Two Weeks In

Sunday, March 14, 2010

So it's been a while. I've been busy getting settled in and into the swing of things. Our days are like this:

Wake up at 6:30, eat breakfest, head to work at 7:30. Stop working at 11:30, eat lunch, nap (or whatever), return to work from 1:30-4:30. Dinner is always followed by a meeting, which can last an hour. By 7:30 we usually have the night to ourselves until lights out at 10pm.

I started working on rubble removal the first couple of days, but then took up a couple of photo projects. We've documented the story behind one house's collapse and I will be finishing that this week hopefully. The second video I'm doing is more of an overview of Project Leogane. That should be done first.

We're staying next door to the Nursing school, which now runs a clinic and a field hospital. HODR people are sorting out their pharmacy and acting as runners to the doctors. The doctors shift out on a weekly basis. They are currently seeing a lot of cases of elephantitis, which goes neglected for years in Haiti due to the lack of access to medical care. Many public health people are appalled at some of the easily preventable diseases they see here. Unfortunately, our economic system doesn't prioritize eradicating diseases. Maybe we should be working on that...

My Kreyol is making great progress. From clearing Haitian children from dangerous areas to "the egg sandwich lady" as she's commonly known, I've been getting a good amount of practice. Just today I was getting a couple of sandwiches and my Kreyol has progressed to the point that I knew they were laughing at my red beard and commenting on my Irish heritage. Some people have picked up on the fact that I can understand a bit more than some others so sometimes they'll call me over to talk to me and watch me stare blankly. "Mwen pa konpran" and then laughter.

I noticed an ounfo a couple of blocks down the street and today found an interesting building, which I can talk about later. I asked one of our interpreters if there were any mapou trees in the area. He answered "no" and followed that with, "wherever there is a mapou there is a devil." This train of thought does not bode well for the mapous.

I went out to a site the other day with our new interpreter, Berlyn. We've been practicing our language skills together. We see mud, we both learn how to say "mud" or "muddy" in another language. It's a good deal. We stopped by a vendor selling books and picked up an English, Kreyol book. We opened it to a random page and found the top phrase to be (censored for some of you) "Oh sh**, shut the f*** up." Seriously? How often does this phrase come up in Haitian Kreyol? We didn't buy the book, but I got a picture to prove it.

I'm going to leave this entry here and try to post some pictures. Clicking on any of the pictures below will take you to my Flickr account where there are many more pictures. I'll try to get some captions on this blog somehow. Sorry for the crappy design. I need help with it!

Labels: Haiti, Kreyol, Leogane