A week of ups and downs.

Hello again,

Well, this has been a week of ups and downs. Dublin had a little accident on Wednesday night which has resulted in a rug-burn like injury on his head. While I don’t want to get into the details, I will say that it was completely my fault. I’ve spent the last several days trying to overcome the guilt that has ensued after I accidentally hurt my baby boy. He’s doing totally fine and is his usual happy self, but I wanted to mention it because the injury will likely show up in pictures. I’ve had one of those moments where I feel like a terrible mother; it’s a horrible feeling.

Although Dublin’s little injury occurred on Wednesday night he was rarin’ to go on Thursday morning. Chad and I had planned on going into Port Au Prince for the day on Thursday and were uncertain after Dublin got hurt whether we would actually go. Because he was so chipper when we woke up we made the decision to leave him in the capable hands of his baby-sitter, Carmita and went into the city with Marc, about 12 other people, and a live turkey.

The drive was really interesting for me. When we arrived in Haiti just over three weeks ago it was after dark so I didn’t see anything on the ride to Grand Goave. All the way into the city the roadsides were dotted with communities of tents. When we actually did get into Port Au Prince there were even more tents. While I admit that I was surprised at the amount of rubble that has been cleared away, the buildings that are still left to be demolished are incredibly sobering to look at. Immediately one can’t help but think of the souls that were in those buildings as they collapsed.

As the Presidential elections are taking place in November, campaigning is in full swing for various parties. We ran into several rallies that were taking place in support of one candidate or another. Marc told me that currently there are around 70 people running for the Presidency and by the time the election actually takes place there could be around 125. We ran into one massive group of political supporters, mostly young people, all wearing t-shirts that read “fas a fas” (face to face). There were literally hundreds of them, broken up into groups of about 100-200 in different areas of the city. We had no clue which candidate they were supporting until one gentleman stopped beside our vehicle, looked right at us, raised his arms, and yelled “WYCLEF!” We then immediately knew who these people want to be the next President in Haiti. We asked Marc what would happen if any of these groups, supporting different political parties ran into each other. He answered that “it would not be good.”

Our day in Port Au Prince was quite long and we were happy to get back to Dublin. He was happy to see us too!

Anyway, no internet again tonight so I will post this in the morning. Much love to you all.

Chad, Kelly, and Dublin.

Ps) I wrote the above post on Friday night (yesterday). Today Chad is spending the day at the home of Christoph, the gardener at Haiti Arise. We’ll be sure to blog about his adventure in the next few days!