Do IT to IT: Kijan Ou Ye

So today was my first day teaching training in Les Cayes. Les Cayes is a little beach town about 4+ hours south of Port Au Prince (PaP). After the night of hanging out with the boys needless to say this morning was a little bit rough on me. Got up and had breakfast at the hotel with Alex, Ramons and the driver. Then we headed to the office. The office is only about 15 minutes away from our hotel. There are lots of street vendors on the way. Now Les Cayes is in better shape than PaP, first of all it's not as densely populated meaning not as much trash and not as many sanitation issues. Also, the earthquake resonated from PaP, meaning PaP was the epicenter for the quake and then similar to a doppler effect, it rippled outward, so the mass destruction occured in PaP. On the drive down you can see how it goes from crumbled buildings ever several yards to most of the buildings in Les Cayes still being relatively in tact.

On the way to the office. Random cows grazing on the side of the road.

My hotel, La M'anguier

The city is very similar to the french quarter in New Orleans with what they call gingerbread houses. Beautiful colorful houses with doors that open outward, large windows, and oftentimes gorgeous murals on the side. There are more animals around here and the conditions for them are slightly better. I've been having a heart attack about how animals are treated in Haiti. Keep in mind the people are impoverished so domestic animals like cats or dogs are viewed as pests that are trying to take food from your family. Oftentimes they are eaten or are tortured for no reason (ironically, there is a group in from the humane society right now, not sure what they are going to do, but all of my love for whatever they can do). Anyways, the animals around here are treated better and aren't picked on as bad. This morning, my breakfast definitely included two adorable kittens begging me for food, which I definitely gave into. See pics below.

One of my breakfast mates

Her counterpart that had me at meow

The office was beautiful, it's not as security oriented down here and not nearly as violent. There aren't constant guns in your face and the people are more laid back. Our office is still gated and still protected, but it doesn't seem as intimidating. The office staff is incredibly friendly as well. I was given a pastor today and tomorrow to be my translator for my training. He is amazing, he taught English at this office before to the staff and I believe he is a partner with CRS. He runs the Bethesda fellowship which includes like 12 churchs, a couple orphanages, schools etc. During our break today, he ran and brought kids home from school. He truly is inspiring and incredibly intelligent. So all of the trainings went well, they ran over because people had great questions and wanted to really learn about systems and how they could use IT to better their work.

Went out to lunch with Alex and Ramons before they left to go back to PaP at Nima. It's a great international restaurant that has vegetarian food. Came back and taught more advanced training and then came home. I miss having people around to talk to like the boys, but I only train half a day tomorrow before I head back to PaP.

Downtown Les Cayes, right outside of Nima

The inside of Nima

The surprises I found next to our table at Nima

They can't be more than a few weeks old!

More downtown Les Cayes

Highlight of the day is my buddy Molly checking in on me to make sure I'm eating and to make sure I'm doing ok. It's really nice to know that people that barely know you truly care about your well being. Planning on seeing them tomorrow when I get back into PaP.

Other than that had a great skype conversation with my sister, my two nieces and Scott. My nieces definitely amused me and made me miss them a ton. Lots of cute songs such as Heartbreaker by Taio Cruz and Ludacris, the barbie song (which I sang with them) and something else that sounded like Spongebob but I'm not quite sure. Also got to talk to some other friends and finally Sammie got skype too! Now I'm just being addicted to Kompa videos online and trying to figure out this crazy Haitian dance. I'm truly falling in love with this music and the culture, anyone up for moving to Haiti?

Pictures to entice you: