Thanks - Mesidie

It's 10pm. I'm sitting on the floor of the balcony, writing under the stars tonight. Being a poor country, there’s not a whole lot of electricity that goes to “waste” in Haiti. Thus, when I sit outside and look up at the sky the world is lit up through the natural light of the stars. I’m surrounded by chirping birds, creaking grasshoppers, and Leah’s miniature dog “Ti Jacques.” It’s really peaceful.

The trip to the countryside was to Gayante, on the border with the DR. It was about 1.5 hour drive, full of bumps in the road, cars playing chicken, and the occasional UN truck speeding past us. We managed to swerve past the goats, chickens, and feral dogs in the road; scared the children with the loud honking horn; and were intimated ourselves by a truck slightly larger than ourselves. Gayante is a really small town with friendly people. We shared a lunch consisting of the Haitian staple of red beans and rice with the normal unknown, hunks of meat on the side. Much like the ways of my grandfather, it’s not quite a meal unless there is rice served!

Alayne
Heguel, Leah, Mesidie

The deployment itself was more or less uneventful. We learned that our intentions of sending the tool via email may be tricky, as some of the monitors don’t actually use their work email with regularity. (Oops!) Actually, Mesidie was wondering why we just didn’t send things directly to his personal yahoo.fr account. It was fortunate we brought a flash drive as a back-up plan. We learned a few things (like some of the field computers have a ridiculous number of viruses … this computer had 66 quarantined items for example after running a scan). We thought about new ways that the monitors might make DUEs, like playing with the MS Access files. Rather uneventful as far as deployments go, but useful nonetheless to capture what additional issues could arise.

At 6:30pm, right after the sunset and I began debating if I should scavenge for food, or just hit the sack, Ben and Cabe showed up with an invitation to go to Munchz. What?!? I can leave this house at night time and be around people and get something to eat. I’m there! I thought. “Sure,” I responded. We waited for Saburah, grabbed the fresh intern from his bed (just arrived hours before), and headed into town. Over dinner, we laughed, we debated the housing market, whether mankind was responsible for both the “moral means” and the “moral ends,” and got into a discussion of the differences of the sexes/genders. Saburah and I danced in our seats wishing we could be a club really getting down.

And that brings me back to my evening, sitting on the floor of the balcony, typing this blog. It’s beautiful outside and I will be extremely sad to go back to the states. I’ve been asked by so many people when I will return and my answer is I do not know. But unlike other trips for volunteerism, this is an instance where I really do want to make an effort to come back and spend more time here. Haiti may not be a tourist destination, but it is rich in spirit and history that brings me back into myself. Mesi die!

Terminology:

• DR: Dominican Republic
• DUEs: Dumb User Errors
• Mesidie: Literally “Thanks to God”, but also the first name of a social impact monitor
• Ti : Little
• UN: United Nations