Living Haiti

One Week...

Today marks my one week anniversary of being in Haiti. Usually at this point I am packing my bags and getting ready to head to the airport to return home. It's strange...I haven't really even begun to unpack yet.

It's been an interesting week. My friend, and fellow HMP supporter, arrived last Saturday...It's been GREAT having him around. We haven't been in Haiti together in a long time and it's been great hanging out with him and getting a little work done. He's funny and we've been able to laugh a lot in the midst of some potentially frustrating situations.

Gertrude arrived home last Sunday. It's crazy to see how differently things work around here when Gertrude is home...she is definitely the boss, and she runs a tight ship. She is unbelievably good at keeping things in order here. She's also had the added stress of having to plan her brother's funeral. She has 5 other brothers and sisters who have been around the house, including one sister who flew in from Africa where she is a nun. The days following have been constant flow of family and friends coming through for business matters, or to give their condelences. This poor woman has had very little time to mourn the loss of her brother. I don't know what the process is here for mourning, but I told her the other night of how when my grandparents passed away, the time that I wasn't helping with things around the house or going to churches or funeral homes, I was curled up in my mom and dad's bed sleeping, because grief exhausted me. I've been encouraging her to sleep...not that she's had much opportunity. The funeral is tomorrow. Tonight family and friends will gather at her mother's house to pray for a couple hours and then they will head to the morgue to view the body, and then the return to the house to pray and be together. Tomorrow morning we will get to the church very early (like 6:30am) and then funeral will begin at 7. It's very interesting to see the process unfold. The morgue wants to charge a ridiculous amount of money for the casket. I know that this is what happens in the States, but here, I just can't imagine who has the money for it. In Haiti there is no fixed price, for anything, at least as far as I can tell...so it's like a game of bargaining whenever you buy anything. I can't imagine going to a morgue and bargaining for the prices for the funeral for a loved one. Probably not your most mentally clear moment. After the funeral, the family will travel south for a day to the family bureal ground to bury him. It seems to be a long exhausting process.

Other than that, Andrew and I have sorted through a lot of donations here at the guesthouse. We checked most of the kids here for their sizes and sorted clothes out that might fit them. We also packed up a bunch of donations to send to the south part of the island. We were also able to accompany a little boy to the hospital for some tests. The excitement on this kid's face when we were leaving for the doctor...priceless. Here's a picture of Andrew and our little friend waiting outside of the hospital.

We're looking forward to today. We're going to see some old friends and get around PAP a little bit. Hopefully we'll be able to accomplish all the things on our very long list of things to do...we'll see!