Day 5

4AM couldn’t have come sooner… I finally passed out last night around midnight and took a short nap and woke up about 3:30AM and jumped in the shower and got ready for a long drive. We left the hotel about 4:30AM and drove to Port-au-Prince. The drive is long and mostly on roads that aren’t paved. Driving through Hinche we could see kids, standing under the few street light posts available here, studying. 4:30 in the morning and these kids are up studying under a street light for their exams. After we get outside of Hinche I took a nap until our car broke down going down a mountain:


We stopped for a short time while Gaston fixed our car and I snapped some pictures. Finally Gaston got the car running and we continued to Port-au-Prince. Once we finally reached the city we headed for a furniture store in Delmas a section of Port-au-Prince. Once we got to the store Jenna, Dustin, and James started shopping for the items on the list for the orphanage while the rest of the group kicked back and hung out.

As you can see I love to shop.

While we continued to shop Darly and one of our drivers headed for the airport. It was good getting to know Darly he is a cool guy and I wish he could have stayed longer but I know he was excited to get back to the states, hot showers and three meals a day.


Once we finished shopping we had to find a truck to transport the items we just purchased. So we got in the van and cruised around Port-au-Prince looking for a delivery guy to transport the items to Hinche. This is basically done by driving around and looking for big trucks and asking how much they will charge to deliver some items to Hinche. After some negotiation and many offers we picked a driver out and got him to follow us back to the furniture store. In looking for a driver we drove around Port-au-Prince for about 20minutes. We passed by the slum of Cite de Soilie in the process. I have always been curious about Haiti’s most notorious slum but it didn’t look too rough compared to the rest of the country on the outside. It is positioned next to a huge landfill. Once we met up with the truck driver we had a list of storage buildings we had to drive to, too pick up the merchandise we had bought. This task like many other tasks in Haiti took forever and it was filled with lots of sitting around doing nothing. I stayed in the van through most of the process and slept. Finally though we were done and ready to get lunch. The van broke down again right after we had left from loading the truck. Now that the van was broken down most of the group piled into our first van and headed to the van dealership, while Davidson, Pascal and I stayed with the broke down van and waited for everyone else to come back with a new van. The first van could only hold five people so Davidson, Pascal and I volunteered to stay behind.


We hung out for about 30minutes in the heat for everyone else get back with our new van. Then we loaded into the van and headed to the restaurant for lunch. We normally eat in Petionville for lunch if we are in Port-au-Prince. The restaurant is an upscale French restaurant that is one of the best in Port-au-Prince I’m told. I order the same thing I got last time we were ate there which is the Penne au Poulet, which basically is pasta with chicken. It is cooked in a spicy sauce and is very good. After eating their we pile back in the van and head back to Hinche. We spent that whole day in Port-au-Prince and I got some pretty good pictures of the Delmas, Cite de Soilie, Petionville sub cities of Port-au-Prince. They can be viewed by visiting my facebook account.

The ride back to Hinche sucked to be honest. I don’t even want to blog about the experience but it wasn’t fun being crammed in the backseat of a van on a 4 hour bumpy ride in the dark. But anyway we arrived back to the hotel sometime around midnight and called it a night.

Day 4

I woke up this morning at my usual time and decided to go back to sleep. I wake up every morning about 6:00am when the roosters at our hotel start making noise and it is usually day light in Haiti around 6AM any how. I normally wake up and decide an extra hour of sleep is way more important than breakfast and go back to sleep only to have to get up at 7:15 and scrabble to be ready to depart for the day at 7:30am. I usually roll into the break fast area about 7:30ish to sit long enough for a banana and coffee while everyone else finishes up their breakfast. We then head out to the orphanage to do our work for the day.

