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.