Haiti Team#1: Day 3

Another cloudy morning, rained overnight. We had scheduled the artisans boutique for this morning but with the rain it was postponed so that they did not have to bring all their artwork up the mountain in the rain. Before church Dave, Darryl, and Jaime were able to go to the Merlet Center and etch the floor where we will be tiling this week.

Church was started this morning on Haitian time (a little late) but when they got going it was full of scripture, song, and passionate preaching by a visiting pastor, Christnor Caririsse. It was about having Jesus in your heart.  The van showed up right after church to take us down the mountain to Jacmel. Today was the first day of Carnevelle (Madi Gras). I am not sure that Pastor Paul wanted us to go to town, but he went along with it. There was a lot of traffic and people in the streets, as we made our way to the "Hands and Feet" orphanage, a beautiful refuge for children that have been brought to them by the social services of Haiti. The staff there is awesome and doing great things. The kids are placed in family units with a house mother, a nanny, and a cook, and up to 10 kids. The children are sent to school to learn and someday become good citizens of their community.

We then headed to the beach with Carnevelle going, which made it a very popular place. In the past we just went and parked the van, and went and played on the beach. This year there was a big wooden wall that had been built and we could not park the van because there was no area left to park it.  So the driver left us at the wall and returned when we needed to be picked up. Getting thru the wall, you had to buy tickets and since we were white I think the price changed because Pastor Paul negotiated for sometime to get us all in. Once we were all in we found a table to call our base, ordered some fish, lobster, and shish-ka-bobs. Some people went swimming, some took walks, but always came back to the table and had great conversation and fun. The daylight was getting short so we headed to the van, which was a walk down the road because of the traffic.  So we took another opportunity to stop and take pictures, then headed to the van. Most of the ride back up the mountain was in the dark because it took us so long to get thru Jacmel and the traffic.   The driver did a great job.

There was more hanging out on the porch, and then one by one to bed for the night. Tomorrow will be another work day, hopefully to see a lot of progress on the Merlet Center.

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