Day #2–Church Day

 

Dear Blog,

Today was Day 2 in Haiti. When we woke up this morning, we discovered that the water wasn’t working in 2 of the bathrooms! That meant no showers, no flushing the toilet, and no using the sink. Gets interesting with 31 people & only two working bathrooms. But it’s all fixed now! We left early this morning after breakfast to go to church. Some people chose to walk up the mountain and others chose to ride in a truck. When you’re riding in these trucks, you must hold on tight…or you may fall off. Upon arriving at the church, we saw many children waiting outside to go in. Some of the children had walked many miles just to come to the service. Participation in church services is a mandatory part of Mountain Top Ministries. If you are a student at the school, you must also attend church on Sunday. Everyone piled into the church; it was a full house. Willem preached the sermon in Creole. The choir sang as the band played worship music to accompany them.

Everyone who came to the service had such a thirst for God’s word which was quite refreshing. During the service, groups of children also stood up one at a time to recite Bible verses from memory. Jay and Vanda went to the front to thank the congregation for sharing their church with us, and Willem translated into Creole so that everyone could understand. We all left with a very positive impression of the church.

                   

After church, Willem’s son Stephan guided us on a hike through the mountains. We were able to visit some of the homes in the village and have conversations with the villagers. We even stopped by a women’s home who was the owner of a store which was located right next to her house. We walked by a pig farm, saw crops such as onions and cabbage, and we even saw coffee trees. There were a lot of people outside today, and we spoke to everyone we greeted by saying, “Bonjou” which means “hello” in Creole. After the hike, it was time to return to the Guest house. We all got a good workout ) Walking in these mountains makes you really work it out!

           

Ok so now I will talk about the next part of the day.We arrived at the guest house and shared a wonderful meal together, which consisted of chicken (in an amazing sauce) brown rice, bread with a sort of cream cheese, spinach, vegetables, another pink food that was diced up which I can’t identify. We knew we weren’t going to get another meal that day, so everyone was piling it in! lol  After lunch/dinner everyone did a variety of things. Some people took a nap (but not I!) others played games, others played the piano, ate snacks or just relaxed. I played cards with a few others. Then Brian, Willem, & his son Stephen worked on installing a new fuel tank & pump into an ATV – men of many talents!

After things settled down a little, everyone seemed to vanish from the guest house. Jay asked me where everyone was, and I said, “I don’t know!” It was pretty quiet in the late afternoon. So I attempted to organize a little soccer match. I asked Esdras and Matt Strom if they wanted to play. However, they were engaging in a philosophical discourse on Willem and Beth’s balcony. So I asked Big David and he said he would like to play. We went outside and saw Molly, Jay and little David playing soccer so we joined in! Roxanne also came and joined us. The game got pretty ferocious. Matt Febus also decided to play with us a little later. What moves he had! A few people got tired and left the game. But then the game became more intense! We played in front of and inside the gate of the guest house. The area was pretty small , but it was still fun. Stephan also joined in. Little David did a great job, and we were all really impressed. I said to Jay and Molly that he should join a little league team. He is very athletic! He was better than some of us lol

After the meeting some people gathered around to plan more for the school day tomorrow, testing calculators and discussing classroom plans. Saturday and Sunday were leisure days, but tomorrow it will be time to get to work. We are looking forward to the week.

I hope you enjoyed it!

P.S The weather here is lovely

<3 Morgan

Day # 1–Arrived

Very, early morning today.  Last night, we slept at the airport on benches, the floor, and air mattresses (why didn’t I think of that comfy option?!).  Pretty sure that the average amount of sleep among the team was about 3 hours – the airport announcements every 15 minutes, reminding us not to leave luggage, how to rent a car, etc., made deep sleep difficult.  We’ll write this off as an adventurous way to start the trip!

Our flight into Port a Prince went flawlessly, Willem met us before we even went through customs (his presence just seems to make everything go smoothly), and it was one of the smoothest times through the airport that I’ve ever had. 

The Haitian newbies experienced their first nail-biting ride to the guesthouse (we have no idea how the ‘rules’ of the road in Haiti work, but they’re definitely different than rule-following Americans!).  We then were welcomed by Beth and enjoyed breakfast  at the guesthouse before most of the team headed up to Gramothe for a chance to see the village and all of the new construction that has happened.  A few of the guys stayed back at the guesthouse and caught up on sleep. 

Brian, Micah, and Kim stayed at Gramothe for the afternoon and helped the U of I Chicago medical team in the clinic storeroom by counting pills & sorting/organizing medications.  The rest of us hiked down the mountain and back to the guesthouse.  We had a fun time taking the shortcut route, and laughing about the steepness of it.  Roxanne and I are pretty sure we won’t be attempting again because we were tired!  And humbled as we were passed by several young children and elderly women wearing old flip-flops.  We had a tag along of a little girl who followed  us from Gramothe.  By the end of the walk she was holding hands with Merv, chatting in her limited english and filling in the details with Morgan in french.

Those of us that didn’t take 6 hour naps (uhh hum, Strom, Esdras & David ) are headed to bed early now.  Tomorrow is church morning and then another afternoon around the guesthouse.  It feels good to be here.

Molly

First leg of travel complete

We have all made it to Ft. Lauderdale without any issues and are starting to get settled in for the night (in the brightly lit airport terminal!) before out next flight.  Will try to post again tomorrow from Haiti!

Heading to Haiti

Over Spring Break, Illini Life will be sending a team of 14 people back to Haiti for a week.  About half of our team are returning members while the other half will be experiencing Haiti for the first time. 

We will be be working with Mountaintop Ministries (MTM), which is located in the mountains about 15 miles out of Port-a-Prince.  Our work will be directly done in the village of Gramothe.  Check out our blog from last year to hear more about 2011's trip.

Our current understanding is that our team will focus on three different areas. 

• One group will be working in their school's computer lab to help maintain/clean/trouble-shoot the current equipment.  We hope to train at least one student to help maintain the computer lab as a technician.  We may also have the opportunity to teach some basic computer classes to teachers and/or high school students. 
• One group will be teaching at the high school.  They will be working with students, engaging hands-on with science labs (with a focus on chemistry).  There is also a possibility to work with the teachers as well.
• One group will be attacking MTM's to-do list with projects ranging from construction on sidewalks/driveway to building/painting houses, etc.

 

There will be a medical team from the University of Chicago overlapping our time there, so our team will get to observe how the clinic is run.

As long as the internet signal cooperates, we'll update this blog in the evenings while we are in Haiti.  Thanks for your support!

The pin shows where we will be in relation to the whole country.