Happy 2011!

Happy 2011! It's hard to believe that 2011 is already here, much less that it's getting close to mid-January! Is it true that as you get older time just goes by faster and faster? It seems true. I look back at 2010 and realise that amidst all the struggles that came about living in Haiti from the beginning of February on- what a great year it was! I'm really excited about this year- although at the beginning of the year comes with some uncertainty. My contract ends in the beginning of April, and it's always hard to leave. I will have been in Haiti for almost 14 months. It's my life. Living in a volatile nation and all that comes with it, IS my normal.

Well, moving on I guess to work stuff.

I not have a new job. I'm working with our Single Year Assistance Program (SYAP). I didn't realise how hard it would be to leave my shelter sites. When I came back from vacation, I talked to the person who took over my job and she said, "yeah, they won't give me this stuff, because they say they'll only give it to you". :). So, I went to go talk to them- and oh, I love them so much.

Especially this one site called Darbonne- definitely my favourite. 3 months ago, I happened to visit the day after two babies were born at the site. Well, when I went back two days ago, I saw one of the moms, with the baby!!! Here is the cutey...

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It's so awesome to see such a healthy baby! Born in our shelter! Oh, how beautiful.
But I must say, I am really growing to like my new job. I'm the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for the program, so I get to
look at all of our programs, and come up with tools to well...monitor and evaluate how we're doing. To see if what we're doing is really effective. What is pretty awesome is when you get to see how effective some of our programs really are. I actually wrote a success story talking about our WASH Food For Work. Specifically our latrines. In this program- the beneficiaries dig the pit and get food for working. So at the end, they get some food, and they get a latrine that they didn't have before! (yes, in an ideal world- or maybe just Africa- they'd do it without the food- but we'll overlook that for now).


Saturday, I got to go up in the mountains to look at some of our water systems we have running. It was I think my 3rd time going deep into the mountains. Oh, man. Something about the mountains and the bush make me happy. The people are the most amazing people that you'll ever meet and man are they tough. I get tired just watching everything that they lug up and down the mountain.

Definitely amazingly gorgeous.



The photo does not do it justice. we walked and walked and walked. we went and saw the sping cachements that we are doing through our Food For Work WASH program. SO amazing, I even drank from it.- no worries. it was clean (Bev I learned my lesson)



I was glad I got my mountains fix.

So tomorrow is the 1 year anniversary of the earthquake. Today was a good reminder of that. As I was walking around talking to people, those i knew and those i didn't. They told me stories from last year- how God spared their lives. And I realised how hard it hits me. The stories I heard last February hit me harder than they did then. It's like hearing what my family had to go through- because that is what they have become.

So, tomorrow, at 4:53- if you'll remember- it's the moment of silence. Remember those who passed and those who are still here.

Okay- more later- but so far, this year is pretty awesome. Let's keep it that way.

Love,
P