Day 10 (Jan 10th, 2010)

We're at church. I'm sitting in front writing this. Basically, people come and put in their requests to come up and sing a special song. Sort of karaoke. None of them are very good and for some reason that's really surprising me. Off key all the time. Every time someone gets up I expect them to blow me away. A diamond in the rough. But no, it's a processional of Idol rejects. And then the keyboardist tries to join in, badly.

The thing is, they love it. They are passionate. They love God. As bad as I might think they are at singing, they are singing for him with all they are. Plus, who am I? Why am I a judge?

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I videotaped the ride to the orphanage today. Vintage. Except I fell hard going up the last hill, right on Ruth. I felt terrible. It'll be interesting to go back and watch it in a month. (Or a week, it turns out)


Also, my sunburn feels fine today. I had Christy slather me with aloe three times since yesterday and drank lots of water. All of that helped, I'm sure. Now I'll be real sexy tan for Julie. Nice.

Well, it's 11:55am and we're still in church. Since 9am. I just got back from taking my first dump at the orphanage. I had to use my white undershirt to wipe. I suppose it was relatively painless, given the situation. Hopefully it was just a normal poop and I'm not sick.
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(A haiku about mosquitoes)

I will not miss you
Glad I live where you cannot
Suck on that, suckers
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After church, we made the trek up to Bassin Bleu. What a journey. We took two trucks and my truck's driver was terrible. We stalled out multiple times and had to walk long sections of it. Granted, these sections were basically straight up. Once we got there, it was amazing.




We had to hike to it and at the end we had to climb up these steep, wet rock stairs and then down the side with a rope. A height-hater's dream, right? The waterfall wasn't huge, but the water was cold and fresh. It felt so good to jump in. It was basically a little lagoon surrounded by steep rock walls, dotted with trees. You could climb up three or four levels of the waterfall and jump off. I did the first one, which, for a guy that is afraid of heights and bodies of water, is pretty good. Steve, of course, jumped off the top. Multiple times. So did Nick and the Wausau guys.


The drive back was less eventful as it was mostly downhill. What a great experience. Upon our arrival at the hotel, we changed and headed to Cyvadier for our last dinner in Haiti together.
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Dinner was fantastic. The place was really classy and the food was delicious. I had fish fillet with a mustard sauce and spinach and some fries and rice.

The Packer game was on and they were down 21 at one point, came all the way back, then lost on a Rodgers fumble in OT. Heartbreaking end to a great game. His first playoff game, though. He'll have many more.

We shared around the table about our experience here and then said an encouraging word about the person on our left. Of course, Chris was mine. I broke down. I sobbed. I didn't realize how much I'm going to miss him. What an amazing guy. I really am going to pray for him every day.

I'm curious to see how long it will take me to process this trip. And how it will all shake out. How it will affect my life. I'm excited to find out.
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(Tomorrow I'm going to write about my response to today's journal entry. It brought up a lot of interesting feelings.)