Me and Ingrid
The plaza where we had dinner, with a view of Columbus' son's house
The oldest church in the Americas

Back from the DR, which was an awesome trip. I stayed with the Conaways in their beautiful 19th story apartment over looking the ocean. Sammy Sosa lives upstairs in the penthouse, but he wasn’t around this weekend, otherwise we probably would have hung out. We went to watch some baseball on Saturday, and then to dinner in the colonial district. We went to a restaurant which claims to be the oldest pub in the Americas, down the street from the actual oldest church in the Americas, across the plaza from Columbus’ son’s house (more of a castle, but whatever). Santo Domingo is an actual city, extremely different from Port-au-Prince. There are tall buildings, modern stores and its alot cleaner than what I'm used to over here. It was cool.

Sunday was the orphanage, where I got to catch up with my friend Ingrid from college. It’s a very different set up than Haiti, with everything all spread out in a field as opposed to in the mountains with trees and a breeze. It’s a newer home, so their houses are definitely a lot more modern than ours! They have so many volunteers and I met several more than the 6 I already knew.

That night, the Conaways let me do laundry IN A LAUNDRY MACHINE which was beyond exciting. I also got to go to Wendys and learned that Baconator is the same in English and Spanish. The bus trip back and forth wasn’t too bad at all, with air conditioning, a bathroom and comfortable seats. The border was slightly terrifying, with my passport being taken and transferred to different buildings and tons of people trying to help me with my bag or beg for money. Sometimes, I think if I hear “BLAN BLAN!” one more time, I’m going to scream.

The weekend for everyone here in Haiti was terrible, however, as we lost another girl in Kay Christine. Audelina was 15 years old and confined to a wheel chair, unable to speak with some breathing problems. She had meningitis as a baby, and was battling pneumonia which she was just not strong enough to fight. She died on Saturday after Norma tried to revive her, the same as she had tried to do with Emilie. Gena rushed back from her vacation in Ireland 2 weeks early for the funeral on Monday, which I missed because of damn UN roadblocks. Needless to say, I am very tired of losing children.

Yesterday, a former volunteer, Erin, returned for another year with us. She went to college in Seattle, which is cool (even if it was UW). We went out for drinks and pizza, and then to a club in Petionville. It was fun.