Typical Day in Dezam

Last Monday, a group of MCC volunteers, the Meat Canners, flew into PaP. Yes, they literally can meat. Apparently some years back my sister picked up on the fact that Mennonites have a history of canning meat and sending abroad. I was willing to admit that this was probably an outreach that once existed, but refused to believe that it was still done; and so it became a bit of a joke between us (or I thought it was funny anyway). Well, low and behold, meat canning is still going strong, and the 6 men who work/volunteer with the meat canner came to Haiti.

Fear not, though I have much to say regarding meat canning, I will leave that for later. I tell you about the meat canners because I spent a good portion of last week with them. We toured several locations in and around PaP, and then piled into a truck to head inland.

MCC has an office in Dezam which is located in the Artibonite Valley. If you go to MCC's website, they have a good write-up on the work that is done here; but in short, it is mostly reforestation and environmental education. Whenever new MCCers arrive, they spend a few weeks in Dezam in order to learn about the work done here, to meet the other MCC staff, and to learn Kreyol. (There are fewer people here who speak English or even French.)

So, since last Wednesday (I think...my days are all running together), I have been here in Dezam, staying with a local family. Here's a quick rundown of a typical day.

• 5am: The sun comes up and the family starts to stir. Jano, the father, head off to the rice fields where he works.
• 5am - 6/6:30am: I try to sleep.
• 6:30am: I finally get up, brush my teeth, then sit in the courtyard trying to wake up. Sonya, the mother, begins preparing breakfast.
• 7:00am: We eat breakfast.
• 7:30am: The kids & I walk over to the river to bathe.
• 7:45am: Back at the house, I sit and read or help Sonya start preparing for lunch.
• 9:45am: I walk over near to a church near the MCC office for my Kreyol lessons.
• 10am - 12noon: Kreyol lessons. (I think Sonya goes to the market while I'm at lessons.)
• 12noon: I head back to the house.
• 12:15pm - 1/1:30pm: I read or help Sonya make lunch. Jano comes home for lunch.
• 1:30pm: We eat lunch.
• 2pm: Sonya/I/someone washes dishes. Jano goes back to work (?? I'm assuming that's where he goes.)
• 2:30pm - 6:30/7pm: Somewhere in there we make another trip to the market, we go up the road to get water, we cook corn & take it off the cob, I read, we take another bath, Jano comes home sometime in there...
• 6:30/7/whenever it gets dark: The kids have a snack, usually shortly after dusk, we sit around for a bit, then we go to sleep.

So, there's a lot of sitting, and for me, a lot of nothing.

Again, sorry that was so matter-of-fact, but I hope that gives you a bit of an idea of where I am/what I'm doing right now. Tomorrow we're heading to the beach for the MCC retreat.

I'm off to lunch with the MCC team...