Days 25 &26 (10/9 – 10/10)

Sunday – Today we got a team off to Hinche and then went to a church in Duplan another community in the hills above Petionville. It is a very nice small church and VIM teams have built a clinic there. The services in Haiti are long by US standards. They last for 2 or 2 ½ hours. But the music is fun and the worship is enthusiastic. Duplan actually has a very good choir – the first I’ve seen or heard in Haiti. They even sang a song in English in honor of our being there. I shot some video and will try to post it – still having difficulties with that. Maybe I can post just the audio portion. I’ll keep trying.

 After the church service we were invited to a birthday party at Reverend Gessner Paul’s house. Pastor Paul is the President of the EMH (Englise Methodiste d’Haiti – The Haitian Methodist Church) and it was his 60^th birthday. It was a great birthday lunch replete with traditional Haitian food, champagne and birthday cake. We celebrated with members of his family and some of his staff and arrived back at the Guest House just in time for dinner – I don’t think I’m going to lose any weight this trip. Sarah, Tom and I then went upstairs to the office and caught up on some paper work and emails and then watched a couple of old episodes of “The Office” – not my favorite, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Monday – This was a very productive day. I finished my inspection and evaluation of the Swiss House – one of the buildings in the Guest House complex. I’ve got two more rooms to finish in the Guest House itself and I’ll be done with that phase of the project. Next is the costing phase and then the actual writing of the grant proposal. Still a lot of work to do, but I’m making progress.

I’m still doing site visits on the Haiti Home Assistance part of my job. This takes a little more time because I have to schedule transportation and coordinate with the “home” owner. And as I’ve mentioned before a short trip can take several hours. But, I’m managing to get 4 or 5 a week done. I’m already into the costing phase on some of the sites I’ve already visited – so I’m making progress on this project also.

Tonight the VIM staff (Tom, John, Sarah and I) went out to Hangs – a sports bar/restaurant not too far away and had a hamburger (the best I’ve had in Haiti to date). It was great to get away for a little while and unwind. When we got back my brother called on Skype and we were able talk for a little while. It’s nice to hear from home.

My Sacramento team arrives in a week and I’m really looking forward to sharing this experience with my friends. Can’t believe that I’ve been here almost a month.