val writes: ok, really

Mom left a week ago today and I've maybe used the internet five times since. This is not because I've been especially busy, although I have, or that I've been in terrible shock, although I was, but just because this is Haiti and sometimes things here are difficult.

Right now, the internet is being difficult.

Really, usually something in Haiti is difficult, very few things are as easy as they are in Canada. When my mom was here we had the kitchen painted, but only after going to three stores looking for paint. We weren't haggling the price, the first two paint stores just didn't have the paint we wanted. (oil paint, in some colour of blue, we weren't terribly picky!)

Today, another volunteer and I tried to buy a radio, so we went to a store that had a sign advertising radios. Unfortunately, this seems to have been a sign advertising paints. Or something.

Despite the country being difficult, I am very much going to miss this place. I realized today that I have only ten days left, and I can't imagine being ready to go at the end of that. Some people, including my boss, offered to let me leave early, after the robbery and the trauma and what not.

I am sure they are right that I am in shock, and that I won't be able to deal with it til I get to familiar surroundings, but I find that even so I'm not yet ready to leave. Proverbs of getting back on the horse canter through my thoughts, but more than that, the robbery was one incident, and I have eight months of other, better incidents, which I would rather put my attentions on.

Jack and I went swimming and coloured pictures with our girls today, and I held a little baby while her mother was off doing laundry. Yesterday I heard some Haitian bluegrass on the radio. The day before I watched a brother and sister fighting over who was the better chess player- the one who'd escaped from losing by causing a stalemate or the one who'd nearly won.

I love normal things like that, things that are familiar, that do remind me of being in Canada, and I want to experience as many of them- and as many hugs from the dear little kids who run up to me everyday- as I can, so that I can always hold those memories in my heart.

Although I hope I aren't holding them only as memories for too long. I want to come back to Haiti. I just want a bit of a break- a hot shower, some curry, a snowball fight- first. And maybe some schooling, or a job, I suppose.

What I don't want is to go home scared and then never want to come back. Because even while I am here, scared, I am still glad I am here.