Picture Time

Alright! Well, I was pretty much out all day yesterday, so I didn't have the time to upload any of my pictures. I did, however, manage to get 100 more pictures from our long adventure out and around Port-Au-Prince, so hopefully that should make up for it. Anyway, below are a few of the choice selections from the past three days. When I get back home, I will be posting all of the pictures I've taken on Facebook in their original, uncompressed sizes.

My friend Olwitch has Typhoid. He got back with the clinic today with these. He has to take at least 6 pills a day.

This is all debris from the earthquake from last year.

Casami is a pretty nice office furniture store

In the bottom right, there's a slum nestled into the hillside. It's a mix of shacks and tents.

Yesterday, when we were out on the main street of Delmas (city right next to Port-Au-Prince), there was some sort of water leak going down a driveway. The woman you can see in the middle of the picture used it as an opportunity to bathe herself. You can kind of see a boy behind her doing the same thing

This is a huge tent city just across the street from the Port Au Prince airport. The picture doesn't really capture how big it is, it's almost like there are tents as far as you can see.

One of my favorite examples of a TopTop. Not all of them are this awesome looking. But it's basically what people use as taxis. The Pickup Truck bed has a high top installed on it so that a lot of people can pile in the back.

A different tent city, but pretty much just as big. The tents go way back down the street.

Some of the pictures didn't load on my editor, so I didn't get captions for everything, but I hope they generally can speak for themselves!

Well, that's it for now! I'll add a more detailed update either tomorrow or Saturday.

 

 

Week Two Continued - Port Au Prince, the Office, and the Mostiques

Bon swa 'Merica! Hope the bar-b-que's been delicious.

It's starting to feel like home here in Haiti. And let me tell you, the creole combination of rice, bean sauce, and delicious spicy chicken gets me pumped for lunch time every day. It's kind of ironic, when I was leaving I was thinking that I would definitely be losing some weight, but it's looking like it's going to be the other way around.

But anyway! I'm starting to realize that I need to do more frequent updates - recounting everything that happened last week is tough! Today, I got pulled out of chapel a little bit early so that we could run some errands. Pastor Marc, the pastor who lives with all of us, had a meeting with the principal of a trade school and I got to sit in during it. The principal, like most of the people I've met here, was a very nice man. After all of the important matters of business had been discussed, he showed me pictures of his father's house in the mountains of Haiti, and I hope to have the chance to visit that particular area, because they were absolutely beautiful. But after the meeting was over, we headed to a supermarket where I proceeded to splurge on some delicious delicious snacks.

Not pictured is the other Hershey's Cookies 'n Creme that is currently in muh belly. Mmmm....

I was very impressed the first time I came to this supermarket - it's like a fortress! There's a wall that surrounds the whole parking lot (one of the few legitimate parking lots I've seen) with a little guard post where one of the five or so shotgun-wielding guards hangs out. On the inside, it basically has everything that you would find at a Jewel/Bi-Lo/etc.. Including a candy aisle. Huh-yes.

From the hour or so of driving around that we did, I probably got about 70 good pictures. I don't think I had previously been to any of the parts of town that we drove through today, so it was nice seeing another part of town. Anyway, I'll be sure to upload 12 or so of them if I have more time tomorrow.

As for the rest of last week, I got to spend a lot of time helping out Marthe, the secretary, in the office. She likes to refer to me as "her baby," which I'm totally ok with because she's awesome and has been known to bring me snacks. We definitely have a good time, though.

Marthe, hard at work as usual.

As I mentioned in my last update, I got the chance to leave the Teen Challenge house multiple times, and it was pretty amazing to see so many different parts of Port-Au Prince. Typically, I was just tagging along with Marthe and Mr. Lionel as they ran errands different errands for the office. The pictures posted in my last entry captured a couple of examples of heavily worn down areas, but what I saw in what I'll call "the shopping district" was significantly different. The streets were bustling! There were street merchants everywhere, selling everything from clothes and shoes to DVDs. But the actual shops are pretty much like what you would expect in an American strip mall. Except, like the Eagle Supermarket, they all have shotgun wielding security guards standing at the entrances. No big deal! Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a chance to take pictures of the area, but I'm sure I'll have other chances.

Last Thursday, we took out the trash and it was... well, nasty. To say the least. The trash is basically just kept in big bags in the back of the house, but they get so heavy that when we tried to move them some of them ripped open. Anyway, we piled all of the trash into the back of the bus and drove down the street to a dumpster, which was full. So Mr. Lionel backed the bus up next to it and we just pushed everything out into a big pile around the dumpster.

Dumpster situation similar to ours, though not the same one. You can see the outside of another tent city behind it. Like I said, nasty.

The other night we played dominoes, and yet again, the rules were intense. If you lost, you had to pick up your chair and carry it. If you lost again, you were out, which I suppose is fair enough. But apparently, when it's played on the streets, each time you lose, you need to hold a cinder-block under your armpit. When they told me this, I said, "Jeeze! You guys never play easy!" And somebody said, "This is Haiti, man - nothing's easy!"

Well anyway, that's all for today! It's time for some sweeping. Again, I'll upload some of the pictures I took today when have the time tomorrow.

Happy 4th of Joo-ly!

Oh, and a belated shout out to the Gamecocks, who went undefeated in the college world series on their way to their second straight national championship. Go Cocks! Yeah!

Week Two - Exploring Port-Au-Prince

Hello again, everybody!

