Various stuffs.

Went to Petit Goave today. It was a long trip (2.5 hours each way) and not really worth it (found out I didn't actually need to do much once I got there) but it was cool to see one thing...

Do you remember when I talked about seeing the tents set up in the median on the way to Mellier? Well, some of those tents... are gone! I was absolutely thrilled when I saw that. That means that some of those families have found other places to stay which are (more than likely) safer, bigger, and have more privacy. That is awesome. Hopefully there won't be a single tent there some day soon.

As for what we've been doing these past few days it's been a little of this and little of that. Robenson has been in and out of here the past couple of days. He got his x-ray done, but I'm not sure what the test results were for that. However, he seems to have quite a bit more energy than he had the day we took him to the clinic and I think his fever has gone down which is also good. I'm still not sure about what his diagnosis is, but the fact that he's feeling better is fantastic.

I also went to our Thomas work site for the first time a couple of days ago. We had to drop off the team, hand off some funds, and check on a few things. It's a neat work site - they're rebuilding a church and a school which is all in one building. The lower level is the school and the upper level is the church. The school is the most rebuilt now, though, so they've been holding church in the school, apparently. It was a very neat work site. I will, as I am with all of our work sites, be excited to see the progress that happens there.

Lastly, Oge and I went on a bit of a scavenger hunt the other day. I've been working on a "tree project" for quite some time now. The idea is to plant a tree at every work site that we're working on and maybe (depending on the work site) even plant one per team on each work site. When thinking about this, we thought it would be best to plant a tree that would also provide some sort of nourishment for the community. We decided that mango trees would be our best bet. However, believe it or not, it's a lot harder to find mango trees to buy than you would think. We went to three different places last week before Oge finally called a friend of his to ask where might be the best place to get them.

His friend suggested a place called "Double Harvest." We found out that Double Harvest is actually a non-profit with headquarters in the U.S. They have a HUGE farm in Croix de Bouquets. Although Croix de Bouquets is at least an hour away, Oge and I drove there to check it out. We found out that mango trees there are 50 gourdes each - approximately $1.25 per tree! Isn't that nuts!?!? Anyway, we were thrilled to hear that and hopefully (once we create an exact plan) we'll start planting trees on our work sites soon! Hooray!

So yep, those are my updates. Good stuff goin on. I hope everything is good back in the States (I hear the weather in KC is incredibly awesome today - I gotta admit that I'm a bit jealous!)

Beth