At last

After several significant delays--a cancelled flight in Miami with an airline-sponsored hotel night, waiting forever for luggage to appear--we finally emerged intact from the airport in Port-au-Prince. In Haiti at last! We visited with the MCC personnel in the main office, then were whisked away to a guest house in a small town nearby called Gwo Jan. The town is very hilly and green; we've seen mango, papaya, sugar cane, and grapefruit, among other things. Here we are studying Creole and meeting lots of people (and technically we're not permitted to use English during these first few weeks, so you'll have to forgive me here).

Our room, outside and in:



Showers:


View of a neighboring house from the balcony:


Tomorrow morning we're supposed to get up at 4:00 a.m. (apparently I'm expected to turn into a completely new person!) and meet the other MCCers to hike up a nearby mountain and camp overnight. It's supposed to be quite beautiful.

Speaking of becoming a completely new person, "Sharon" sounds like "smelly, rotten" in Creole, so they have asked me to go by my middle name instead. "Joy" it is for the next 3 years. I hope I can remember to answer to that when I hear it!

Pictures to come--we're in the midst of a ten-minute break in our Creole lesson, so we'll post photos when we have a little more time.

Love,

us