Beginning of Week 3 and I am so bored. Today I woke up after forcing myself to keep my eyes closed until what I thought was 7am. It was 5:20. Since I took a throughly great cold shower last night, I couldn't even get up to take a shower. I did have work to do before my supervisor got back, and a Kreyol lesson at 9AM, but that still left 4 hours of morning to fill.
***This next part is me complaining, you may want to skip a few paragraphs***
I have been bored lately because the job I came down here to do isn't really needed right now. After the earthquake yes, and probably once they get more masons yes, but until then I am stuck surfing the internet all day trying to look like I am doing something important. The other people down here are basically doing the same thing, except they have meetings to go to so it takes up their time. Nothing is accomplished in those meetings so I could care less about attending. On Thursday they asked if I wanted to go out and listen to some live music. I was tired and didn't see the point so I declined. I am a stay at home type of person anyway, but the thought of partying in a country like this after doing nothing to earn it is disgusting to me.
My supervisor has work to do because she is the 'country director', so she basically spends her time in meetings that take too long to say the point and hosts partner organizations when they come to do business aka go to meetings. This whole system (of NGOs in Haiti) is, in a word, stupid. My supervisor went to Cap over the weekend to check on the business AIDG is incubating, and she said they are doing horribly. They should have incubated better then, because if they fail, we fail. She is bringing back another puppy to the house. The one we have now is a demon so hopefully this one won't be like that.
What work have I done?
1. Sent a couple emails to people wanting to know about the masonry program
2. Filled out some info to send to organizations about AIDG
3. Translated and summarized a document in french from architects without borders
4. Wrote up a job description for Jess (my supervisor who is leaving in the fall)
5. Blew up 126 soccer balls for kids in Cite Soleil (didnt get to deliver them myself because there was no room left in the car)
That's about it. I'm supposed to be doing the finances every week but we havent had time to sit down and discuss it, so.......... ? Anyway that's not a full-time job in itself. I don't like sitting around the house for four days then all of a sudden given a pile of work to do. Jess said things will get more organized this week. I'm considering going home or looking for another organization in Haiti if things don't change. I could be "helping Haiti" more from DC than just having the chance to brag about living in a third world country for some time.
I could use my summer to save up money to go to grad school and eventually become ambassador to Haiti instead of this. I could just chill this summer and think about philosophy rather than this! I could do that from here too, which is what I need to consider. I can work on my han dan website more and continue to study kreyol and Japanese in my spare time and stick out the three months if i really want to. I could even continue to build websites for profit. I know eventually I will have a lot of work to do, but its not guaranteed as to when and I am a restless person.
On the flip side I am beginning to understand what life would be like if I had to live here. Granted I'd have a different view because I would be used to it, but life pretty much sucks, and the mosquitoes make it worse - I have doubled the amount of mosquito bite scars now. I had to take 5 tap-taps for an hour and 45 minutes to get back to my house yesterday, and it was smelly, crowded, and tiresome. But, it only cost 25 gourds (about 60 cents). I had to walk through the streets more since I was with Davidson and his friends without a car. Just walking past the tent cities you want to vomit. There is so much trash on the ground the smell just sits in the air, and there is little clean water so dirt just stays on you. People start fires just to get rid of the smell and keep the bugs away. Women and children are routinely raped by a few bandit groups because the police and UN etc refuse to patrol those dirty areas.
All in all, living in the tents is like living in Hell. That's why the people who have homes, even with no electricity, water, and food, feel grateful. I cannot be another American living comfortably in this country while the UN and other organizations pretend they are doing something. Everyone has their own plan, but I need to be working for a group planning something BIG, something REVOLUTIONARY. I also am making a few more Haitian friends who make life a little less boring.
I'm taking a nap now. I'm hungry for some American food. Beans and rice beans and rice every day! You cant loose weight like that! When I get up I'm going to finish translating this document then study kreyol a lot.
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