Back In Haiti

What's great is that I'm back in a pace that I enjoy: easy, relatively slow, but oddly productive. In America I was going a mile a minute but I never felt like I was getting anything done. This feeling is much better. I've only been here for a couple of days and I've already alphabetized some lists, made a few lists from sratch, picked up a load of food, bought a phone (takes more work here than there), and completed a few other fine tasks.

There was a lot more familiarity coming back here than I have ever experienced coming to a foreign country. It makes sense having been here for so long and doing all the things I did before, but still I was just surprised at what didn't surprise me.

Coming back to familiarity didn't soften the blow of returning to the normal Haitian scene, which just happens to be poverty and devestation beyond what most peope ever see, much less understand. The first pictures I saw were of the headless body of a 3-year-old boy that was killed in the recent flooding right here in Carries, not more than five minutes from where I sit.

Now we do damage control. The shipment of food we just picked up will be gone momentarily. Among other tasks, we have to find more.

We're stressed, but not worrisome. This is not a job for the worrisome, it's a job for the faithful.

And so we continue.