Don't judge Haiti by my legs...

I'm posting this a couple days after I wrote this, and am *extremely* excited to have electricity and internet to do so!

My fourth day in Haiti. I’m starting to feel bad that I haven’t let anyone know that I made it safely because we haven’t had internet. In fact, today is the first day we’ve consistently had electricity.

You might be confused. “Wait! Wasn’t I just reading about Arizona?” From Tucson to the Tropics, I like to do things differently. I almost feel bad that I haven’t written anymore about the walk. However, my thoughts on the walk aren’t finished. In fact, I found myself thinking about my experience in Arizona a lot yesterday, and think that the walk has totally prepared me for my experience in Haiti.

For one: the heat. Haiti is hot. And when there is no electricity, being hot is a problem. 18 of us spent last night absolutely miserable in the heat with no fans, a loud street party blaring along with the cacophony of dogs and roosters. And as I finished that sentence, the power goes out again. It was so hot last night that one of the girls here with me got really sick, all because of the heat. She felt much better after I wet and wrapped ice in a handkerchief and put it on her neck. Thank you desert heat for teaching me that.

Two: You have to learn to live simply. Half of my cleaning routine involves a baby wipe shower (which isn’t a shower at all, of course), which I so expertly learned how to do in the desert (thank you Christi Brookes: your teaching never ends….). The other half involves possibly a cold shower (which is, for the first time, absolutely welcomed). Possibly because if there is no electricity, there is no running water. This means living simply, by taking bucket baths. All my clothes will be hand washed (by me). Which won’t be a lot actually, because of the luggage fiasco that happened at the airport. Learning how to live simply also means learning how to live with little.

Three: I learned in the desert how to cope with an ugly body. By ugly, I mostly mean dirty. One cannot feel pretty when covered in sweat 24 hours of the day. But I also mean ugly as in just ugly. My legs look like those of a 10-year-old boy, though since I’m reading a book about the Holocaust right now, my first thought was that they looked like they had come out of a concentration camp. The mosquitoes here are quite stealthy (much like me…which may be part of the reason I already feel at home). The first two days I ignored bug spray because I didn’t really see and I didn’t feel them at all. The result was a myriad of big pink spots all over my legs and arms. Coupled with some of the most horrendous bruises I’ve ever had, my legs are not looking pretty. Definitely not ones that would attract the Irish man I had planned on meeting while here. That plan will have to be put on the backburner. At least until I can figure out how to make my legs look normal again.

In the desert, though, I met some of the most wonderful and giving people I’ve ever met in my life. And even though it’s hot, and there’s no electricity, and I sometimes feel jailed in as not only are the doors to the house padlocked with a key I do not have, but the house is surrounded by high walls topped with barbed wire, with a gate that is also locked, and a security man who doesn’t want me outside, I’m beginning to see that this is a place I can call home. Not only will I call it home, but I will like calling it home. If you saw the faces I get to see, you would feel the same way. I saw photos of them before I came and immediately fell in love. Now that I am getting to know them, I’m absolutely in trouble. I think it may make my mom happy that I’ve gone from 0 kids to 15 (who call me mami, which sounds like 15 kids calling me mommy). Right now, there are 17 other Americans with me. In a week and a half, they will all be gone, and it will be me alone in a strange land. And there will be hard days. Really hard days. But these kids will make it all worth it, and make it okay. It’s hard to be lonely and sad when you have some of the most beautiful faces smiling at you and laughing with you.

Tonight there was a huge storm. Well. Not huge for Haiti. Rain and lightning and thunder. And I loved it. I showered outside with the rain falling from a pipe. I wore my dirtiest clothes and scrubbed them with soap to wash them. I knew then that this would fit me well.