We had finished cleaning the visitors quarters yesterday so, we started on the administration building today. Same deal as yesterday we had to clean each room top to bottom. Four rooms and two bathrooms. I usually work with Daryl and together we clean out two rooms. It’s more fun to clean with a partner because you have someone to talk to. Daryl and I have become fast friends and always have a good laugh while cleaning. We spent the whole day cleaning out the administration building, skipping lunch again in the process. I have to come to find that while we are working here we live like fortunate Haitians, eating before and then after work. Two meals a day… After work we pile into the van and head to the hotel for diner. We get to the hotel and I grab a shower and head for diner. We eat breakfast and diner everyday at the hotel. Diner is always late, we order our diner everyday before leaving in the morning. Rice and beans or spaghetti… huge variety of choices I know but this is Haiti. I usually stick with rice and beans. Even though we place our diner order at 7 AM every morning we never eat diner on time. If we tell the hotel staff we will eat diner at 4PM we wont get our food until about 5:30PM, tell them 5:30PM and we are lucky to get the food by 6:00PM. It hard to explain to situation but we run on Haitian time here, and Haitian time for our hotel staff means when ever they want to get diner ready then that’s when we eat. Diner is basically the same thing every night. We have the choice of rice and beans or spaghetti. We also get a plate of french fries and if you order the rice and beans you get a meat option of chicken. I stick with the rice and beans and bring a can of tuna along with me to add. I also add french fries and ketchup to all of this making, riceandbeanstunafriesketchup. Its not bad:


After diner today we go with our construction manager back to the orphanage site to check how well the generator works and how well lit the orphanage is at night. We go and check out the orphanage at night and everything seems in order and we head back into town. On the way we stop off at a market store in town. Now this is like a supermarket in Haiti but it looks like a convince store in the US. It even has a real register that scans items! This is Darlys last night with us in Haiti so I deem it fit to get a couple bottles to celebrate. I pick up a bottle of a Chilean wine called Valdivieso and Darly gets a bottle of Haitian rum. We get back to the hotel and Darly and I immediately kick off the celebration. Valdivieso is a sparkling wine and isn’t too strong so we kill that in the first 15 minutes of our soiree. The Haitian rum on the other hand was quite strong and after a cup of that I was about ready for bed. Tomorrow we head back to Port-au-Prince to drop Darly off at the airport and do some shopping for appliances for the orphanage. We are leaving at 4AM so I’m not too thrilled.

Day 3

Getting up at 7:30AM is now starting to become normal, my usual wake summer wake up time is around noon so the past couple of mornings have been rough. I was late for breakfast and just grabbed a croissant and a water and headed to the van. We first headed to pick up cleaning supplies at a local store in downtown Hinche. Mops, brooms, glass cleaner, buckets, pine sol, and many other clean utensils we got. I didn’t hang around much to see how much all of it cost but I’m sure it was a ridiculous amount of money being that all the things we bought have to be imported into the country. We also stopped and bought some fans for inside the buildings. The shop we bought the fans from didn’t have electricity, so Dustin and James went across the street to a shop that did have electricity and made sure they worked. Next we went to purchase more drinks (coke and water). We buy bottled water and coke everyday, it would make more sense if we just bought a big quantity of it at once but we just buy the drinks and ice for our cooler before heading out to work for the day. While we were stopped buying our items I decided to get out of the van and introduce myself to the people we buy our drinks from everyday. I met three little girls named Yoland, CiCi, and Stefanie.


I sat and talked with them and Stefanie’s mother for about 5 minutes showing them pictures of people who have bought I love Haiti T-shirts from me. Haitians really get a big kick out of seeing all the people I have sold shirts to and taken pictures with. They smile and laugh. Every picture I have taken with a girl they ask if this is my girl friend, and I say no es zanmi mwen (no its my friend) they usually always laugh about that. All of my black friends who have bought a shirt from me they ask if that person is Haitian and I say no il amerikan. It really is a lot of fun showing the album around and letting Haitians see all my good friends that have supported their country with money and the awareness and love the shirt shows. After that we headed back to the hotel to grab things that we had forgotten. Finally we headed on the bumpy road to the orphanage.

Once we got to the orphanage we started unloading the van and got straight to cleaning. We started on the visitors quarters. Each and every room need to be swept and mopped and the window slides needed to be cleaned again. Four rooms total and two bathrooms. We went to work sweeping, and mopping. None of these buildings have air conditioning and it sometimes is even hotter in the buildings than it is outside. We skipped lunch again, to continue working taking advantage of the daylight we had, the buildings don’t have electricity yet. Finally we finished all the rooms and bathrooms and that concluded our work for the day. James took some of the group to see the orphanage school that is being built right next to the orphanage compound. I decided that taking a nap under a tree sounded more appealing, so I’ll check out the school some other time. Once they came back we loaded back into the van and headed back to the hotel.



Daryl and I cleaning.. its so much fun!

