Moto Ride

Obviously there are challenges, being in Haiti. For me there are a few things that stand out.
1) Fecal Matter (more specifically its proximity to EVERYTHING and its permeating smell)
2) Haitian Time : This means that my type A punctual personality is constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. (also called Caribbean time; its not limited to Haiti.)
3)"security" precautions: This translates to very little freedom, and zero sense of adventure. Basically this cuts off my main sources of travel adrenaline.

And then there are the general things that get you down. Like obvious nutritional deficiencies in the school children, scary sounding coughs and people gathering their water from a ditch in the road. And then feeling that as a public health and nutrition intern I am somehow supposed to fix these problems.

All in all its been a stressful few weeks. However, yesterday we visited Double Harvest Clinic, a private clinic that gets most of its funding from Baptist missions in Maimi and Kansas. This was a good clinic. Its well staffed and clean smelling. But services there are expensive, thereby relegating the poorer patients to sub-par care. On the way back all the negative energy I was feeling started to melt away. That is because our driver was late and we got to take moto taxi's. (Look below for reference, but in my case it was thankfully just me and the driver)

The moto ride changed everything. All the challenges didnt matter anymore. I tried to explain this to the driver with "Mwen renmen moto" (I love moto) and "Mwen vle moto" (I want moto). He laughed and shook is head at me like I was crazy but really I was just so happy to feel free.