Day 9

Today's wake up time wasn’t that bad. 7:30AM!! I woke up and went straight to breakfast. I had bread and nuttlea along with pineapple for breakfast. After breakfast we set a 8:30AM departure time for work at the orphanage. Today at the orphanage Dena, Pascal, Davidson and I were responsible for cleaning the walls of the visitors quarters. James, Jenna and Dustin went into town with Winsley to handle some business. Washing walls is my least favorite cleaning activity, to be honest after having to work the past several days inside the visitors quarters and administration building I want to get outside and do something else than put together furniture or repeatedly clean rooms. I understand that getting the visitors quarters is necessary but I am yearning to get outside, instead of being cooped up all day inside buildings. After scrubbing walls for a couple hours I needed a break from all the inside work so I decided to assist the construction workers. I moved rocks to a location we were landscaping along the road to the orphanage. While an America work crew could have loaded an back hoe or gator full of rocks and transported them, we had to carry rocks from the rock pile all the way over to the rock line we created. After completing the rock work it was time to head on lunch break. After lunch break I helped finish washing walls and began to set up new locks with James in the visitors quarters. The security had lost or misplaced some of the keys from the previous locks so they needed changing out... All the locks.. After changing out my second lock it began to rain. When it rains in Haiti it rains quite a bit so we had to pack up for the day because the roads frequently become over flooded due to the torrential rain thus making them not cross able. We quickly piled into the van and headed to the hotel.

On the ride to the hotel you could see many Haitians heading home, like us, because of the rain. Storm drains began to over flow onto the street. Many streets in Haiti do not have sewage systems, therefore when it rains the streets just completely flood. Makes a nasty walking and living condition. Also when it rains you can see a good amount of the population gathering the rain water for many different purposes. Some collect the rain water in buckets because it is safe drinking water and some use the water running through overhead to shower in.

On they way back to the hotel we stopped at the market so I could pick up a few things. Today is Bastille Day so I deemed it fit to get a bottle of wine. Bastille day is a important holiday to me for several reasons, one being my French heritage and the second being the significance July 14, 1789 has in history. Bastille day is the celebration of the storming of the Bastille in Versailles, France July 14, 1789. It marks the beinging of the French Revolution. This year I got a bottle of Cavalier Blanc de Blancs and a baguette from the market. The Blanc de Blancs soft sparkling wine, the market doesn’t sell and descent wines just sparkling stuff… Diner was the same basic diner I have eaten for the past 8 days. Tunariceandbeansfriesketcup with a Bastille Day touch adding bread and wine.

Happy Bastille Day!

I haven’t been able to find a decent wine glass at any shops here in Hinche and I’m sure if I did it would be extremely overpriced so I made one out of a top of a water bottle. After diner we played cards for a bit more then headed to our rooms for the night.