Day 1: June 18th, 2018
Guess who’s back…
Long time no see, friends and family! For those of you who
don’t know, my name is Max Nelson and this blog has kinda been my thing for the
last two trips. I will be a Senior at Eden Prairie High School next year and
this is my third trip to Haiti. I am going to keep this one short as I am
running on about 2 hours of sleep and there is a game of bean bags to be
played.
It should be illegal to wake up before 4:00am for anything,
but hey we felt like rebels today and wanted to start our day at 2:45am. Even
though our team comes from all over the country (Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
West Virginia, and North Carolina), we can all relate to how this morning went.
2:45am: Wake up and silently cry for a minute because its so
early.
2:46am: Get excited because we are going to Haiti!
Did I mention how much I hated getting up at 2:45am? I’m not
sure if I have made that clear. Anywhoosies, for the Minnesota crew, we all met
up at the airport around 3:45am. Security was a breeze which gave Ryan and me
time to go grab some “Airport McDonald’s” before we hopped on our flight. (If
that doesn’t sound like the breakfast of champions, I don’t know what does).
The flight to Atlanta was quick and we met up with most of the rest of the team
when we landed. Karen Stich got to eat Chick Fil A for the first time today so
that’s also a bonus. Thanks Atlanta! The flight to Port Au Prince was a bit
longer than the usual Miami-Port Au Prince flight, but it went by fast and we
cleared Immigration quickly after paying $10 to the motherland to fund the new
state of the art air conditioning system they have just installed in the
airport. Just kidding, we were sweating before we even made it off the plane.
The trip to the guest house was quick and we got right to playing with the
neighborhood boys in the daily soccer games that take place next door. It was a
tad cloudy today, but that didn’t stop us from sweating through the shirts in
the first five minutes of the game. Shocking. As usual, the Americans were
absolutely dominated by the Haitians. Shocking again. We are looking for a
better showing tomorrow. The team then regrouped for a Taco Monday (lame its
not Tuesday) dinner and then headed to the pool to cool off. Hey that rhymed! When
we were walking back from the pool it started to rain a little bit, but we
weren’t worried until the torrential downpour started as we reached our compound
gate. I’ve never seen it rain so hard in Haiti! We then had group time and
talked about our plans for Water Truck Day tomorrow. We also got to celebrate
Lucy Gerst’s birthday with some chocolate cake from an undisclosed bakery. Sketchy?
Maybe. Yummy? Absolutely. Well, you guys are all caught up now and I look
forward to keeping you in the loop over the next week. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s
update on the Water Truck Day, neighborhood soccer, revival of the
Jeffvolution, and much much more!
“This is considered ‘keeping it short?’ Oh boy.”
Max Nelson
