We got to spend some quality time yesterday with the people of Zorange - one thing we love about these smaller trips. Tara and Kristen pretended to be international journalists for the day (hello, dream job!) and interviewed many of the employees of and people impacted by HFHF. We videoed each interview and plan on including a story in each email update (which we promise we'll send out more often- hopefully at least once a month. Brace your inboxes and hold us to it!) We won't tell you too much yet - don't want to spoil it - but there were stories that made us smile and might have made us cry a little (ok, I'll call myself out-this is Kristen and I'm a softie). Needless to say, we are pumped to share these videos with you! While we "went down to the river bathe" (so refreshing and much needed. We were stinky!), some of the guys joined in a game of futbol,Haiti's pastime. They played "a team from across town", which means across the river and over the mountain! The competition continued after dinner with some intense games of dominoes...played a lot like our Spades. Meanwhile Elizabeth entertained girls from ages 6 to 19 with fun iPhone games. It was so cute to see a group of laughing kids at her feet, and we all loved getting to build relationships with our friends in Haiti.
The internet drama continues, and this blog post is brought to you by the iPhone (and the letter O). The Internet company still isn't giving us our full allowance of bandwidth, and we've figured out that using our phones uses much less space (want to blog from Haiti ? There's an app for that). The IT team has done a great job working in less than ideal conditions and has everything squared away, but Team Haiti is still going to have to travel to Port au Prince to give the company a little talking to, since the lack of service as interfered with some of the needs of the foundation. Some other seriously cool stuff was accomplished yesterday... so cool that we want to dedicate a whole blog post when we get home (hint-clean water!).
We are about to eat lunch (Vierge is making Pate again, our favorite... Like a meat and cheese pastry), and then we are heading to Bainet to stay tonight. Bainet is a city about 10 miles from Zorange (an hour drive) and staying there puts us a little closer to Port au Prince for our flight out Friday. (quick Haiti geography lesson- Haiti is divided into departments or states and we work in the Sud Est, or southeast, department. Departments are divided into cities and those cities into sections...kind of like our counties and cities. Bainet is a city with 9 sections and Zorange is one of those sections. Bainet, where we're staying tonight, is a section of Bainet city - think Durham in Durham county). It's also the site of our future hospital and dorm. Y'all, we want to build this hospital so bad!! Seeing those buildings and their potential makes us so excited to revisit our fundraising efforts and get this hospital operational. We're looking forward to hanging out with the team, processing this week, celebrating what's been accomplished...and maybe going for a little swim in the Caribbean Sea :) We all love it here and are sad to leave but are so thankful for what we've been able to do and excited about some projects put into motion that will grow and have huge future impact. We'll be getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to drive to PAP and fly home. We'll get back late but hope to post a quick blog update letting you know we're safe and sound.
Much love,
Kristen & Tara
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Thanks for keeping us updated Ladies. Your blog has been much appreciated!
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