GPzMike Abroad

Whatta weird day. Flag Day here in Haiti. As with any holiday in the host country, All Hands polls our respected and trusted members of the community to get a sense for how the organization should act during the holiday. Can we go out and work? Can we go out into the community and safely experience the festivities? That sort of thing.

As Flag Day here in Haiti approached we polled our normal community leader types and so on and found that it could perhaps upset the community some if we put our crews out in the community building schools and the like, but that staying on base but working would be fine. Then, as the day closed in, others came to us said the opposite: that we would be very disrespectful if we worked even if it was 'on our home' work.

For Flag Day? Really? We are here working our butts off helping Leogane rebuild (what could be a more patriotic thing to do?) and we can't even be allowed to do some home improvements on Flag Day?

Thank God I come from America where we are free to acknowledge or ignore any holiday without repercussion. In fact, in thinking about it I can't think of a single holiday that I (and perhaps anyone I know) would be resentful and mad at others for should they decide to not celebrate the day.

Now. Is that a commentary on the state of affairs in USA or in Haiti?

Well, we did finally get to work: we had to make nice and call it a 'voluntary work day'. I know....strange. lol

So I came up with a huge list of things that have been in need of attention around the base. I was unable to be here as a Team Leader so I had to rely on others to drive the schedule. Boy was I disappointed! I'm not even going to go into it. I wish I could have been here. Instead I was at the Staff House where the Construction Team held a day long meeting to get ready for the next 3 schools. We got some good headway on our tasks, but the wind went out of my sails when I returned to base and saw what appears to be so little completed.

I am feeling like a hard-assed bitter old man - just what I never wanted to become when I was a young man. Crap.

Oh Oh Oh, so I went out to a new restaurant that opened a few weeks ago. The owner said he'd have steaks for us and one of the Staff organized a big group of us to go to the joint for dinner.

Now, many of you know I'm not really that picky an eater...but as you can see from the photo there's no way to put a good spin on the $15 US meal you see pictured. I have not taken a single bite from the meal. sigh. It was pretty funny at the time I'll readily admit. But not funny enough to bring me back for more, that's for sure!