So, last night got a bit crazy as it seems to do when the Rhum Sours get flowing. A member of our team (who will remain unmentioned) was unable to join us this morning to go to the iron market to start our shopping day. Hopefully, we'll be able to come back for them in a few hours. The iron market was quite the experience. Because if traffic, it took us over an hour to get there! Once there, we found rows and rows of vendors who make the most intricate metal sculptures and wall hangings. I picked up a few pieces and already looking forward to getting home to get them hung up. While travelling there, we saw the best thing. Each year, we see how many people we can see on a moto. More points are given if there are animals as well. Today, I saw a man on a moto carrying a moto!! This is huge points and it was determined that this one is unbeatable!!
Today I felt much cooler, I don't know if the temperature is dropping or if I'm just finally acclimated (which always happens just before I go home). The days are defintely going to start getting cooler and we have all heard that it is snowing back home and Christmas is into full swing. It's always a strange thing when you go home to snow and Christmas when only a two weeks earlier, it was warmer and Christmas was a faint thought.
After leaving the market, we went back to the guesthouse to pick up our teammate, and then headed to the co-op otherwise known as the Haitian Walmart, then to Kay Artisan and Minou. I was able to pick up some beautiful soapstone pieces which I am hoping to get home in one pice this year.
We went out for dinner to Montana tonight, and it is so beautiful. They have done an exceptional job restoring it post-quake and you would never know you were in Haiti when there. Dinner was great, and then we did a bit of Kompa dancing afterword at a nightclub nearby. Many of my teammates stayed up almost all night, but I decided to turn in early as I know tomorrow will be a busy morning of packing up our bags. I was hoping to fit everything in one hockey bag, but it's not going to happen so I'll be lugging two bags back with me.
Bittersweet, is how I'm feeling. I am ready to get into a comfortable bed and have a long hot shower and stop being eaten alive by mosquitos but also sad to go back to the everyday grind. A year feels like a lifetime away right now but I knwo it will go quickly and we'll all be back doing this again.
I think Gail stated once that when you come to Haiti for the first time, it either makes you not want to return or gets under your skin and your hooked. I'd say that I'm hooked. I got to see many different parts of hte country on this trip and even different parts of Jacmel and Port-au-Prince which showed me that there is still a ton of work to do but that so much rebuilding has occurred and that Haitians are trying to make Haiti a beautiful and safe place to live where tourists are welcomed. I am looking forward to the plane ride home. Our usual picture exchange will lokely occur which takes up most of the flight, and when I get home I am going to make a book of last year and this year's trip. I figured out the name: "Hope". I hope for so much for Haiti and it's people. Until next year, stay safe, remain beautiful and keep Kompa dancing.
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