Day 10

Today is my sister's birthday. I am going to try and skype with her in a bit. I'm excited to talk with her.

This place can be overwhelming. I have not blogged much because I have been busy or just tired from all the heat. It is extremely hot here. Michele you were not kidding. I live right in the city and it is so loud that it is hard to sleep without ear plugs every night and the roosters wake people up at 4:30 or 5am. Then the next thing to wake you are the dogs barking and barking. Being that i am a morning person and actually mornings are the quietest time of the day I love it.

I can't describe how people live here. Most people have dirt floors and live under tarps with walls. there is a tent city in Jacmel but I have not seen it. The women of Haiti are amazing, but they don't really talk to us. There was one woman who spoke to us yesterday and it was a rarity. My thoughts are that they don't know English as well. I watch them work each day and the ladies who work at the boarding house I live in are awesome as well. Cooking and cleaning each day are so much work. Then there are the kids to take care of.

I am working on a website for a friend Cesar Jean Charles here who is trying to open a school of Languages for adults. This is where Yleinia and myself have been teaching English. It is difficult to work here doing websites or anything because the web is not running all the time or even most the time. It makes doing that kinda work hard. My Kreole is getting better everyday and I am picking up some French.

I feel what this country needs is education. There are so many people work hard here but now working 'smart' so to say. Little things like meetings and efficiency do not really matter here. It can be so frustrating. Madam Cocot just brought us Chocolate cream of wheat for breakfast. She takes care of us. I am trying to work out a deal with a friend here to pay for a boys schooling for a year. One thing I have taken for granted in my life is free public education. The public schools are not free here. I have only been here a week and I have many many times children want to go to school and they cannot afford to. So if I can I will be paying for one child to have schooling and uniform and housing for a year. I will keep you updated if that is what will happen.

It is amazing to see hundreds of children walking the streets in their uniforms and they all have huge smiles on their faces. Andrew and Ryan with Global Colors are building a school here for children that would not have to pay to attend. One of the first things I did here was help out Pastor Abraham building a temporary school out of bamboo and card board. Parents are still nervous to send their children to concrete housing structures.

All of these issues are just the education issue here. There are so many other issues like the port and trying to get it rebuilt to bring tourism back to the area. and bring money here to help the people. The Haitian people I have had contact with love their country and love Jacmel. Yes they want to visit the United States, but I don't believe they want to live there.

I know that I am having a different experience than other aid groups that come to the area. It is because I am here longer than most other people here. Majority of the groups come here for 10 days and are gone. Where they come for a specific purpose and attain their goal and leave. My task here is to help the Haitian people understand the need for change and educate them to work with the aid groups.

Just in the English class the people there are so thankful for me to be here, so they can learn English and have someone to practice their language skills. My work at the medical depot organizing all the information there and doing data entry so we can have a working depot with free medicine for southern Haiti is important. Teaching the staff there to manage themselves and to work in a way that is efficiency.

I know when I was stateside, I would ask Cesar what do the people need and he would tell me "they need people" I was confused. I get it now. They do not need physical things here in Jacmel. They need people to help get things, businesses, schools up and running again. They need people who can commit to a while here to work through the long process of setting up a depot the right way so it is easy to run. Not just organize things on a shelf call it a day and pack up without teaching them how to inventory or how to manage a staff or how to use the computer system (which is a complicated excel spreadsheet). I know that sounds like they should know how to do all of that but they don't.

So I will do my little part and help when and where I can.