We got a litte break before we headed out for diner so I decided to take a shower. During the day we don’t have power because the generator is only on at night. So I took a cold shower in the dark. The shower I have doesn’t really have a shower head, its more like a faucet. None the less after a long days work I would shower in any cold water even if it came out of a straw. The soap I shower with is a medicated soap the hotel provides us with. Its called Fitso and is suppose to eliminate and protect me from bacteria. The water people shower with in Haiti isn’t safe to drink so I guess the soap helps. Even though I shower in dirty water my soap is designed to kill the bacteria… makes sense?? Well anyway I’m sure to keep my mouth closed during my showers and I use bottled water to brush my teeth. To be honest I don’t even wash my hands in the water from the faucet. I have hand sanitizer that I use to cleanse my hands. After my shower I got dressed and hung out around the pool area with Dustin, Jenna and Darly before we departed for diner. .

We were having diner at another hotel here in Hinche. This hotel is located on the other side of the city and the roads leading to it are three times worse than the roads to the orphanage compound. Finally we arrive to the hotel and it pretty far outside of downtown Hinche. The hotel is located on top of a hill and is very well put together. The landscaping and hotel design was very impressive. We walked into the bar and restaurant area and sat down. We were brought a typical Haitian meal, rice and beans, some sort of meat (in this case it was chicken), plantain, and a vegetable tray. Haven skipped lunch I was starving so I loaded my plate with, rice and beans, some corn from the veggie tray and put some creole sauce on top of all of it. I’m not a big fan of plantain so I didn’t even bother getting any. I brought with me two packets light tuna that I had brought from the states. I just tore into those and mixed it in with my rice and beans, corn, and creole sauce. Two plates of that and a coke was diner. After diner we headed back to our hotel. When we got back we made plans for the next day and headed to our rooms.

Day 2

Today started out at 7:30 AM like most mornings will being that breakfast is served at this time. I ate half a banana and a granola bar for breakfast. After breakfast we headed out to the orphanage building site to check on the progress the construction workers were making. The orphanage is a short ride out side of Hinche. I later learned that the orphanage is located in a small community called Morique. The roads were still wet from last nights rain making the ride even more uncomfortable. Eventually we entered the orphanage compound. The orphanage construction is a work in progress. It wasn’t nearly as complete as I had pictured. While all the buildings and facilities are complete, finishing touches such as sealing doors (from animal entry) and fixing leaky roofs was not. Almost every building we toured needed some finishing touch done. Including getting the inside cleaned (sweep and mop). Gaston is the construction manager for the project and over sees almost all the construction done on the property.

After touring the orphanage site we all sat and talk about the work projects ahead to get the orphanage up and running. Wisney joined our group because he over sees the work being done for center of hope. After our meeting we planned to focus on getting the visitor quarters and administration building done first. In completing this first we will be able to leave the hotel we are staying at in Hinche and live at the orphanage. This accomplishes two things, saves us money from the room rental fee at the hotel and puts us in a better position to work more on the orphanage. Gaston has called in four more workers form Port-au-Prince to speed up construction on the orphanage. Workers in Port-au-Prince are usually more skilled and quicker at completing tasks correctly.

After surveying the work to be done this month we got back in out van and headed back into town to run some errands. First we stopped and got water and cokes. I normally don’t drink any soda but when I’m in Haiti I drink it just to keep my blood sugar level up. After getting drinks we went to get a cooler and ice. We bought a basic smaller than usual ice chest for $50.00 USD, we could have got this at walmart for $10.00 USD back in the states but because these types of things have to be flown into Haiti, or produced in the Dominican and then brought to Haiti, they are much more expensive. After purchasing our over priced cooler we headed to the bank to get Dustin and Jenna added on to Center of Hope’s account. If I haven’t already mentioned it Dustin and Jena will be staying in Haiti for a year to be administrators of the orphanage. The wait for them to be put on the account took almost two hours. Simple tasks like adding someone on a bank account take forever in Haiti. While in the states this could be a 10 minute process, it turned into a two hour ordeal. A two hour wait in a van outside a bank. I used the time to catch up on sleep and took a nap in the back seat. Finally after that we headed back to the hotel.

