Austin: Day 5

Well it's Wednesday, and the trip is halfway over. It seems as though it has gone quickly, but at the same time, it hasn't. The sheer exhaustion makes it feel as though we've been here 4 weeks, not 4 days. But this is what we signed up for, I suppose, so we must trudge onward.

There were rumblings of mutiny today when passing out the water. Dr. K., Nadia's father, gave one of the local children a cup of water. HFI members quickly scolded him for his actions. Now, I can see both sides of the coin here, but I still side with Dr. K. If you give one of the local children water, they will all want some; that is absolutely true. However, we did not have a shortage, and it's not like the water was imported from the springs of Canada. It was bought with the donated money from the volunteers, so it really wasn't hurting anyone to give away one cup. As a side note, no one else came up to ask for water.

Our third trip to the beach was fairly uneventful, but we did meet another person that became one of our closest friends. His name was Antoine and he was a local boy about 17. This was the first day we had seen him at the camp and he spoke very broken English, but he was very nice to us from the start.

While playing with the kids, I noticed a familiar face. There was a child; he was roughly 7 years old and I remember him from the tent city. I also remember him being pushed off the bus... I asked him how he got to the beach, and he said that he ran. Let me pause for a second and just say that I'm not sure you remember how far I said the tent city was, but it is about a 25 minute drive to the beach/Salvation Army. This young child ran at least 10 miles just to play soccer for a half an hour. The strange thing is that he didnt even seem out of breath. It was like nothing happened.

After lunch, the entire group went to another beach. I don't remember much from it however, because I slept most of the time (lame, I know..). In the times that I was conscious however, the beach was absolutely gorgeous and a popular tourist hotspot, and for good reason. There was hardly any trash, there was a lot of shade, and $4 lobster! How do you beat that?

We also got some insight from one of the translators that came with us named Junior. He was about 20 and just finishing the Haitian version of high school. He wants to get a degree in Psychology at his university. Junior is middle class, but I was still surprised at the opportunities he seemed to have. He exuded an appreciation for those opportunities, however, something that may not be seen in America as often as it should be.

He was very supportive of Wyclef Jean, as was every other Haitian that we spoke with. Now that he cannot run however, we'll see what kind of uproar that causes.

I suspect it won't be pretty.