Still not connected...

Hi there. It's a bit frustrating not to have reliable communication here. I miss my friends and family so much, but especially my dearest husband.

Right now, here in Fondwa, we are coming into the start of sweet potato season. The market day was today and the streets were packed with people selling everything a small village might need. Usually there are several vendors with the same wares for the same prices, so it is tough to choose. The one exception would be in the butcher's alley. To walk there is an experience. The faces of an older generation peer out from behind butcher's knives, raising and falling in a rythm to a song I haven't learned yet. They peer with hope at each passing person, slapping the occaisional leg of beef or goat, slicing the pickled beef rind, and tossing scraps and skin onto the ground where the area dogs come to fight over each piece. Hides are unceremoniously discarded on the ground, and covered over with banana leaf. The leather isn't much good here, without the proper chemiclas to process it. A little further down the same alley, nervous livestock linger, hoping that they won't be next, while uneasily grazing on the local vegetation. A line of donkeys that has brought goods to market is tied to a nearby fence relaxing. The red clay soil is stained with their passing, and around the corner a great white scar is carved into the hillside, where chalky limestone, also called white sand, is being excavated for building material. This sand is part of the reason so many buildings collapsed, but without education, the people don't know better. Desperation has led to repetition, as the need for dry housing sets in with the approaching hurricane season.

On other notes, Eugene Lim is arriving to teach with us for the month, and one of my fellow volunteers has rushed off to collect him in Port-au-Prince. It will be interesting to hear what advice he can provide the university. Hopefully he can handle the conditions. Its a bit rough out here, and a drastic transition from Columbia's gorgeous campus. After all, out here all we have is a slightly damaged cinderblock building with three classrooms, an office, and two dormer rooms for the students. The windows are 4x6 holes in the wall, and have no glass. Occaisionally we hang a USAID tarp over them when the wind is too strong or it is raining. In front, we have a schizophrenic old woman who paces back and forth, sits on the gravestones that border the front of the campus, chat with the dead, and sorts rubble into small piles organized by her fancy. Its as though she were trying to rebuild her world in a way that makes sense, following the earthquake. It's an interesting place, but a far cry from NYC.