Post by John on Feb 27, 2010 13:40:22 GMT -5
Just to get the ball rolling before I begin to reflect and post in the coming days, I will begin with a photo thread to try and give everyone an idea of the situation in Haiti.. Not sure yet how many photo's will be posted but our teams collective photo's number in the thousands.. perhaps over 10,000...
* During our trip to Haiti I emptied my camera about 3 times onto the laptop of one of our team members and have not retrieved them yet.. Our group are sharing all our pictures.. So just to note, the following pictures are courtesy Jo-dee, another team member...
Typical Haiti countryside... The Haiti terrain is mountainous with plateaus... The climate is very warm as you can imagine.. most days the temperatures were in the 90's.. and this time of year the air is extremely humid.. Haiti is just beginning it's rainy season.. Some nights it rained while we were there, although for the most part it stayed relatively dry during the daytime...
Guest House where we stayed in Petionville overnight... After staying overnight in the Dominican Republic, traveling nearly 10 hours by bus during the second full day (Tuesday) we reached Petionville just outside of Port Au Prince and stayed in a guest house overnight before leaving Wednesday morning for a 4 hour journey through the mountains to Jacmal where we would be staying and offering to help...
Petionville is a village that sits on the side of a mountain overlooking Port Au Prince...
Breakfast in Petionville ... Before we set out on an extremely rugged 4 hour bus drive through the mountains between Port au Prince & Jacmal, our guide Joe found us a clean restaurant nearby the guest house.. Most of us ordered ham and cheese crepes..
Seated around the table from left to right is Denis (though you can only see his legs.. lol ) also Kelly, Nancy, Sheila, Jo-dee, Jenny, Ryan I believe is standing to the left, and I believe that's one of the two Steve's in our group hiding behind Jenny at the very end on the left side.. on the other side beginning at the back is Amy, Ben, me, Kim, Jackie and our Coordinator Steve McDougall.. Missing in this photo is our guide Joe who I believe was taking the picture..
Our Guide Joe sitting outside the guest house where we stayed the last night in Jacmal doing the books.. Joe took great care of us! And without him so many times we could have found ourselves in a lot of unwarranted predicaments for many reasons.. He carefully selected which food was safe for us to eat, he continually told us what was safe to do and what was dangerous, he not only translated for us when we were buying items at roadside stands for instance, but also helped us avoid being taken advantage of because of our vulnerability being visiting foreigners.. in other words, he watched our backs! And he did an awesome job doing it! Thanks again Joe for looking out for all of us!
After breakfast in Petionville, we loaded our belongings onto the roof of a school bus and ourselves into the bus and began our trek to Jacmal.. As we left Petionville, we first had to pass through the downtown core of Port Au Prince, often travelling at a crawl because of the gridlocked roads.. both people and vehicles crammed the roads everywhere throughout the city... The following photo's are of that part of our journey...
The Presidential Palace
A Tent City... a common sight throughout the southern half of Haiti these days.. Thousands have been left homeless... Living conditions are completely unfathomable...
There are beginning signs of clean up and restoration here and there, however so many problems still exist.. The nation lacks heavy duty equipment and machinery for one... Heavy duty construction that we take for granted can be done with ease in our world with powerful machines is extremely limited and scarce in Haiti...
* During our trip to Haiti I emptied my camera about 3 times onto the laptop of one of our team members and have not retrieved them yet.. Our group are sharing all our pictures.. So just to note, the following pictures are courtesy Jo-dee, another team member...
Typical Haiti countryside... The Haiti terrain is mountainous with plateaus... The climate is very warm as you can imagine.. most days the temperatures were in the 90's.. and this time of year the air is extremely humid.. Haiti is just beginning it's rainy season.. Some nights it rained while we were there, although for the most part it stayed relatively dry during the daytime...
Guest House where we stayed in Petionville overnight... After staying overnight in the Dominican Republic, traveling nearly 10 hours by bus during the second full day (Tuesday) we reached Petionville just outside of Port Au Prince and stayed in a guest house overnight before leaving Wednesday morning for a 4 hour journey through the mountains to Jacmal where we would be staying and offering to help...
Petionville is a village that sits on the side of a mountain overlooking Port Au Prince...
Breakfast in Petionville ... Before we set out on an extremely rugged 4 hour bus drive through the mountains between Port au Prince & Jacmal, our guide Joe found us a clean restaurant nearby the guest house.. Most of us ordered ham and cheese crepes..
Seated around the table from left to right is Denis (though you can only see his legs.. lol ) also Kelly, Nancy, Sheila, Jo-dee, Jenny, Ryan I believe is standing to the left, and I believe that's one of the two Steve's in our group hiding behind Jenny at the very end on the left side.. on the other side beginning at the back is Amy, Ben, me, Kim, Jackie and our Coordinator Steve McDougall.. Missing in this photo is our guide Joe who I believe was taking the picture..
Our Guide Joe sitting outside the guest house where we stayed the last night in Jacmal doing the books.. Joe took great care of us! And without him so many times we could have found ourselves in a lot of unwarranted predicaments for many reasons.. He carefully selected which food was safe for us to eat, he continually told us what was safe to do and what was dangerous, he not only translated for us when we were buying items at roadside stands for instance, but also helped us avoid being taken advantage of because of our vulnerability being visiting foreigners.. in other words, he watched our backs! And he did an awesome job doing it! Thanks again Joe for looking out for all of us!
After breakfast in Petionville, we loaded our belongings onto the roof of a school bus and ourselves into the bus and began our trek to Jacmal.. As we left Petionville, we first had to pass through the downtown core of Port Au Prince, often travelling at a crawl because of the gridlocked roads.. both people and vehicles crammed the roads everywhere throughout the city... The following photo's are of that part of our journey...
The Presidential Palace
A Tent City... a common sight throughout the southern half of Haiti these days.. Thousands have been left homeless... Living conditions are completely unfathomable...
There are beginning signs of clean up and restoration here and there, however so many problems still exist.. The nation lacks heavy duty equipment and machinery for one... Heavy duty construction that we take for granted can be done with ease in our world with powerful machines is extremely limited and scarce in Haiti...
