Turning Point

This was written by Waffle last week but posted today)

Okay so today was our turning point .not yet quite a week ,it has been full of confusion ,laughter, heartache, directionlessness,beauty,friendship,overwhelmment,and being treated well by unbelievable hosts.we are in jacmel,a relentlessly beautiful city we have our own house a gift that flo left us.A lot of my time has felt like a vacation with little connection as to how I can be in solidarity relief with Haiti.today I even spoke with jerry about maybe coming home.but then something happened different today.

jerry and I woke up in our tent and studied Creole together then had an unsuccessful getting fresh water mission because it is the one month anniversary of the earthquake and some stores are closed for 3 days.we went to the soccer field in town were there is a large tent city, ten families to a big tent, many many big tents. there is a stage for musicians and commerce everywhere,and cooking and clothes washing .then in camp a truck showed up to pass out large bags filled with small individual bags of water .pushing started and water bags began to burst under pressure over fighting for water bags.the truck left and some people put the water in coolers to sell. One man become passionately upset over free water getting sold because in the camp some people have means and others not, and the people with means have enough water so they can afford to sell their free water and therefore have more and more means.the passionate man began arguing and a big man started to fight him which lead to knives drawn and intensity.the knife fight got broke up with no cut skin

.

jerry and I left to volunteer at an orphanage that has 12 young children with aids or mental disabilities.12 sounds small but it’s a work out .we colored with 6 kids and that shit was crazy one girl insisted on making each crayon into 5 crayons and then all the kids wanted full length crayons.we made some hand print turkeys. I got a phone callsay meet in the plaza at 5pm or a meeting ,this is collin.it was confusing cause I didn’t remember a Collins and the word meeting just wasn’t anything that I have experienced this week.jerry left the orphanage and got lost and wound up at the beach, I left after and went to the plaza and then this meeting made since .three nights ago ivy and I first went in a tent city we meet Collin a collage student who was a camp coordinator and he took my number and said they needed help and we mention that we still had 50 pounds of supplies like first aid and hygiene, but it was so casual.so this meeting was of 11 college students that are called MESS .we said we would only take up 5 minutes of there meeting and then let them do there thing and then a translator said No, we are here because this meeting is for you so we all can unite in a bigger effort .

That moment was unbelievable it was the turning point .they had bullet points of what they do and introductions they set up fight germ program in the camps and STD programs and about to do family by family surveys of there needs list. They set up a mobile clinic. the are meeting us tomorrow to pick up the supplies and to give us a price estimate for pens and notebooks to conduct these surveys and then we are going to put it on the blog and they need ivy to be in camp to do grievance counseling cause most Haitian counselors are compromised.

We left the meeting .started home and in the night began a one month anniversary candle street procession .Thousands walking down narrow street singing singing singing. I then felt the loss I felt the healing the whole town was singing in the street I was crying Jerry wasWhere was CNN where was fox this needed to be seen .we have nothing like this at home ,maybe second line in new Orleans. It was so special and we walked home united and got soda and cooked our first dinner together and layed down to sleep.

So general news Haiti is beautiful, beautiful the people light up when you say hello. There is no food or water shortage you can buy it everywhere, if you have the money to buy it. People still sleep out side because of tremors some peoples houses are fine some like fine from the outside but are destroyed inside its weird and hard to explain. And some houses are leveled.

Haiti has electric between 7pm and 11pm before the earthquake it was from 2pm to 2am and some people own 6 volt batteries like at my house and they got charged while the electric is on. Life is moving on as normal but its all outside and has different difficulties then the difficulties prior to the earth quake .as a visitor Jacmel is paradise old beautiful and busted .the most anarchy I have ever experience and the anarchy has nothing to do with the earthquake it just that this place is amazing amazing amazing .it is so amazing.

I have a cell phone that cost $14 dollars and is totally free to receive calls anyone can call an its absolutely free to me you can use skpye or a phone card my number is 011-509—345-1-1966 sometimes you don’t have to dial the 3 call anytime but morning and nights are best because during the day im around a lot of motor cycles and loud things call me and I can tell you whats going on and you can fill me in about home. C YA WAFFLE