FLIGHT IS BOOKED!!!

I just typed it and my heart is pounding a little bit.  I just booked my flight to haiti....wait let me say that again I am going to Haiti.  Doesnt seem real but it is.  I continue to get excited about this trip and as I tell more and more people I continue to have questions about the sustainability of the water filters.  Our job will be to install the filters into the villages, can we teach them to install them too?  How long will they last?  How much water can it hold?  and the question that bothers me when people say it "why do you have to go all the way to another country in order to help people?" 

Some of the answers to those questions:  the filter lasts 10 years, my hope is to find the answers when I go to the other questions about the specifics.  The answer to the main question about me going to a far away country I honestly dont know if I can answer that one either.  This was an opportunity that came before me and I am taking it.  People are people. 

I am nervous, scared, excited all at once.  I am still in a quandry on what to wear while we are there.  According to the culture, women should not wear shorts but we could wear skirts.  Could you picture that one....me trudging around Haiti in a skirt.  Nah, dont think so.  I am going to start looking around for some khaki capris lightweight.  Steve, the founder of Starfysh, told us that we should bring a crappy suitcase (one that we could leave there if we needed to).  He said typically that his experience has been that you bring a carry on backpack and a suitcase.  Your suitcase will hold all the clothes that you will wear in the week and the backpack will hold the clothes that you will travel home in.  He said that you are filthy and your clothes are nasty so you just end up leaving your clothes and suitcase down there.  That still boggles my pea-brain.  I have seen pictures of the place that we are staying in and I am feeling good about that but I am a little leary of the smell.  They dont have workign latrines on the island of La Gonave.  Starfysh is working on putting latrines in but it will take awhile.  The place that we are staying has them (thank god!!)

I know my family and friends are concerned with my safety and for that I am so appreciative but I feel good about the people that I am going with and the organization. 

This will be a life changing event for me....the one question that I still have in the back of my mind is "what can I do with this experience when I return"

Shot time

I went this past week to the Health department to receive my shots.....holy cow I am really going!!!  Excited and nervous all at once.  I checked in at the front desk and Michelle called me back.  She said "ok so where are you going and what will you be doing"  I explained to her the whole thing.  She went on to explain the various precautions that I should be taking and what shots I will need.  She gave me a great tip - put the US embassy 800 number taped in my passport.  UGH - really I thought in my head.  I can just picture it now....me sitting in a room with just a table and a folding chair with one light hanging over my head.  I quickly erased those thoughts in my head.  "I will be safe I will be safe"  is my mantra.  She then started in on the shots.  I got Hep. A/B (in the same vile - it was cheaper that way), a flu shot (which I have never had before), and she handed me a paper bag that said "refrigerate" on it.  She said that this would be my typhoid pills - I need to take them (4 total) every other day and it has to stay in the refrigerator.  She also said that I would be needing a script for Malaria (chlroaquin) which from what I understand gives some people crazy dreams (sounds fun LOL).   So now I am ready!!!  I am really going!!

I'm going to Haiti

Well, I think I have this blogging down pat...maybe.  The idea behind this blogging thing will be so friends and family can follow along my thoughts, sights, sounds, and my adventure as I get ready for my trip to Haiti.   
I am so excited that is a for sure thing now. My final decision maker was still trying to make up his mind if he wanted his prize posession to be traveling to a third world country without him.  But being a supportive and loving husband he finally told me that he is supporting me through this.    I have wanted to do something like this for a long time.  I sometimes feel as though we go through our lives with little direction.  I work, get a paycheck (I dont even see the paycheck, money just gets deposited into my account) for what?  STUFF.  Dont get me wrong, I love STUFF.  But I think there is so much more out there.  Maybe I wont like what I see in Haiti, but I think I will appreciate what I have here alot more.  I want to show my kids, that if you have a passion for soemthing that nothing should stop you from doing it.  I am scared and nervous to go -  maybe scared is not the right word.  Just the fear of the unknown. 

Next task to accomplish - getting my shots!!!