Day 1 (Part 1)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

If there is some overlap in my posts I'm sorry. Let's start from the beginning.

Last summer I worked with the Digital Library of the Caribbean at the U.S. embassy. The project coordinator (Brooke) allowed me to crash which amounted to a little more than an hour of sleep before my flight on Monday. She visited Port-au-Prince a couple weeks ago to assess the situation. I haven't read this article, but if you're interested in that, check out this Miami Herald article.

On the flight in I had a good conversation about medical supplies and I'm keeping my eyes open to help that guy/organization out.

Arrival was more chaotic than usual, but the usual mobbing by men who want to help you with your bags. It's pretty standard to pay them (even what they ask) and then have them ask you to pay them more, which is exactly what happened. In Haitian terms I probably paid about three days wages in 15 minutes, but that's ok. I did have a lot of stuff (about 200lbs) and he helped me through the crowd quite well. The power is going out in ten minutes so I can't tell you about my day Monday, but I'll try to get a picture or two up. I also hope to work on the design of this site a bit, but it sounds like life in Leogane will be very busy for the next few days.

I'll leave you with a picture of my very unscientific packing method. It's called spread everything out, stuff it in, and forget your bedding:

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