48 Hour Countdown- Other thoughts (not medical)

When we arrive in Haiti we will be staying within the still-standing walls of the Healing Hands for Haiti medical compound. The 7 buildings within the compound have been destroyed. All 150 of us will be camping in tents within the compound. Today I learned that 2 nearby orphanages have also been destroyed. The children from these orphanages will be staying with us within the compound as well. I have purchased several cheap coloring books- with no English words in them!- to take down with me, as well as stickers, playdough, and other little items. I heard a rumor that a local school girl has collected 100 teddy bears for us to take as well. But anyone has any additional clean, used, toys , or new toys, they would like to donate, I can take them down. I have no idea how many children there will be, or how old they are. I just know they won't speak English!


Speaking of speaking English, I stopped by the library today as well. I feel a little guilty that I took all of their French/English dictionaries, (all both of what the Lehi library had to offer), and a Learn French textbook. Hopefully this will help with communication down there. (Why do I just know in the back of my head I will be paying the library for lost books in the future?)


Tonight as I shopped for my last minute supplies it hit me that it is going to be really dark in Haiti at night. With no electricity, except from generators, across most of Port au Prince, it is going to be really dark! (So I bought a special hanging LED tent light, and I packed an extra hand-held flashlight.)  Ooh! I bet the children would love those glow in the dark bendy necklace things! I wonder how cheap those are?

I was speaking with a local newspaper today and they said something that really saddened me. They opted to not send a reporter and photographer down with us, "because we've covered Haiti enough. We are going to start scaling back and reporting on it less now." 150,000+ people have died and 1 million have lost their homes, and they are tired of reporting it. I guess its back to the important things like Tiger Woods in sex rehab (which was on their site today) and which soft drink is spending the most ad dollars at the super bowl. Disgusting.


My brain is operating in a completely overloaded capacity right now. As I type this more thoughts are jumping into my head, "Pack the sleeping pills!" "Grab some 3x5 cards to help memorize French terms!" "Wear glasses on the flight Thursday so you can sleep and not get yucky contact lenses!" "Email Ashlee C." " Text Little!" "Eat a huge breakfast before getting shots!" "Don't forget to transfer the Paypal money!" "That French/English Visual Dictionary looks freaking heavy but will probably be really useful!" "Are 7 pairs of underwear and socks really enough?" "I wonder if I will miss my dog's incessant and loud snoring?" "This blog post is way too long! Chop it down into smaller posts!" "GO TO BED!"


Okay, I will.