Days 17 & 18 (10/01 – 02)

Saturday – After a full day out of the office yesterday, today was a catch-up day inside. Time to decipher and transcribe my notes on the site visits; download, label and organize the pictures; and make a list of the things I want to talk about with the EMH engineers. I also did an inspection and evaluation of the Swiss House – one of the buildings at the Guest House complex that will be part of the Renovation Project. (Did I mention that the Guest House complex used to be the Swiss Embassy compound in Haiti?) I’m looking forward to church tomorrow morning and an R & R afternoon.

Sunday – This morning we (Tom, John, Eric, our driver, and Natalie and Jessica, the daughter and niece of one of the cooks at the Guest House) went up into the hills above Petionville to the little community of Thomasin. The church there does not have an ordained minister so Pastor Tom goes up once a month and does the communion service. Tom enlisted me to sing a couple of songs with him – which I was happy to do.

We came back to the Guest House, changed into cooler clothes and went to the Sugar Cane Park near the airport where they were having a food fair. The park has a museum and historical displays of equipment used in the early days of the sugar cane industry. It was very interesting to see. The food fair was showcasing products made and produced in Haiti and although the public was invited, it was primarily for people in the hospitality industry and relief organizations. We had a great lunch at one of the booths and looked at all the food and beverage items currently being produced in Haiti. Rum and coffee were prominent. I was surprised to learn that Guiness has a bottling plant in Haiti. You never know where you’re going to run into an Irishman.

I tried to buy a T shirt at the Prestige (Haitian Beer) booth, but they weren’t for sale. Darn! Guess I’ll have to make a field trip to the brewery some time – for educational purposes only, you understand. We got back to the Guest House just in time for dinner. For some reason we just weren’t that hungry.

All in all it was a very fun and relaxing day. Tomorrow I’m on the road again heading to Thomas and St. Marcs. The lull is over. We have 4 teams coming in this week.