I figured I could take some time off from channel 32's broadcast of Spiderman dubbed in french to upload some of the pictures I took from the drive out to church today. With all the bouncing-out-of-my-seat action going on, it was a little bit difficult to take "good" pictures, but I tried my best and got some fairly decent ones. As a brief overview - most of the pictures I took were of either heavily damaged buildings or particularly striking places. I would say that, by themselves, these pictures don't correctly represent the whole of the Port-Au-Prince landscape; they are merely meant to give an idea of how much damage still remains.

I have an inkling that George is a practitioner of voodoo. It's very hard to get a picture of him better than this bigfoot-esque silhouette seen here.

Left to Right - Jhonny, Wadelet, Somebody who we picked up on the side of the road, and Clegie.

Porportte and Makenson just before we left. Haha, Porportte decided to go with the serious face on this one. He doesn't usually look that angry.

Here's everybody in the bus on the way out. You can see Makenson and Elysee up there in front, I'm not sure who's giving the thumbs-up in the background. Photo was courtesy of Jhonny.

This is just down the road from where we are, across the street from the tent city I've pictured below. There's a pile of gravel that I just missed to the left of the house (which I'm assuming once made up part of the house) where, just the other day, a couple of goats were making a space to lie down. In a very bizarre sort of way, it reminded me of the Billy Goat exhibit at Brookfield Zoo.

The best picture I could get of the aforementioned tent city. Just out of the shot and to the left is the spot where we dumped our trash last Thursday.

Close to the same tent city, this appears to be a dried up river bed that has since been almost completely filled with trash.

And that's all I have for now! I'll try to upload more pictures after my next venture out through Port-Au-Prince. I'll also be posting an update either tomorrow or Tuesday. For now, it's time to watch some copa americana!

Week One - Quite the Week it Has Been

Hello Everybody!

Well, seeing as this is my first entry, I'll start with a little intro bit before the true blogging begins - My name is Mike Kozik, and I'm a third year Biology/Philosophy student at the University of South Carolina. Currently, I am a week into a six week stay in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, living with a group of about 17 young Haitian men, teaching English, and volunteering at a nearby clinic. Hope Outreach International (their website) - the program that I am working with - operates both the clinic and the "Teen Challenge" program with which I am staying (More information on "Haiti Teen Challenge" can be found at their website, here).

As for my week - it's been amazing. Being taken from the airport to the place I'm staying at was probably the most striking things I have ever seen. I wish I had taken some pictures, but I was in such a state of awe that the thought didn't really even cross my mind. It was hard to describe the full effect of everything - the streets were mostly made of dirt and in a universal state of disrepair. Some of the buildings looked almost as though the same descriptors could be applied - crumbling concrete with old, worn out paint jobs. But one thing was clear, the damage made by the earthquake from last year was still visible almost everywhere I looked. I asked Lionel (spelling?), the person who drove me, if the crumbled walls and exposed rebar I had seen were from the earth quake, and he told me that many of the houses damaged by the earthquake were still damaged. A wall, he told me (if I'm remembering correctly), had fallen from the third floor of one house onto his house, practically destroying a part of it. The damage still has yet to be repaired. He said that not everybody was physically injured by the earthquake, but most still felt an emotional trauma. The tent villages, which were large enough to see on my descent into Port-Au-Prince, were unlike anything I had seen before. It's hard to describe - I'll try to remember to take a picture the next chance I get.

So far, I have yet to visit the clinic that I'll be working at. But staying with the guys at Teen Challenge has been an adventure in itself! Everybody has such a personality that it's just been fun to be here. Having been here for only a week, I really already feel kinda like these guys are my brothers. The language barrier isn't too big of a deal. Everybody's been helping me pick up on the Creole, and I've learned a lot. Once I got comfortable enough with it, I started teaching my English class - which, thus far, has worked pretty well. Because a lot of the guys can speak pretty decent English, I've mostly had them ask me questions about what gives them trouble. Otherwise, I've done a lot of vocabularly (via the classic point and say 'this is...' method) and pronunciation. I have my own room, which has been very comfortable thus far. Although, unfortunately, the pump that brings water up to the house lost its electricity, so I have had to bathe old fashion-style, with a bucket and a makeshift-tupaware scoop. The bathing part isn't too bad, but the toilet not flushing kind of is. Oh well! As for the schedule, we wake up every morning at 6 and go to bed at 9. Chapel is at 8:30 in the morning, with study time for the guys in between meals and their class on the weekdays. We play basketball everyday before dinner, either starting at 4 on MWF, or after we do house cleaning on TTH. I teach my english class monday-thursday from 3:30 to 4:00. The foods been pretty tasty - for lunch (diner in creole), we usually eat rice with beans and some sort of spicy curry type meat dish. Sometimes, for breakfast (dejeoneur, and I'm sure I spelled that wrong), we get spaghetti, which is awesome. Dinner (suppe) is usually either porridge or bread.

One thing is for sure - these guys love their basketball, and I'm getting pretty hooked as well. We play at least twice a day - either one on one, two on two, or, most frequently, around the world. The bad news for me is that every time I lose around the world, I have to do 50 push ups. So... Every time I play, I have to do 50 push ups. And I play usually twice in the morning and twice in the evening. Hahaha at least I'll be bigger when I get home! But I've been getting better every day - my friends have been coaching me with my shot and my dribbling, and I've actually beaten some of them one on one. Although, of course, all of the push ups help.

Anyway, that's all for this post! I'll try to post more frequently for the sake of lengthiness - this post felt like it must have been pretty long. But with all that's happened this past week, I might be too wrapped up in the excitement of the next to keep my word on that.

PS - The Cock that you should see behind this is named George, whose naming I am happy to take credit for. He's pretty great. Unfortunately for him, my good friend Johnny says that come winter time, when George is good and fat, he's going to eat George.