Once we returned to the hotel I met up with Davidson Toussaint. Davidson and I will be working with a group of children while I am in Haiti teaching them about Haitian History and the importance of getting an education. I introduced Davidson to the rest of the group and we head to meet Dena , another member of our group. After meet and greets James, David and I headed to my hotel room to discuss the projects David and I will be doing. After we got done going over the project we decided to run them by Winsely and ask him to get a good number kids for us to talk to. The plan is for sometime this weekend meet up with the kids and pass out gifts and talk with them about education. I managed to bring 200 toothbrushes and a good amount of children's clothes with me to Haiti. Toward the end of fundraising I ask people if I could use their shirt money to purchase these items to take to Haiti. After our meeting I had some down time so of course I took a nap before diner. Diner was the usual rice and beans and for our meat entrée we had turkey. (All the meat we eat, we can see roaming around the hotel grounds, turkeys, chickens and goats) The past couple days it has rained every night and tonight was no different. I don’t mind the rain too much as it makes the temperature much more cooler. After diner I headed back to my room for a shower, journal entry, a bit of reading and eventually some sleep.

The luxurious Maguana Inn

I stayed at the Maguana Hotel which is located in the center of Hinche, Haiti. It is the second best hotel located in Hinche. It even has a contintial breakfast!! All you can eat bananas and of course coffee. There is no power in the city of Hinche but the hotel does have a generator that runs from about 6pm to 10am. Here is the room I stayed in:










My room at the Maguana had a AC unit, bathroom, frig and even a TV. I was unable to use the TV because the cable outlet was too far from the elecrical outlet. It was either have power for the TV, or be able to hook the TV up the cable outlet but have no elecricity to run the TV.. I don't watch much TV anyway. On top of my hotel room is a cistern that collects rain water and thats what I shower in. There is no water pressure so it is like showering under a water facuet.





I enjoyed my stay at the Maguana.

Day 1

I met up with Dustin and Jenna this morning before we flew out to PaP from Miami. We arrived at the Port au Prince Airport around 11:00PM and took a shuttle bus a short distance to baggage claim. The original baggage claim area at the airport was damaged from the earthquake I'm guessing so they had a new one set up. It was extremely hot going through customs and in the baggage claim area. No AC just fans blowing around hot air in a crowded area full of people and luggage. All of my bags, thankfully, arrived safe and sound to baggage claim. After collecting our luggage we waited for the rest of group to arrive and then headed out to meet our driver. Its always the same story when leaving the PaP airport. Taxi drivers begging you to let them give you lift, trying to lie to you and say they are suppose to pick you up, or trying to help you carry your bags to your ride. No matter how many times you tell them to stop trying to help with your luggage they insist on helping anyway. "No mesi, souple no mesi" (No thank you, please no thank you) This doesn’t bother me as much as others, hey if they want to carry one of my bags go ahead just don’t run off with it, or expect me to give you any money after I repeatedly asked you to not carry my things. On the walk out of the airport along the chain link fence are kids begging for any money. While these kids are begging they don’t do it in timid fashion. It’s basically them screaming at you trying to get you to give them your attention. “Dread, Dread, ou remnen Ayiti?! Aye, Dread, Puss!!” That’s what one particular kid screamed at me the whole walk to met our driver Gaston.

After meeting Gaston we had the taxi drivers that insisted on helping us carry our bags despite our repeated attempts for them to not, load our bags in the van. It was a tight fit but everything made it in and we set off to run some errands in Port-au-Prince before we headed to Hinche. We extended our van rental, got gas, stopped at out drivers house, and ate at a restaurant in Petionville. Driving around Port-au-Prince you can still see the after math of the January quake. Ruins and half toppled buildings still littered the area. In Petionville we stopped and got gas across the street from where a three story hospital had collapsed. Tent cities were also another common sight. I recall seeing three or four of them as we drove around port. Evenually we left Port-au-Prince and made the long 3 hour drive to Hinche. After a long bumpy ride we arrived to out hotel location in Hinche and checked in for the night.


Earthquake clean up and Tent cities. Almost all the earthquake clean up is done by hand. Hundreds of thousands of people who lost their homes in the earthquake live in scattered tent cities throught Port-au-Prince.

Here is the journey

Before I post my day to day journal I would like to try and describe my exipeience. Every time I travel to Haiti and spend time there I come back to the states a different person, a better person I would like to think. This trip changed me dramatically because of many different reasons. The people I met, the experiences I experinced, and the memories I made will stay with me forever and have helped make me into the person I am today. I am very thankful for the oppertunity to have been in Haiti and serve.
"The best journeys in life answer questions that in the beginning you didn't even think to ask."

Posts coming soon!

Posts covering my Summer internship with Center of Hope Haiti will posted in the coming days! I apologize for such a long delay!