A Day of Unpacking and Organizing

Hi!

I am happy to report that I slept very well last night and feel 1000 times better today. We have had a productive day and I’m anxious for tomorrow when we can start working in the Healing Hands clinic as well as at the orphanages. We still don’t know if that big shipment of wheelchairs from Wheels for Humanity is in the country yet. It’s hard to be patient because we want them to be here so badly. Basically we are waiting for Cadet, the guy in charge of Healing Hands here in Haiti, to come to the Guesthouse or call us so that we can find out whether the chairs are going to be available for distribution this coming week. He is the only one with that information as far as we know.

Today we unpacked all of the bins and hockey bags, separating the contents into piles to go to orphanages versus the clinic. We spent quite a bit of time putting the 500 cloth inserts/liners into the 500 Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers that were donated. We have split the diapers into 4 big plastic garbage bags to be given to each of 4 orphanages we are planning to work in this week.

Tonight we are going to the Hotel Montana, which is a nice place here in Port-au-Prince – the only “nice” (by American standards) place I’ve ever seen in Haiti. It is where people from the U.N. go frequently. There are some Packers fans that are really hoping they can catch a little bit of the Green Bay football game tonight while we are there. Anyway, we go to the Montana on Sunday nights to give the kitchen staff at the Guesthouse a day off leading into the busy week ahead. I always feel guilty going to the Montana because it is so nice and I feel that it is somewhat contradictory to why we are here. But at the same time, I understand that it is the only place we know of that is “safe” (in terms of clean water and well-prepared food) and that we do it primarily to give the cooking staff a break, which is important. But it still bothers me a little. Should be good food and fun though!

The guy that started and runs Wheels for Humanity is here with us to help with the wheelchair project this week. He is amazing and has been to almost every third-world country on the planet. It’s crazy! He was showing me pictures this morning from several of his trips, including Palestine and Indonesia. I am amazed by his commitment to his project and by the real difference he has been able to make in the world. It just goes to show what one person can do when they have their mind set on something. I love it! They, along with Hope Haven (which his brother started and runs) recently created a state of the art wheelchair using all donated products (from plastic to cloth to leather to steel). These chairs are assembled at a place called Hope Haven in… IOWA (yeah Iowa!) and they have started working with a prison in South Dakota where inmates are assisting in their assembly. They can make each chair for about $150 and they are fantastic chairs that are specifically created for use in places where there is uneven ground and other unique challenges that aren’t present in developed nations. It’s so cool!

I’ve been having difficulty finding an internet connection, so I apologize for the late entries, etc. I hope our server at the Guesthouse starts to work… it hasn’t worked since we’ve been here so I’ve been bumming my connection off of the U.N. apartments that are on the property. And even theirs doesn’t let me connect half the time. So I’ve been writing entries and then I just copy and paste them onto my blog when I finally get a connection.

I hope you all are having a great day and I hope all of you in the Midwest are staying warm! Have a great day, everyone.

Love,

Erin