy.  I have at least 30 mosquito bites and about 10 mystery bites on my hands.  The ones on my hands make my fingers swollen and then they itch.  But other than that, it’s all good.  It is currently raining pretty hard and there is the occasional thunder.  I love rainstorms, so that makes me happy.  As they say in Haiti, au revior!