![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.volunteerjournals.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/haiti_flag.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
[Deutsch unten<\/a>]<\/p>\n 17 December, 11:00am<\/em><\/p>\n So it\u2019s official now: This is my last entry about Haiti. I\u2019m sitting in a Starbucks in Miami Beach right now, only two hours by plane but a world away from Jacmel. I\u2019m here for a week, giving myself some time to adjust to \u201cnormal” life and process the last two months before arriving home in Switzerland for Christmas with my family. <\/p>\n The last week in Jacmel was intense – 7 new volunteers arrived Monday night, just for that last week, so they were all determined to work hard and make the most of their short time. Lucky for us the group also included Amber\u2019s dad Jeremy, a doctor – with cholera unfortunately on the rise, having him there for education and treatment was a gift. <\/p>\n We finished painting the kindergarten at Center Orphanage of the Faith<\/u> by drawing a couple of games (hopscotch and foursquare) onto the floor, much to the children\u2019s delight. Shaona, one of the new volunteers, also organised a t-shirt design workshop, which obviously was a great success. After this most of us focused on Ecole Nationale de Cyvadier<\/u>, a boys\u2019 school that needed new latrines, new roofs and a paint job on all three of its buildings (all of which I was able to help with financially, thanks to my generous donors at home!). <\/p>\n Shaona and myself created a sign for the school – first a wooden one on the side of the road, which unfortunately was stolen the very next day, then a theft-safe one on the side of a building. We didn\u2019t quite manage to finish the project, because the last few days the weather turned on us and it rained for the first time since the hurricane.<\/p>\n I also finished the Advanced English classes<\/u> by handing out certificates, a great wish from our students. Although teaching is definitely not my calling, it was a great opportunitely to get to know some Haitians a bit better and I\u2019ll miss them a lot. Hopefully they will manage to follow their dreams and improve their own lives as well as their communities, which they all seem to aspire to.<\/p>\n It was also goodbye from Mother Theresa\u2019s and I went there twice to spend time with my ladies (who requested I bring them soap, which I gladly did) and the kids. I even got to hold Emmanuel, one of the one-month-old twin boys – born from an HIV-positive mother they\u2019re both so tiny and fragile, it was rather heartbreaking. On the up side the two-year-olds were rather lively, and I enjoyed chasing after them. I can only hope that the Missionaries of Charity will be able to provide them with a good start in life.<\/p>\n I also got the chance to visit Esther and Titi in their family\u2019s new home – it\u2019s a tiny, pink room that the five of them share, but it\u2019s theirs, and they have a nice yard area to cook and play in. The bunk beds look great, too, swathed in mosquito nets. I left all clothes that I didn\u2019t want to take home with Esther, and Grace helped them open a bank account so hopefully we\u2019ll be able to keep helping them down the line, but I\u2019ll miss all of them a lot, especially Milora.<\/p>\n Going to the bank proved to be quite difficult, incidentally – because of serious unrest in Port au Prince the banks remained closed for half the week. It also meant that our second co-ordinator Jess, who had gone up on Monday and stayed to help a volunteer who had lost all his things leave the country, was stuck amidst dangerous road blocks and outbreaks of violence all week. We only saw her again on Tuesday at the hotel La Maison – Kat and some of us took an early car (miserable for me, as I got very carsick), the others flew in tiny planes from Jacmel airport, because no one had known what the situation was going to be like.<\/p>\n But before we left, we went on one last excursion to the beautiful Bassin Bleu waterfall – I didn\u2019t want to risk the climb up, but most others ended up jumping at least once. We were very lucky with the weather, as it started pouring again that night, drenching all of us on our way to dinner at Cap. It stayed quite bad all of Monday, so we ended up having take-out from Maude\u2019s at our house on our very last night together.<\/p>\n This suited all of us well, as we had one last exciting group \u201cproject”: On Sunday Grace and Bryan had gotten their long-planned \u201cAyiti” tattoos (Haiti in Creole) from a local artist who came to the GVN house, which inspired a whole bunch of us to want to get our own lasting souvenir of our amazing time in Jacmel… Including myself – my left foot now says \u201cPazapa”, which means \u201cstep by step” in Creole!<\/p>\n Not that I need a reminder. These two months will probably stay with me all my life – as will the friendships formed, I\u2019m sure. Saying goodbye was incredibly hard, so I was happy that there\u2019d be a whole group of us in Miami on Tuesday night. However, in the end I missed all of them, except for Deb, who I got to have a lovely dinner at the airport with before she caught her plane to London. I guess we\u2019ll just have to plan a reunion next year!<\/p>\n If only I could be so sure I\u2019ll see the Haitians I\u2019ve grown to love again! The country is in such bad shape (political unrest, poverty, disease), I am afraid for most of them – will they be stuck in their tents, living in the mud, forever? It will take a lot for Haiti to find a better path, and they\u2019ll need the right kind of help – the kind that gives them the tools to stand on their own two feet, not reliant on foreign aid. I think this is why volunteering is a good thing: it builds connections, real relationships, not just pity inspired by pictures seen on TV.<\/p>\n