I have gotten used to sweating all of the time. My body is sure to be toxin free, since it sometimes feels like I'm living in a sauna. Let's just say that there has been a lot of time spent by various bodies of water. At times the heat is uncomfortable, but for the most part I'm adjusting. I am continuing to really enjoy my time here and fortunately haven't been sick up to this point besides the occassional, short-lived stomach ache. They use a lot of oil in their cooking here, so even the change in diet can cause stomach problems.
It's hard to believe that it's been 11 days since I last posted. I have been doing some inventorying and rearranging of the craft shop here, which can be a little tedious, but trying to figure out how to display so much stuff in such a limited space has given me the opportunity to get my creative juices flowing. It's almost become a game. I think I will be helping out another guest house in Port-au-Prince, Norwich House, with a scholarship program they run. It should be a good opportunity and they are really needing the help. Erin and I may be taking some trips in August to rural Haiti to visit some health clinics out there as well.
I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of people who work for international development organizations (as in third world development), which has been helpful for after-college career advice and connections.
I've done a fair share of playing as well. I've been out to a country club type of place, that is open to the public on Wednesdays. The Wednesday night clientel consists mostly of UN officials and other aid workers and the Haitian bourgeois. It's an interesting mix. I went to a beach about an hour outside of PAP last weekend with some of the BC crowd and some of Erin's friends, which was nice. Several of her friends have pools at their houses/apartments so we've been taking advatage of that as well. To date we are keeping ourselves well entertained. The BC students leave in a week. I'll be sad to see them go. They're a fun group and Erin and I will definitely have to work harder at having fun without them here.
I'm sort of getting accustomed to the shoe-shine man who begins ringing his bell just outside my window at about 6 every morning. I atleast can get back to sleep after that until it's time for breakfast at 8. It has taken me a while to realize that my eyes were bothering me because of all the pollution, especially the large clouds of black exhaust that pour from the pipes of large trucks. The black clouds are difficult to avoid when out driving in a vehicle whose ac consists of open windows. Overall I am not missing the comforts of home too badly. Taking cool showers in this heat is really rather refreshing.
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2 comments:
GREAT news that you're doing ok... I know how hard it is to change your lifestyle to allow comfort in a strange country..
How are you doing communicating? Is it getting easier?
Thanks for all of your ecouragement Jamie! Communicating isn't terrible. I have gotten by with speaking a lot of English around Hospice, just because there are so many Americans and English speaking Haitians about. I have used some French (their accents are different than what I'm used to) and I've got about 5 sentences of Creole (which is the first language of about 99% of the population). Creole has some similarities in vocabulary to French, so if I can pick up on a verb that is similar I can kind of guess what the rest of the sentence is. I really should try to learn some more Creole. It's an easier language to learn since there's no conjugatation of verbs.
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