Haitian History and New Friends

Today was an  educational and upbeat day for the Health for Haiti 2015 team.  After a very challenging day in Grande Saline yesterday, we all enjoyed a slightly later wake up call and breakfast.  At 9am most of us went to downtown Port au Prince for a guided tour  the “Musee du Pantheon National Haitian Museum”.  Our excellent tour guide, Renauld, led us through the museum and did an expert job guiding us through the complex Haitian history.  We saw many fascinating artifacts, including the anchor of the Santa Maria, and learned about the impressive people who fought for freedom in Haiti.  The students asked several questions and we all learned a lot about this proud and complex country that has found its way into our hearts. After our tour, we took out annual class photo outside the museum.  Yes. They are spelling out “Haiti”. : )

Team water was unable to return to Grande Saline because the red truck needed some repairs.  However, they did make another trip to the Haiti version of Home Depot and purchased the rest of the supplies we will need for our solar and water projects.  We are all ready to return to Grande Saline at 6am tomorrow morning!

After the museum we went to Petionville to do a little bit of shopping.  As always, our translators were very helpful as we negotiated with the Haitian vendors.  Jean Frico has a lot of fun trying out the bongo drums as he helped Rachael find the perfect one…which he then played on the bus for a long time.

After our shopping, we all met up at Pastor Vincent’s orphanage to spend some time with the kids.  We had packed a suitcase of toys and were all looking forward to having fun together.  We had a wonderful time with the kids and enjoyed every minute of our visit.  There was coloring, and nail painting and a pretty intense soccer game.  There were also many, many hugs as we said goodbye for now.  We will see the kids again when we take them to the beach on Tuesday, our last day in Haiti.

We returned to the guest house for another delicious dinner (thank you, Barbara) and even some chocolate cake (THANK YOU Johnny!!).

After dessert, Team Solar met to discuss our work plan for tomorrow and Team Clinic sorted our $1200 of prescription medications (all purchased through our fundraising).  We are all packed and ready for another busy and productive day in Grande Saline. We have a tremendous amount of work to accomplish and will probably return to the guest house quite late.

So, we are all rested and refreshed and ready for our second day in Grande Saline. The only sad spot during this fun day was when we saw Professor Hankin wiping away tears at the orphanage.  We hope that she will have recovered from her shock and dismay by tomorrow morning.  Please see the last picture in today’s gallery to see what made her so sad.

Bon nwit!

Thank you, Jess and Cheryl!

Yes. Our Nancy is playing soccer!

Dinner!

Poor Professor Hankin.