June 17 - Katrina Fest

Today is our second day abroad.  Yesterday after we flew in to Miami the whole group had a lovely dinner and we had lots of funny jokes and great conversation. Then afterwards we went swimming and it was so much fun.  All of us students were out at the pool and almost all of us played a very intense and competitive game of keep-away in the pool with a frisbee generously provided by Nick. I personally am really bad at throwing and catching the frisbee but I really had so much fun. I mostly tried to sneak up on my opponents and snatch the frisbee away from them.  After the pool games, which also included categories, we all headed up to our rooms to shower and go to bed. I roomed with Mrs. Jorg (a super cool, chill, and responsible chaperone), Holly, and Drelyn.  Us senior girls had to stick together.  Then this morning things started off pretty well when we woke up but then we couldn't find shoes and then phones and I got my morning cardio workout in by going back and forth from the lobby to our room.  We then didn't get any luck at the airport because apparently we were supposed to have had luggage tags printed out with our boarding passes.  So almost everyone had to recheck in and get new boarding passes along with the luggage tags...well except for me.  I was the first in line so the lady was really nice and manually wrote in my luggage tag and printed it for me. Then after security Holly, Nick, Sean, and I raced down a really long hall to find a starbucks for some breakfast.  Everyone else settled for Einstein Bros for breakfast.  The plane rides were pretty smooth for me and I enjoyed them.  In Haiti we got through customs and immigration relatively smoothly... that is until security made Sean go back and then we lost him for a short while but we eventually found him. I loved the drive through Haiti to get to our Hope for Haiti compound. The traffic reminds me of China where everyone pretty much disregards all traffic rules but somehow no one gets in an accident.  Once we got to the compound we were welcomed warmly by the staff and had lunch and settled in.  Holly and I took some photos and hung out looking out at the beach and named our new goat friend Larry.  I then talked with Holly, Sean, Jason, Nick, Nathan, and Caleb for a bit before I joined a very arguementative game of Spicy Uno. I never won but that's ok because later Nick and I won about fifteen games of spikeball in a row and are officially the reigning undefeated champions. We just had dinner and so far this trip has been amazing and I'm so glad I decided to come and I'm extremely excited to experience the rest of this week!