Crazy Cat Lady: Haiti, Day 7

This morning we had to be on the bus by 6:45am. We headed to SOIL, Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods, to meet with Corinne. Corinne told us about SOIL, its history, and its goals. SOIL creates bathrooms that turn waste into compost. This can then be used in local farms and gardens as the dirt in Haiti is not the most nutritious. She walked us over to a permanent latrine they have near their offices, which was a gift to the community. Then we got on the bus and headed to Cité Soleil (the poorest slum in Haiti, also named the most dangerous area in the world by the UN… no joke) where they had a permanent latrine and also a community garden in which the compost was used. It is such a simple, yet neat idea. Corinne said that their next idea is to create toilets that can be used in homes. That way, they will provide sanitation for families for a small fee. Hopefully that works out for them because sanitation is a huge problem here.

Next, we headed to lunch. We went to Mac Epi, a fast food restaurant in Port-au-Prince. They didn’t have any vegetarians options but were willing (we had Harold, the interpreter ask) to make us a cheese sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce. After lunch we headed to the US Embassy. We had a ton of time to get there but traffic came to a sudden halt when we were down the street from the Embassy. We ended up being a bit late and going through security took forever. We had to give them our passports to enter and they kept my camera and backpack. We met with Jon Piechowski, a public affairs officer. He spoke to us about what the Embassy is doing to help Haiti and the different things they are focusing on. He was a really nice guy but basically just gave us superficial responses. It was strange being in a building that was temperature controlled and…. Nice. It’s not that Haiti buildings aren’t nice but they aren’t…. I don’t know how to explain it. Moving on….

Well, after the Embassy we came back to the Compound, hung out, ate dinner, and then watched Game of Thrones (Greg, Ang, & I). I started downloading last night’s episode this morning and it was complete by the time we got home. And now I am typing away at my blog. Our internet here is pretty spotty, so I have to write this in a Word document and then paste it into my blog. Hopefully I can get pictures to upload. I usually start them uploading early, and let it go for an hour or so. Then I paste the written part in and go to bed. By the way, I write these at the end of the day when I am really tired. Which means, if there are grammar mistakes… Don’t judge them too harshly! Also, most of these pictures are taken through the bus window… So if they have a reflection in them…. Whoops. Those are my disclaimers for the evening.