Mirebalais, Haiti
Thursday, October 9, 2003
Hello friends and family! I am in Mirebalais 3 hours northeast of Port au Prince. I will live in for the next two years this town. I am replacing a volunteer named Lisa Yokoyama who is moving to DC. If you run into her, be nice! I will be moving into her house, which has electricity, a large yard and a water spigot. I will also inherit her furniture so I have it easy. There are three other volunteers very close by as well, it could be worse or better depending on how you look at it! Lisa has been working closely with a professional school that teaches a few different trades, a goat husbandry project and she is starting a beekeeping project. I will take over her role in this projects and I have large shoes to fill. The organization she works with also wants to start fish farming so I am very excited about that as well. For the first three months, I am not supposed to do anything but observe but Lisa has so many balls already rolling that that might be difficult. I am on a site visit as are the other volunteers and we are all getting to know about our new communities. I am meeting all the important people in town like the judges, the police, the mayor, the teachers, the heads of organizations, etc. As I understand it, I will be on TV on Saturday night as well. I did not expect my 15 minutes of fame to come in Haiti! This past Monday we visited USAID Haiti and met with the Ambassador. He seems like a great person and his wife is a former PC Volunteer so he is supportive of what we are doing. We had pizza and boy was that a treat. Don't get me wrong, I love goat and rice and beans but it's nice to change it up a bit! Oh, my host mom would not stop crying when I left for this weeklong trip. It really touched me. I kept trying to reassure that I would be back in a week but she was still sad. It will really be tough for both of us when I come to Mirebalais in November. She has been a great help for me with learning Creole and learning about Haiti, not to mention an all-round good friend. Thank you everyone for the wonderful e-mails and I apologize that I do not usually have time to reply but only read your letters. I am able to travel after February 8th, so if anyone wants to visit in February, we would have a great time going to Carnival and exploring Haiti. There are volunteers all over Haiti so there is always a place to stay! Also, I hope that my previous entries did not express a sentiment that I feel like it is impossible to help the people in Haiti. I believe it is difficult to help people in Haiti because this is what I have been told over and over again by the Peace Corps, other organizations and Haitians themselves but I and I believe the rest of the volunteers are far from discouraged and are we far from throwing are hands up in frustration. There are so many things that can be done and so many relationships to be made and, while difficult, success is far from impossible. I hope that my entries express a strong enthusiasm for what lies ahead because I am enthused! Til next time, Bye Bye!
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