My Name Is Not White

A lot of our focus this summer will be with a village called Luly. It's about an hour or more from the guest house depending on traffic.Yesterday we were able to travel to Luly to become more familiar with the community. We were greeted graciously by the village and were taken on quite the tour. I anticipated a short excursion but then quickly learned Luly's population of around 60,000 people. I think Andrea and I saw only a fraction of the village which actually seemed like a lot when you're on foot. Our tour guides showed us the grounds where the new school is being built, their biodigester, clinic, internet cafe, bakery, and so much more. We have a lot of great projects in store for Luly this summer and I'm excited to share all of them with you. For now we are planning on surveying the entire village to study the needs of the people and to examine what is working/what's not working. We are in the process of formulating questions and discussing our approach in the matter. I think it will be interesting to see the final results!

In the city the Haitian people are use to seeing white people more so than village people. The people of Luly have seen white people before but the children seem to LOVE white people. The minute we stepped out of the truck in Luly we saw a herd of children running towards us shouting BLANC! BLANC! BLANC! (White!White!White!) It didn't matter what part of Luly we were at during the tour; the word blanc echoed all around us from the mouths of youngsters. We eventually asked our tour guides how to say "My name is not white. My name is...." in kreyol. I quickly replied "Mwen pa rele blanc.. Mwen rele Breanna" to a toddler shouting blanc from his porch. He was silent after and I'm guessing slightly shocked kreyol came out of a blancs mouth. It was kind of humorous to see his reaction. Andrea and I experienced the life of a celebrity yesterday which was fun at first but it's definitely something I don't want to get use to.

 The curious children of Luly.

 Internet cafe in the middle of nowhere? Sure!

 Andrea trying sugar cane for the first time.

 This was way more beautiful in person.

 Andrea getting a new do

These two loved looking at themselves with the reverse camera on my phone. Cute.

This is the 60 foot HAND DUG well in Luly. They still haven't hit water. 

The grounds where the new school is being built... All hand dug.

The biodigester which I have lots to learn about.

The children followed us everywhere shouting BLANC for our attention.

Touring the village.

Today we toured the childrens home in Lilavois, delivered a water filtration system to the Tree of Life childrens home, paid a visit to Grassroots United, and visited our warehouse to pick up Medika Mamba. I must admit most of our time was spent in the car because of traffic which was unfortunate but this gave us time to learn more kreyol from our driver.
The situation in Lilavois is pretty bad. Photos below. Tomorrow a team will be flying in to start work there Friday. I'm not sure of the exact plans yet but I know anything will help at this point. The good news is the children looked healthy and seemed to be adapting to their surroundings well but hopefully they don't get too use to it.
We visited Grassroots United because I'm trying to contact them to hopefully obtain vaccinations for the children at Tree of Life. I had never heard of their organization until a few days ago and was able to take a short tour of their headquarters today. Check them out. http://grassrootsunited.org/ I was amazed and am hoping to do more work with them in the future!
We are planning on starting the Medika Mamba at Tree of Life tomorrow. I'm pretty excited because 5 of the 24 children are in great need of a nutrition boost. In my last post I uploaded a photo of a little girl whom I was measured for the program. I just learned today she is 4 years old! My one year old brother looks older than her. I'm so happy to be able to be a part of this project to see the children grow healthy again. I will keep you all updated on their progress.

Goodnight World.

Standing water in Lilavois at the children's home.

Some beds outside due to their tents falling down.

This is a classroom.

I was impressed to find a superior water filtration system! This was a previous project from another organization.

A little girl step stoning her way back to the other children.

Photo of Andrea and Peter teaching the ladies at Tree of Life how the chlorine generator works. They can now drink from their well after the filtration process!