Day 2: First Full Day

Today began with this sunrise, the same one as last year, and it still too my breath away. We went downstairs for breakfast and had fresh fruit, eggs, toast, and this really interesting pumpkin soup that is apparently a special Sunday thing in Haiti. It wasn't bad but I wouldn't really eat it with breakfast. After that everyone who wasn't already dressed up went and got their Sunday clothes on. It was still kind of strange seeing everyone looking so nice in a developing nation but the hotel is so nice that we didn't really notice till we left. When everyone came down we loaded up in to two Nissan Patrols, a Ford Everest, and a Ford Ranger that looked nothing like any Ranger I had ever seen in the States.

Going up the familiar road to the mountain brought back a lot of memories from last year and I wish more people who went could have come back. The road quickly turned from this:

To this:

The road was just as fun as I remembered but the bumpy ride was worth it because upon getting to the same village we worked in last year, we were greeted with this view.

The sheer beauty of this country is just astounding. This picture will never do it justice, it's like trying to describe a color. You can sort of get an idea about it, but until you see it first hand, everything else falls short. Despite having seen it a year ago, I was still floored when we got to the top. At this point we split up in to two groups to go to two different churches, one with Tony speaking (who actually ended up not speaking due to a previously scheduled speaker) and the other with Tom speaking at the same church we were at last year. It wasn't nearly as hot this year due to the fact that some time during the past year the community had either taken down most of the left wall or it fell down and they liked it better that way so they left it.

The format of the service was a little different, they sang a song, prayed, sang a song, prayed and repeated that a few times before their pastor gave a short message and Tom stood up and gave a message about how much is "enough" and what that means. After service we shook everyone's hand and went back down the mountain to someone's front yard (the same place as last year) to play with the kids. Incredibly, when we got there, the little girl that Ellie hung out with, Lonzi, was actually there waiting for us!

Lindsay's little girl Margari was also there. It was pretty incredible to see these kids again after a year, and to have them remember us. 

It was at about this point I stood on an ant hill and started feeling a bunch of little bites all over my legs, even though I had pants on.  These things were so small but they bit like none other. Lindsay and Laura also accidentally stood in the ant hill and got bit but it was nothing a little water couldn't take care of.

We played soccer with the kids and some of the girls did hair and stuff.

At this point, a few of our leaders were asked to come and talk to a council of community leaders there in Chadirac and I was lucky enough to go. They told us that one of the biggest priorities they have is building a school, and that although plans were already in place, they had no idea what it might cost. Tom sort of jumped in and gave a leadership lecture focused on the principle "Don't build till you know the cost" and they seemed pretty interested in what he had to say. The also told us that they had asked the organization that we are with what the cost would be and they said they would never get back to them, so evidently there is some kind of communication mishap going on.

When we got done and went back to the place where we were playing, everyone was pretty much too tired to do do anything else, so we loaded back up looking at this view the whole way.

We got back and had some down time, which I am using to write this right now.

We're roughing it, I know. Anyway some people went to the beach to hang out.

And others did this:

After the light napping, we wet down to dinner where we were served mixed vegetables, rice, lasagna, and goat. The goat wasn't as good as last year, but it might just be that I got a bad piece. After dinner we debriefed inside and listened to Tony's message that he had prepared for earlier today. We went around and said each of our "pictures of the day" or PODs which is just like a little snippet of something that spoke to you during the day. We then spent about an hour in prayer and worship and then one of our guides this week, Wudki thought us a song in Creole, I'd write it down but the spelling would be atrocious, so in English it just talks about reading your Bible and praying.

Tomorrow we start helping the Haitians carry rocks for pit latrines so we will see how that goes.