It's Tuesday afternoon, and we finally have internet, so I will attempt to catch up on my posts...

Friday 2/20

Greetings from Haiti! There has been a change in the Internet service here, since my last visit. As of now, the Internet is not available at night, but should be available in the morning. I've decided to try to write every night and just post it when I can.

 I met up with my new group at JFK airport, and no surprise, they're lovely. On my last trip I heard all about Janan and Levi, Dr. Joe and Linda's daughter and son-in-law (they are both RNs), who happen to be in this trip, along with some of their friends. HFH is hosting a Medical Conference tomorrow, so this team is loaded with Medical professionals. To back track a bit, we all flew into PAP (Port Au Prince) without problems, our Haitian staff wrangled all of our luggage, we loaded into the trucks, and hit the road. I spent half the trip in the back of one of the Jeeps, until I became frighteningly close to becoming a Vomiting Veronica, and moved into a window seat. It's so wonderful to be back in Haiti so soon since my last visit. The weather today is much cooler than in October, although I didn't mind it then, and I took my usual couple hundred photographs on the drive in. When we arrived at the compound in Terre Blanche, we were greeted by a crowd of Haitian staff and a group of giggling children. My translator from my last trip, Celestine, had no idea I was coming on this trip. When he saw me, he started yelling and smiling and ran up to me with a huge hug! He called his wife immediately, and she will find a way to visit me while I'm here. What a wonderful welcome. :) We unloaded our luggage, quickly got our personal stuff sorted in our rooms, and sat down to dinner. Similar to my last trip, I have not met any of my fellow team members (except Dr. Joe and Linda), and most of them know each other. I'm enjoying just sitting in the background and listening to them interact with each other, I really like these people. After dinner, we all went to work preparing the Swag Bags and lecture material for the conference attendees. I feel incredibly lucky to be on this trip, and I've already spent some time with a couple of the Dr.s who will be giving lectures tomorrow, to discuss the use of ultrasound in diagnosing the tropical diseases seen here in Haiti. 

I just took a quick blog break to go on a mini walkabout. Some of us were sitting around the table, when Linda suggested we go down to the classroom kitchen to see what the women were up to for tomorrow. After preparing and feeding almost 20 of us dinner, and cleaning up after, our wonderful kitchen staff headed over to the big kitchen to prepare food for the 100+ attendees of tomorrow's conference. Today, 2 goats and a whole mess of chickens graciously gave the ultimate sacrifice! I have some amazing photos, but as with the last trip, I will have to wait until I get home to post them. The classroom kitchen is a room in the cinder block school building, equipped with one lightbulb and a  charcoal fueled "stove". The women were all squatting on the ground, around various bowls and pots of meat and fruit. A couple of the women were peeling limes, while the rest were cutting up the goats. Levi, Linda and Joe's son-in-law, explained to me the incredible process of how they butcher the goats here. The hide is not useful in the tropics, but the skin and all other parts are eaten in various ways. Once the goat is killed and bled, a rod or stick is used on the leg to separate the fascia and hide from the meat. Children will then blow air up into the space, eventually separating the entire skin from the meat. Then the skin is boiled and the children use razor blades to shave the hair from the hide, before cooking it. Don't panic, I missed the show and will not be sharing any photos of this process...although, I admit, I am quite curious to see it! Most of the crew has tucked in for the night, I'm going on a scarce couple of hours of sleep, and the rest of them took the red eye in from Portland, so we are all running out of steam. I'm hopeful that I will be able to post this sometime tomorrow. Hope all is well stateside. Bon nwit! Ox