Day 1 and 2

Day 1: Yesterday we arrived in Haiti in the afternoon. It was a lot less hectic than usual in the airport, and we got to the cars fairly easily. The back seat of the Currelly’s car was pretty tight though, packed with three girls. Surprisingly almost all the tents and tent cities were gone from the sides of the road. Apparently the government paid to make many small wood sided and metal roofed houses for the people who had lost theirs in the earthquake. Although Haiti still looked very devastated, there was much less rubble in the streets than usual and there were a few new buildings that had been put up. We stopped at our usual place for pizza, which was incredibly delicious and we had Papaya juice, which was also very tasty. We then headed along the steep and bumpy road to the Currelly’s, which was a shorter trip than usual due to the recently paved roads. When we reached their house the Currelly’s four adorable dogs that were happy to see us greeted us. We took a tour of the Currelly’s property, and saw the place my dad would be sleeping in, a chicken coop. We quickly got to work unpacking all of the supplies we brought down and the ones that we left behind after our last visit. We went to bed early to prepare for the big day ahead of us.

Day 2: We got up pretty early the next morning so that we could prepare for the villagers. We didn’t have our sewing until the afternoon because the villagers had a prayer service and then lunch. We laid out all of the supplies for the day and then went for a walk. We talked to many of the villagers who were very happy to see us and were excited to sew. We walked by the newly built schoolhouse right in the village that has class for grades Kindergarten and 1^st. There are 30 children enrolled in school and as of now there are no close schools for grades after those ages. We brought a soccer ball that was donated to us by the rec department to the village leader because the one we brought down last time was used so much that it popped in only a few months. They were very excited to receive the present and started to play with it immediately. We continued our walk up Zombie mountain and around through the neighboring fields. When we got back we had a lunch of vegetable soup and Dola with Pickeles on bread. After lunch there were many villagers waiting at the gate and we started our session by telling them about a Sewing Cooperative in Lilivois using Maureen’s French. We started by teaching everyone how to appliqué which is a type of hand sewing. Many of the women were really good at it and even the small children did some sewing. With the younger kids we colored pictures and read to them from French and Creole books. Overall it was a very successful first day and we look forward to sewing on the treadle machines tomorrow. We ran around the property later in the day and we had a great dinner with a dessert of cookies and tart au prune.