hinche-school

My goal last night was to get to 6:00am, which is when our alarm was scheduled to go off. It was a rough night for many reasons including many noises, spiders, mosquitos, heat, and probably dealing with some culture shock through what we'd experienced thus far and knowing we'd be home in our bed the next night.
 

hinche-school-classroom

hinche-school-kids

But morning came, the roosters crowed and the birds that sounded like a mix between monkeys and hyeenas, chirped. We had our last taste of Haitian food for breakfast, savoring the coffee one more time. We left early to get over the mountains to Port Au Prince in time for our flight, with a quick stop for our final shoot location at a local school. The school was simple and the kids were adorable. We weren't there for long, but we were greeted with many "bonjours" and smiles. The teachers had the kids sing their morning songs for us, which was so cute! Then we headed out on what ended up being over a 3 hour trip back to PAP. There was much more traffic going back today than we had encountered leaving the city on Wednesday. One part was particularly bad, where it took us about half an hour to go maybe a mile. We passed by many UN and OEA (Office of Electoral Affairs - the independent group making sure Haiti has a true and fair, unrigged election) trucks and vans, and even soldiers already out on the roads on foot, getting ready for the guaranteed violence and riots over the weekend.

pap-traffic

Sunday is Haiti's presidential election and there are 54 candidates. We learned that violence breaks out all over Haiti after the election because if the vote doesn't go the way that the locals want it to go, or specific groups of locals (not everyone), then they riot and cause so much damage that they have to close down their polling place and it doesn't count towards the overall tally. When we were waiting for our ride to pick us up at the airport on Wednesday morning we spent time talking with a local guy who was very helpful to us (he even let us use his cell phone to call our contact to make sure our ride was on their way). We asked him about the election and if there was a candidate he wanted to become president. He then pointed up and said that the only one he wants to be president is God. He didn't think any of this year's candidates would change things for the better. Another person told us, "I don't know yet who I will vote for, but I definitely know some of them who I WON'T vote for." This is because they are people who already have a reputation of only serving themselves and their friends and business partners.

election-signs-01

David asked our World Vision guide the question that he's asked multiple people, which is, "Do you see hope for Haiti?" He said yes, he believes there is hope for Haiti, and, "That's why I'm still here. I even moved my family to the US for two years, but decided I could make a difference here." He followed this with a big smile and nervous laughter. He said that he sees hope for Haiti through education of the people. REAL education. He said that if their people can be educated about all of the different things they could do, and how to do it, then they could grow. He said that to get people educated enough to ask people like politicians "why" and "how", would make a big difference. He said that every politician says, "I will make things better when I'm in power," but no one says how or what they will do to make it better/different. He said that if people could learn to ask questions like that, then there could be hope for Haiti.

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