May 17-20, Fondwa, Haiti
I again wanted to take the early flight from Fort Lauderdale, however it got cancelled and I didn’t fly out until 2 PM. That meant that it was too late to have a class on Saturday.
As always I stay at Max’s house in the lush valley down from the school. This night was filled with singing coming from a house in the forest behind us. The women and men sang in separate groups all night with only a few hours rest in between. I found out that someone had just died and this was the custom of the wake the night before the funeral.
Sunday was Flag Day. Amenold and I drove with several students to Marigot which is East of Jacmel. The town of Marigot is at the end of the paved road. From here one can go on a very bad road across the mountains back to Port-au-Prince or continue on dirt roads towards the border with the Dominican Republic. We staid and watched the school children parading up and down main street, singing and reenacting the revolution. On the way back we did some more sightseeing and stopped at Cyvadier Plage and Cap Lamandou before returning to Jacmel to have dinner at the hotel Jacmelian. When we returned we were greeted in front of the university by the watchman and several other people. This evening someone had scaled the wall, broken into a side door and made off with 6 large batteries and the language lab equipment. Besides the monetary loss of between $1,000 and $1,500 it also hurt the implementation of the energy project. This June the solar panels will be installed to supply enough power to run our lights and computers. The batteries are part of the installation and will have to be replaced immediately.
On Monday we had class at the school in the morning, going once more over the project management items we had already covered and discussing our project, clarifying who had to do what in the weeks to come. In the afternoon we shared the four laptops on which I had installed the Project Management software and together went over the remaining material yet to be covered. I gave the assignments and promised the students that in June we would have our long awaited exam.
On Tuesday morning I walked from Tomgato down the Road to Fondwa to the APF center in the valley. Fr. Joseph was not at the center, but I met Fr. McKnight walking on the road and had a long talk with him. At 88 years old he is still going strong, giving advice and providing encouragement. It is truly a pleasure to meet with him.
The trip back to Miami was routine without problems.
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