Day 2: Thursday

After getting ready and eating breakfast in the compound, it was time to head out to the worksite for our first day of work. On the way to Canaan, we had to stop at another location to pick up some expecting mothers and their midwives. They lived on the road that lead to the local dump, so the surrounding sites were some I will never forget. It was then that I really began to get a feel for what the real Haiti was like, with trash everywhere, including the streets and roads and seeing wild animals roam around looking for food. Canaan is located on the side of the mountain, so the first day of work was tough simply because you are outside all day with very little shade and some warm water. Luckily for us, there was a good breeze, which is weird because apparently it's usually as calm as can be. For lunch we recieved a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then whatever snacks we bring for ourselves for throughout the day. The peanut butter isn't the peanut butter we're used to though, their peanut butter has peppers in it, so it's spicy. I personally enjoyed the spicy peanut butter, even more than the regular peanut butter we have here in the states. Most of the work day consisted of shoveling and sifting through a pile of rocks outside so that we could take all the fine sand from it and mix it with cement to yield more cement than a normal bag would. A Haitian man then would mix the cement outside and we would form an assembly line to pass the 5 gallon buckets of cement up to one of the houses we were working on. Towards the end of the day the children who were able to go to school were done for the day and came over to meet us all and play with us. I met the sweetest little girl ever and for the last hour or so of the day was just spent playing games that the kids know as well as teaching her to count to 10 in English. It was frustrating at times because the language is such a barrier for some because they know little to no English and I know very little Creole.

When we returned to the compound there were kids everywhere because on the compound there is a little education building for children and they had yoga that afternoon, so we got to play lacrosse and soccer with all the kids. These kids spoke a little more English than the kids in Canaan so it was a little easier to understand them. I learned I really need to improve on my soccer and lacrosse skills while there and that you can't play soccer in flip flops because the kids will break them! Definitely enjoyed our first day in Haiti and cannot wait to see what else the week brings. Everything that these people are going through and troubles they are faced with, they continue to be some of the happiest people I have ever met. It's truly inspirational :)