A marketing blog.

Eventful, busy day today.  Started the day with an even wilder motorcycle taxi ride than yesterday.  Today, the market was in full force as we navigated through crazy traffic and people.  At market, there are booths and vendors lining the street selling everything imaginable…tools, bananas, clothes and shoes, and lots of bottled water.  The bottled water is usually frozen solid. .which leaves me wondering where the freezer is as I would love to climb into it for just 30 minutes.  So, for our motorcycle ride, imagine Indiana Jones at the market in Raiders of the Lost Ark where he shoots the guy in black with the big sword…now multiply the chaos by 100, add in a bunch of motorcycles and trucks in gridlock honking horns and you might get the picture.  Trucks literally passed inches from my kneecaps, people grabbing me offering bananas, bracelets and frozen water. And Ella and my motorcycle driver thought he was Evil Knieval weaving through seemingly impossible gaps between cars and people.

So, after about 15 minutes and a mile or so of that, we get to the gravel turn off to the school.  As we ride the half mile or so, many of the villagers recognize Bob and begin waving and yelling his name.  Some of the kids chase after us all the way to the school.  We are told that some kids walk 45 minutes each way to attend.

Now school sounds official and the teachers, the director and the administrator are very competent and diligent showing lots of love for the kids.  But the school buildings themselves are hard to fathom.  Partial block walls, tin roofs, and dirt floors.  There are thin partitions separating the classrooms for several grades.  The rooms are colorless and dark.  One of our goals today is to rebuild the partitions and paint them to brighten the rooms.

As we get started, 30 or so kids have gathered to watch and, in some cases, help.  They are a little apprehensive at first but within an hour they are hugging us and holding our hands.  The little girls loved Ella and were clinging to her.

One of the hardest things today was lunch.  Our interpreter works for Restore Haiti based in Nashville and he said many of the kids only get one meal a day and for some that meal is coffee. For food, we had only packed enough for us as we had to bring building supplies and school supplies.  We did not have anywhere near enough to feed the kids and they gathered in the windows and in the walls to watch us eat.  It was tough.

Ella did great with the kids and worked hard in helping to paint and entertain the kids with Hokey Pokey and other games.  They loved playing with her long hair and taking pictures with her then looking at the pics.

The heat here is almost unbearable to me and I always thought I did well in heat.  There is just no escape here.  In the classrooms with the tin roofs absorbing heat, it had to be close to 100 today.  The external temp was 96 and Real feel with 88% humidity said it felt like 108 degrees.  In fact one of our interpreters, coincidentally named David, passed out and had to be taken to the clinic.  If Bob wasn’t there to pay for the clinic, they said he very well could have died.  One of the girls in the school died last year under similar circumstances before Bob and Kay were aware of her illness.  That is the reality of life here.  Tomorrow is church and a graduation ceremony for the first 3 graduates from 6th grade from Trezo.  One of them has already tested and qualified for high school which is unusual for kids in the village, at least before this school was opened.