Day 3: The Return to Cardiac Hill.

Today we came down for breakfast at 7 something and had to wait a bit for the staff to be done with it but it was totally worth it.  That's just kind of how island time works down here, the whole attitude toward time is "no rush, it will get done when it gets done".  We had fresh mangos, bananas, French bread, and these really good omelets with cheese, and some kind of meat in them. After breakfast we loaded up and started up the mountain. On the semi-paved mountain roads, we were coming on a hard blind right hand turn and honked in case there was someone coming around the other side. There happened to be a motorcycle with 3 people on it. We went straight around and tagged the driver of the bike's left shoulder with our driver side rear view mirror. He was alright though because the Patrol happened to have the kind of mirrors that fold in when you put pressure on it. Our driver Barry (probably a different spelling but close enough) explained that the other drivers are treated like we are supposed to treat squirrels or opossums in the states. If there are less people in the car coming the other way, you have the right of way and you don't get out of the way, especially on a mountain road with a cliff face on one side and you hit them if they don't move. If you have less people or you aren't sure, you get out of the way. The idea is that it is better to lose 2 lives than 3 for example. The more I'm down here, the more I realize that despite what it looks like, there actually are rules of the road here, and generally speaking, they are pretty safe. I think the fastest we have ever gone is like 55mph on safe, flat, good pavement.

Hope I didn't scare any worried mothers.  Anyway, we turned before we got to the place where we play with the kids and the surroundings started to look pretty familiar. We kept going and ended up at the same gigantic hill that we did last year!

Sorry the pictures of the hill are after we came back up it because I'm stupid and forgot to take pictures on the way down.

When we got down the biggest hill in the world we came to a fairly flat area cut out of the hill.  

Instead of digging pit latrines they had us move rocks for the foundation for the school project. We formed a chain of people and moved them from the "quarry" (which was really just a pile of rocks in a separate part of the mountain), and handed off rocks from about 2 lbs to a few that were about 75 lbs. There were a few that might have been pushing 110-120 but for those, the biggest guys (read: all 8 guys) made a separate chain and moved those down.

After that, we did the same thing but this time we went to where the rocks were originally broken from and carried those up part of the hill. It was at this point Tony handed me a rock with a spider the size of a small Volvo on it and being that it was the last thing on earth that I expected to be 6 inches from my face, I jumped back and Shelob fell on to my leg and then jumped to the ground and took off (theres my Lord Of The Rings reference for the day). After a while of the group passing rocks up Mt. Cardiac Arrest, we finished most of the rocks and we will finish the rest tomorrow.

Since Tony, Alex, and I were positioned right next to where the rocks started and were right next to one of our guides and translators we talked to them for a little bit. They asked some questions about the states and we asked them about Haiti. Eventually one of the guides pointed over to a part of the brush and there was an even bigger spider there. This one was slow moving enough for me to get a picture of.

Naturally, being around kids with bare feet we had to kill it, so one of the guides Marc hit it with a hammer. After the guide killed it, Justin picked it up and we scared Laura and Taylor with it. This happened at about noon, and it's 10:45 now and Laura has almost forgiven us, totally worth it. After we were done the kids started playing with us and Shelby got mobbed by girls who started braiding her hair. 

We starting walking up the gigantic, crazy steep hill and got back up to the cars. Only resting once or twice along the way. I started running when Barry started running up the hill for no reason. By the top I was winded but it felt good. When we loaded up the cars and got back to the place where we played with the kids, we saw Tiwil (we've been calling him Tooie) Brett's kid from last year.

*thats him in the brown shirt and baseball hat*

We played with the kids for a bit and I taught a lot of the kids how to throw a baseball. I would love one day or Haiti to be as big on baseball as the Dominican Republic. I had a blast and the kids actually seemed interested. It started to rain so we had to leave before the roads became so bad we couldn't leave. So when we got back we had down time and we got to go to the beach and hang out. Dinner was really good, chicken, kebabs, and rice. After dinner we debriefed and worshiped. We did our PODs and now I'm super tired and now I'm going to bed. Night all, I'll write more tomorrow.