Day 2

Hello everybody!

Well, as you can tell, we made it to Haiti okay. The plane trips were smooth, and getting through Haitian customs was a hastle as they all seem to be grumpy and few speak english, but we did it. Once through customs we took our first breath of Haitian air... and it smelled like smoking the wrong end of a Cuban cigar. I'm telling you people, the air here is so polluted from giant piles of burning garbage that you absolutely cannot escape from it. It's okay though, its hot and humid here, just the way I like it. The mosquitos aren't that bad. A lot of the team members went to REI and bought 100% deet, which is the most potent possible bug repellent, and I think it's working... for the most part. Once out of the airport, Haitian men all tried to grab our bags and carry them to their taxis in a desperate attempt to win our buisness among people begging for handouts. It was intimidating to say the least. Our guide found us and led us, running, to a van where we all squeezed in and made a periouls journey through the worst streets I've ever seen in my life in Port Au Prince, the capitol. I've been to several countries, but this BY FAR was the craziest driving experince. The streets are crowded with beat up pickup trucks adapted to be taxis (Tap Taps) and motorcylces primarily. As we zoomed by overcrowded vehicles we were hit twice by motorcycles who, unphased, kept going and went around us. That among other things is why the condition of the vehicles is so poor; no paved roads, ambiguous road signs (if any), and a total disregard for the side of the street to drive on. But enough about the roads, I'll move on... After about two hours just trying to get through the chaos of Port Au Prince, there were another two hours of twisty mountain roads to get to Jacmel where we are staying. By that time I had volunteed to ride with the Guide (Thony) in his truck, and that was a great choice because I bombarded him with questions about the language, the culture, himselft, and everything else in between.
Some thing's I've learned:
We pa We- see it or not see it. Whatever will happen will happen. A haitian saying I saw graffiti'd onto a shack and asked about.

I've learned Haitian goat it good, Haitian water is bad. No diahrea yet.

Sak Passe- What's happening? Map Boule- Just chillin.

I've learned Haitians are beautiful.

Diri= rice

I've learned Haitians are freakin crunk. Those guys can DAAAAANCEE!

Today we went out into the town of Jacmel for the first time. They really need and love us there. I feel like I'm doing a lot of good, and this is no vacation. They are the poorest I've ever seen, but very polite and VERY loving. They share absolutely everything. Trying out my Haitian Creole, I accidently told a little girl and her sister that I was thirsty, and they left and returned with two ziplock baggies full of water and gave them to me... my heart broke into a million peices.


-Sarah

Kerry G: Today was our first day of VBS. We taught the kids the story about the prodigal son and then we did a skit to better enhance the lesson. The cool thing was, the Haitian people reenacted our skit so you could see that what we did really had an effect on them. We had anywhere from 150-200 people show up at the church ranging anywhere from 2 years old to 35 years old. It was so great. They have a great memory also. There are 3 Emily's on this trip and they were able to identify Emily 1, Emily 2, and Emily 3 individually. So after the skit we sang a song in English, it was Jesus Loves Me... and they sang us a song in creole. Then was arts and crafts time... which should really have been called "Yanni getting tackled by a mob of children" or "Haitian children learn to share". Yanni pulled out the paper that the kids could color on... and literally got trampled. The children went nuts over crayons too. Josh took crayons and broke them to make more... that didn't go over so well. It was hard making them understand that that was sharing without using english. The language barrier is definitely something that is frustrating, to say the least. However, we've been blessed with two awesome translators: Thony and Allen and we ran into a girl from New York who agreed to help us as well. Please keep her in your prayers- her name is Jasmine. After arts and crafts we went to a restaurant in Jacmel and had a great mean. MJ at fish eyes. Then we rested for a little bit before heading to the soccer field. Soccer gets serious, to say the least... and everyone wants to barter for your clothing and shoes too. We met some great people. The older children and people in their 20's can sometimes speak decent english, enough to teach us as much as we want... and enough for us to teach them. We even met one guy who could speak fluent spanish, so I began speaking to him through that, then he told me he was fluent in french, creole, and portuguese, and he could speak some english and french... but he had never left Haiti. Talk about random, but gifted. We also met a midwife from Canada today. She's the only white person I've seen here besides us. She moved here and is trying to start up her own clinic to deliver babies on the island, so please keep her and her desires in your prayers as well.
As far as us, please pray that we don't see the "Haiti Hello's" or the "Sak Passe Squirts"... if you get what I'm saying. Keep the children in your prayers, as well as the language barrier situation (it's getting better though), Jasmine, our safety, and that we can be flexible under the ever changing circumstances
Praise: Jasmine, VBS went great, the children here are so loveable, being blessed with great translators... the ones that are with us and the ones we met along the way, and being blessed with such a strong unity among our group

That's all I can think of. Thanks for you time. We miss you & love you guys.