Day 7 - PAPF, Mountain

My eyes creaked open to a ray of light shining through the window. I roll out of bed and walk to the balcony. The sun rises as the roosters crow and the goats play in the lot next door. This was a typical morning for me in Haiti. Beautiful. While I was up there today, I was thinking of all of the things the day had in store. First we would go to church. Next we would go up the mountain to eat lunch and visit shops. Then to the grocery store before we come back for dinner. It sounds like a laid back day, maybe more like a vacation. Unless you have been here, you would have no idea how mistaken you were for thinking that. We left for church bright eyed and bushy tailed with nothing but smiles. We were moving up a one lane street that would typically be limited at 25 mph in the  U.S. We were going 55. Flying down closed streets filled with honking cars. Weaving trough traffic, dodging goats and people. Sound exciting yet? Its only 10 am. We arrived at church just in time for the last service. We entered seeing smiles everywhere. Everyone was ecstatically welcoming us. The worship started. Its was beautiful. They were playing some Christmas worship songs, some classics and some that I hadn't heard before. It was quite the experience. The pastor came up and spoke about how growing spiritually is like a gift to both God and your pastor. The sermon ended with a baby dedication and we begun our trek up the mountain. At the top we stopped at one of the most amazing restaurants I've been to. It was all out on a balcony overlooking all of Haiti. You could see everything. I was also extremely surprised at the class the restaurant had compared to the rest of the country. Not that rest of Haiti is bad, because it is beautiful but this place tops all of the rest of the restaurants I've been to back home. I took one last breath of the soothing mountain breeze, one last glance at the gorgeous scenery, still trying to take it all in and jumped on the top-top. Swerving and bouncing, off to the grocery store we went. When we got there it was crowded. The thing that caught my attention the most was all of the armed security guards. Can you imagine going to a Grocery and seeing an armed guard at every exit and at the end of your checkout lane? We picked up what we need and got back on our way. When we got back to the guest house we decided to go see the neighborhood boys before we leave for home tomorrow. We taught them how to play the human knot and they really seemed to get a kick out of  it.  There you have it the excitement of the day. Still think it sounds like a laid back Sunday vacation? Didn't think so. Still no less beautiful than a day on the beach in a hammock.

- Noah S.

Teaching the neighborhood boys human knot

On top of the mountain overlooking Haiti