Friday, May 7th

It’s almost lunch time and I am at the house getting some rest, laying on my bed. Soon the rest will come and we will eat lunch. Probably more than fifteen people have left in the past week- we have had a lot of empty beds and mattresses and as usual, it’s been hard to say good-bye. It’s been about eight of us during the past few days - of course we’ve had our nice moments too.
I didn’t finish writing about Jacmel.. I began writing with details, but the story started to get long. Let me talk a little bit more about the end of the trip- we went to a music show on Saturday night after the festival at the beach. I can’t really categorize the type of music it was,…. I just know that I liked it very much. The group was called Loray- they don’t have a CD or a website yet. I very much enjoyed seeing some Haitian artists- it gave me another sense of hope for the country.
What I didn’t know when I was listening to the music and taking photos was that the band was actually friends with one of Natasha’s sisters and that we’d end up spending a lot of time with them afterwards.







After the show we went with this group of musicians to another party at the beach. I was really tired by then and probably weak from the lack of food. I didn’t really enjoy it so much, I was anxious and nervous to get back to our “house” and sleep – at this point I didn’t know where I’d put my sleeping bag. And even though Maribel and the rest were telling us that it was safe, I was also very much concerned with our security.
Fortunately, we weren’t at this party for too long and we got a ride from the musicians back to the “house”. I slept next to Natasha’s sisters and Maribel inside of a tent, in a place where no one would think a white person was sleeping.. it was difficult to fall asleep but I somehow managed. In the morning Natasha brought two big buckets of water (from I don’t know where) for us to shower. We came back to Port au Prince really early- around nine am. Maribel counted 22 people in a small minivan. I don’t know how I managed. Many had someone on their laps- I had a big backpack.
I got back to the village and I felt like I was walking into complete luxury.