American in the middle

Getting up this morning knowing that it would be our last full day in Haiti was a little deflating but we all knew it was coming. We had really good eggs and toast for breakfast again and were out the door pretty quick. Team black Hilux (our car) traded Drew and Rachel to team silver Patrol for Ethan and Alissa, as well as some draft picks and a player to be named later. That was a pretty good trade since this was the only time this whole week that my entire car didn't fall asleep on me going up and down the mountain. Having someone to talk to was a good change.  We turned on a different road before we got to the place where we had been working and this road was super rough. No pavement, crazy angles, blind turns and 4 wheel drive, it was a blast. We reached true place I thought we would be working and it looked pretty much like the last place except there was a gigantic tree and the views from this place were spectacular. Unfortunately we didn't get to work there but went on about a mile hike to where we would work. It was full of the same little bag thing that we filled the days before but there were weeds in the bags as well as coffee plants. Our job was simply to weed them and we finished that in about an hour. Apparently they thought it would have taken way longer, so they really had nothing else for us to do. Francky decided to just show us around this new place. This was slightly more like farmland than the place we were before in that you could actually tell where forrest started and crops ended. We saw chili plants, avocado trees, cabbage fields, guava trees and some kind of weird plant that grows in rivers. It was so beautiful it was unreal. We went to where we always parked after that to play with kids for the rest of the day. My same little kid found me and wanted to blow bubbles again so I grabbed the wand thing and did that for a long time with him and other kids. He was so funny, he was maybe 4 and would get so excited when ever he blew a big bubble. Jonesey who was another driver an Brett were jumping rope with a stick held with both hands so that distracted pretty much everyone. This lead to a jumping competition which ended with Sean jumping super high over the stick that Oscar (other driver) and I held at like chest height. We played some more and there was a very emotional goodbye when we had to leave. On the drive back we talked to Adias about his life and life in general in Haiti. He asked about the states and we answered him the best we could. We stopped at a road side stand to get some sketchy knock off Haitian redbull (the same stuff as last year if you read back that far) called toro. I bought 1 and Sean bought 4. It still had a really odd taste that is like apple juice but with like grape added. Honestly I'm not sure but it was good. We got back a little early and hung out on the beach. I got a really long walking shot with the help of Matt smith that I'm sure I'll find a use for in the video. After a while the local kids showed up and wanted to play soccer so I went and got the ball. We played keep away on a concrete pad a little ways down the beach. A better way to phrase that would be keep away from the American. There was about 6 Haitian kids playing and maybe 3 adults watching, and me. Considering the last time I played soccer was in high school, and when I did play, I was a goal keeper, my time spent on the outside of the circle was short lived. Occasionally I would get a touch on the ball and get out of the middle. But I would soon get back in after having no ball control compared to these kids. We played for like two hours and I was soaked and very out of breath by the time we were done. I really wish I could have given them the ball but I think it would have hurt more than it helped so it killed me to keep it. I did give some money to Francky for shoes for some kids so maybe that will see it's way to them somehow.  Right after dinner this guy who has kind of been bothering us all week to buy bracelets came up to me with a bunch more that said oak bridge on them. He said Tom ordered them but I know for a fact he didn't. I looked closer and there was more writing on them. Every single one had "oak bridge chunch" on it. The "r" in church had been changed to an "n". I told him he needed to talk to Tom about it then so I'm really not sure what happened after that.  Dinner was great, shrimp gumbo, pork chops, plantains, okra and the requisite rice. We had a 9 song worship set after debrief and all of our drivers came out with us. It was an awesome experience, doing this with the Haitians. Tomorrow we leave for PAP at 7 because we have to take a longer way back. It's gonna be a long day, here we go.