True confessions

There is a home church currently in session next door, which means:
1. A microphone
2. Huge speakers of typically low quality
3. A keyboard
4. Full volume.
So imagine church karaoke and that's what I am currently listening to.

But that's not what I need to confess. There's something else.

We used to listen to NPR programs most days--after work, or after church, or before work, or on weekends. Since arriving in Haiti we haven't listened to any of them. So today we sat ourselves down, cozied up to the fast internet connection, and listened to This American Life, Marketplace (you folks have got to work out those problems with the dollar), Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and we tried to listen to Cartalk but that didn't work out. We continued our audio fest with Skyping family (yes, Mom and Dad...you were not home. Next time, though).

The true confession is that it was great. No one was looming behind us waiting to use the computer, and because we were all alone we could yell at full force into the tiny pinhole next to the monitor that Mac calls a microphone....yea!

And true confession #2:
We have installed a wonder-gadget on this blog to tell us who visits and from where and for how long they hang out on our blog. It's sort of scary what's available out there to track people on the internet, but it has proven to be interesting. Now I can say hello to those of you in Washington state, Texas, and the Netherlands, hola to the Colombians, and 你好 to those in China. It doesn't tell us exactly who you are, just the name of your town. Right now Norfolk, VA, and Philadelphia, PA, are neck-and-neck for 1st place at 26 and 25 visits.

Well, I actually have real work to do before it gets dark. Tomorrow I leave at 5am for a visit to a tree nursery, so I better get to bed soon.

One more small note of interest: the bridge between us and Port-au-Prince is still out, but when I asked Jean-Remy (my boss) how it was today he told me that he followed a few other trucks around the bridge and down to the river--where they then drove through the river. He said there was at least 3 feet of water moving pretty quickly. Haiti: where the impossible is possible, I guess. Who needs bridges to cross rivers?

Since Ben and Alexis were catching a ride with Jean Remy today, they may post some pics of this event. If we're in luck.