Day 2 - Jasmine

So today, we met the community kids. They welcomed us, cheered, almost instantly we were all shaking hands, exchanging names and playing hand games! Tippo, Dennis, Rolan and Reggie, the leaders of the community gave us a tour. We saw the school facility that houses the primary, secondary and kindergarten. The schools are closed right now so about 3000 teenagers go to other towns like goanaive (excuse my spellings!) since they have more activities to keep them occupied. Some children don't come back after the summer, the ones that come back are quite different because they're exposed to a more engaging lifestyle, some of the girls that return are pregnant.It is the lack of a youth center that reinforces their community- not only so it solves the above mentioned problems but so they can host football games, invite other teams of tournaments, expand their sports facilities and instroduce volleyball for girls. Anyways, going back to the tour, we saw the kitchen facility that provides the kids with food everyday, it smlled pretty delicious! There's more than I assumed going on here in terms of construction. Another school is under construction. They basically use concrete/ cinder blocks to build. Everything within the gated compoud, the mission itseld looks pretty good. However, the houses to the outside could use some work.. we have pictures Tom will posting soon so you'd know what we're talking about (nothing beats the tent towns in PP though).




We came back and presented the project to Altenor, the principal beneficiary of all the projects here. Mike briefed them with project. His response- he liked the idea of inccorporating the culture of la croix into this project, that it would enhance the image of the area. He said this project will put value into the children and encourage them to not only excel in soccer but also in music and academics. He was also interested in the idea of linking the graduating kids from the schools here to ISU so they could get the oppertunity to futher their education and come bakc to the communinty to better it.



Later in the day we saw the hospital facilitated by the mission for the community. The basic general medical practitioner's office and the maternity ward that was in another building. It was impressive to see all this up and running. In adjacent areas, we saw a man-made pond, the intention of which was to culture fish. But this project was clearly not seen through to its completion. The fish were exhausted by the locals before they could complete their reproduction cycle, bamboo house made by the women of the community. The highpoint of the day was watching one of the Haitian kids climb up a coconut tree, Scott following him and doing us proud, and the wonderul coonut water that followed the event.



After a long day of clearing out the site of weeds, using small rocks to level the out the to be bb field, an eventful soccer game which involved kristen getting hit in the head (no she wasn't even playing), we got back for the most delightful dinner and it's time for bed! Tomorrow, Danette, Nadia and I goto PP to meet with Yves and a few other contacts Danette has. Everyone else will goto Gonaive to see the condition of shipping containers available. So yes, I'll call it a day. More tomorrow! Gnite! -Jasmine