Day 2 was nothing like Day 1. Day 1 was a lot of traveling and a lot of taking the sites, smells, and sounds in. When I say taking those things in that happened all night as well. It seems like just about the time we all were going to bed every night dogs, or Haitians, started fighting in the streets...or dogs fighting Haitians, I wasn't quite sure. Around 2am a rooster would start to crow and around 4:30, when the sun started coming up, people were setting up and shopping at a fish market across the street.
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| Fish Market |
Lets just say they set up about 4:30 and shut it down around 5 pm. Fish, left unrefrigerated, for that long never produces a good smell. Around 2-3pm every day things started smelling pretty fishy around our parts. Right below the balcony that was attached to where we were staying there was a lady that had set up a little restaurant. She cooked by the street in 3 different pot, 1 was chicken, 1 was rice, and 1 was beans, and then had a little tent with 4 chairs in it. Someone would walk up and pay her and then she would "seat" them. Next she would go out and serve up a massive serving of food and take it into the tent to them. They would drag one of the other chairs close to use as a table. The building we were in was technically 4 stories and you could go out on the roof as well. In the mornings and evenings it was coolest up there. Also, that kind of seemed like a storage area because there was a lot of stuff up on the roof. Trash, clothes, portable toilets, car parts, broken window AC unit, and a bird cage. There were a couple nights I went up on the roof because I could not sleep and I realized there were people sleeping on matts up on the roof. Later I realized the orphans that were staying with us would go up there to sleep because of how much cooler it was.
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| Bird cage on roof |
Once we ate breakfast, which was usually an assortment of pop-tarts and granola bars, we would meet for the day. We had a lesson in the morning with our AIM leaders and a time of prayer just to ask god to guide what we did for the day. The first thing we did that day was split up into groups, each group had a translator, and we walked around the tent village we were staying in. AIM was really big on saying, "You don't have to talk to a million people, just build relationships with the ones you do talk to." I think that first day the group I was in, with our translator Fe Fe, stopped at about 3 places. We would ask they were, about their families and friends, how their life had changed since the earthquake, etc. Then they would respond with questions of their own: How old are you? Do you have any children? Are you married? Where are you from? Usually a good conversation would take place. At the end of our conversation we would ask if we could pray with them and we would. It was great just getting to "hang out" with people. My favorite stop of the day however was one lady out on her porch with a guy about my age out front "fixing" cell phones. She asked us to sit and went inside and got us chairs to sit on, also making other family members stand. We had a great time. Turns out the guy fixing cell phones that was his job...his only tool was a pair of busted up pliers, but somehow me managed to fix cell phones! After that we headed back for lunch, which was PB& J sandwiches and Pringles every day. Then after that we did a VBS for the children. We did songs, motions, verses, coloring, and crafts. Lindsey Seeyle was in charge of this and did a great job. She had everything in order and ready to go every day we did a VBS. She got
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| Lindsey @ VBS |
all the other people on board for VBS and excited for it as well. Another big assest for VBS was one of our interpreters, Ramsies. The children loved him and he loved the children. Whenever you couldn't find Ramsies you usually could look in some corner and he would have a coloring book and crayons out and he was coloring pictures. Also, pray for Ramsies because him and his wife our expecting there first child this week I believe! After the VBS excitement we headed back to "base" for debrief and diner. Dinner usually was some sort of chicken dish, rice and beans, and plantains. It was great every night! Then we just go over the day and see how things went for all the teams and people. Usually everyone was in bed by 9 or 10 pm, that is if you could sleep.
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Fearless leaders
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These two guys were two of our AIM leaders. The guy in the red shirt was our project leader, Troy, and the other guy was supports staff, Ryan. Both of these guys were a bast to hang out with and be around. Both have become friends of mine and they are awesome! There were other support staff, but I will discuss them later on! Thats all for now!
