dis is da life: Day 3

Day 3.

I woke up at midnight feeling like I had been tossing and turning for 8 hours. I was ready for the night to be over. When I looked at my clock and realized i had another 6 hours to sleep... I was kinda dreading it. First because I didn't think I would be able to fall asleep and second because I just wanted to get up and get started with the day. I have a problem when traveling or on vacation. I don't like down time. I feel like I'm just wasting time. I'd rather stay out doing things until I'm about to crash. Eventually I fell back asleep.

In the morning I was awakened with the song, "oh what a beautiful morning." blaring on Rhiannon's (we share a room) phone. I feel like I'm normally pretty even tempered, not too much makes me angry (my family may disagree...) But for whatever reason, when I heard that song, I wanted so badly to chuck my shoe at her phone. I didn't. I just listened to it for what seemed like an eternity. It was probably only 15 sec but it was the longestttt 15 seconds. Ever.

I've wanted to go running the last couple mornings but apparently there has been a problem with running in the mornings recently. The past couple times the volunteers have almost been attacked by dogs. Probably not a risk we wanna take here with the wild dogs... soooo no running here. I was pretty tired this morning anyways.

After my warm shower, that's right we still have warm running water, we ate and packed snacks. We were taking a trip to a community that took quite a while to get to.

During breakfast Matt got a call from one of our Moto drivers. He said that his son was sick and he needed Matt to come help him. It was interesting to see how much the people here trust him. Matt ended up taking them to the hospital. He said the little boy was about two, had a fever and was throwing up. Always better to take extra precautions especially when they have so much faith in him.

We all met up with Matt at the Moto drivers house. From there we walked to the taptap station. Here they had many different types of taptap's. Busses, vans, trucks. We squeezed about 17 people in a large van. Since it wasn't open, like a truck, it was quite hot and sweaty. The views on this drive were incredible. We were driving up the side of a mountain. Everything was so lush and green. A lot of the scenery today reminded me of Hawaii. We got off the taptap and took a Moto the rest of the way. This views on this ride were even more amazing! We were riding motorcycles on dirt roads, on the side of a mountain! The view was into a wide open valley of Trees and plants and flowers. I'm not even close to doing it justice so... **see attempted picture while riding the Moto.

In the community, we got a tour of the school and church. While walking through the school we were almost like celebrities. The kids just stare at us and wave. Today I was able to ask the kids what their names were and then I was able to communicate my name. I know in Tarzan it looks like it would be a simple task to communicate with someone who does not speak the same language as you. That is not the case. But! I was able to communicate a little today. It was

The church was kept very clean! It had bench seating through out the whole room. They even had fake flowers hanging for decoration from where I think lights would normally be. In one of the fake hanging flowers birds had made a nest, so the church had a couple "visitors". Matt had been making contact with the pastor of the church there so we were able to hold class in the church.

Today was sustain haiti's second time there. So Matt explained what the goal was and he explained give we would reach it. He's really good and bringing analogies into his explanations. Today he talked about the phrase, "If you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish he'll never go hungry." Matt changed this a little to a seed and a mango tree. He told the class (which consists of mainly elderly) that we would pick three motivated leaders from the group whom we would teach more in depth than just our weekly courses. And after we left they would be able to continue teaching. He also told them that we were training the people who were working at our home with us and that they would also be responsible for continuing education. We then gave them a 3 page pre test which took a couple hours for them to complete. It was mainly just to figure out where they were lacking education and what our curriculum needed to focus on. As they took the test I tried to play with one of the woman's babies. The little girl was probably about one. She let me take her for a little but the whole time she seemed a little scared of me. She had a permanent pout face on while I attempted to entertain her. Apparently she was not amused. I should probably work on my entertaining skills... Or maybe just my Creole.

The pastor was able to help us set up a Moto ride all the back to Leogane so that we didn't have to take a taptap back. The ride was, yet again, so beautiful. My Moto driver was TEXTING WHILE DRIVING. You thought texting in the states was bad. Try riding on the back of a Moto while your driver is texting! And yet I still felt completely safe the entire time - not sarcasm. He was even able to somehow hookup his phone to some speakers that played, it was pretty fancy.

We got home and hung out for the rest of the night. We saw a rainbow. Saw our neighbor collecting mangos off his roof. We tried communicating with him and he handed us a mango from across the roof. We went to the "American market". It had Gatorade, soda, different cookies and candies. And it also exchanged our money.

We also watched a lightening storm. And then!!!! Matt fixed my MOSQUITO NET. He's a genius. I had my fan on as well. I pretty much got the best sleep I've ever had.