val writes an update

Hey Everyone,





I'm Going home really soon, and haven't sent out a letter in a long time.

Hopefully you've been able to read my blog, as I did start updating it reasonably regularly for a bit… and then the internet stopped working, so I felt absolved of that responsibility. If you don't read it, (which you should, even after you read this! www.racinette.blogspot.com/) here's the brief version: (with really bad paragraph divisions)



Filter sales went really well. We finally got Haitians to start selling them to their neighbours in a big way, and even had to hire some new staff to increase production. As soon as we got it sorted



Foreign volunteers went home (except me) and I stopped working on the project because



My mom came to visit me for Christmas! I was really happy to see her and get to form a new relationship with less childhood behavioural patterns in the way. (She didn't have to remind me to clean my room or do the dishes once!) We worked on base and visited Haiti a little, but there were lots of things we didn't get to do because I got distracted by feeling responsible for the mission, feeling overwhelmed by how many really cool things there are in Haiti that I wanted to show her and



Being robbed at gunpoint. That was scary and I didn't get much done after that- other than talking to police, which I should write about at some point (check the blog!), lots of differences there- and won't be able to get much done now on the project as



I fly home in eight days. This is pretty annoying as the time left after Christmas should have been sufficient to do a good wrap up on the project and tie everything up in a pretty bow (I was trying to decide on yellow or purple) to hand off to Jack and the Haitians we've hired and trained. I was considering changing my plane ticket if I needed a bit more time to do this, and also to do a little travelling to visit other aid groups and regions in Haiti, as my CWH project is finished with me (the next stages won't really benefit from my skills) but I'm not finished with Haiti and wanted to research returning. However, it started to become clear while mom was here that



I am getting really tired and ready to come home. I miss

hot showers
and
cold weather
and
spicy food
and
bland days where I'm not confused 18 hours at a time
and
good conversations with friends and family
and
bad political debates
and
…



When Lisa was getting ready to come back to Canada she wrote a beautiful list of all the culture shock she was expecting. I'm cutting my list short as I fear that trying to emulate her skill in writing will take all the time I have left in this country, as well as make me forget to value the tons of things I do love -- every time I leave the house I nearly come to tears thinking how much I'm going to miss it here.



For which reason, I really want to get out there and take pictures of everything, and then I will live in picture land when I get home. Hopefully you enjoy looking at pictures too and then I will share my experiences with you. (People here have even complimented me on some of them, so I think my photography has improved since February.)

I'm getting home in time for this thing called Missions fest in Vancouver, After that I have no set plans, and would love to see you, especially if I don't have to pay for the transportation.



Oh right, so money stuff:

As some of you know, I pay staff fees to Clean Water for Haiti to cover food and what-not so that all mission donations go directly to filters. I haven't paid very close attention to this, so it turns out I owe slightly less than 500 Canadian right now. I didn't understand that it was my responsibility to follow up with the accountant to make sure money given on my behalf was credited to me, so if you sent money and I never thanked you for it, please let me know as I probably did not receive it.



(Also, if you sent me a letter and I did not thank you for it, please let me know as I probably started writing you and then got distracted by a pretty hummingbird, but did not mean to be uncommunicative or ungrateful or waste the piece of paper. Getting letters is the most pleasant thing in the world. You can even write to me once I'm back in Canada, and I will be quite content and do my best to write you back a most scintillating epic…or maybe something less erudite but hopefully still enjoyable)


If you would like to support me financially or send me a letter, you can post a comment and I'll figure out a way to send you contact info.

(There Aunty, I did it! (thank you for reminding me) Now back to regularly scheduled programming)



…no set plans.



I am not sure how I'm feeling about this. Sometimes it feels exciting, like I'll be open to all sorts of Really Important Things, and sometimes it feels terrifying, like I'm going to have no Job and no House and no Reason For Being. Please send me ideas and suggestions and if you care to, pray for this.



Also, for you praying types, please pray that my last week here is focused and effective but still has room for play. I'd like for my efforts to have increased health and not to have simply taken eight months to learn a language spoken by eight million people.



Really, please pray for Haiti. The political situation here is kinda terrible, and I'd like to be able to offer you an insider's opinion, but I've not enough knowledge or time in country to qualify, and no three people I talk to seem to agree on what needs to happen, although sadly there is much discussion, amongst Haitians and foreigners, about twouble Ayiti. I've been reading a few books about it and they are mostly pretty terrifying, so I think right now I will just get back to living in Haiti and talk about it (or whatever) when I see you.



Which will be soon, I hope.