bitter-sweet waiting periods

Perhaps some are under the illusion that work in the developing world is fast-paced. I like to refer to my experience working here as "The Great Wait." To give you an idea:

The Cayes-office is dark, there is spotty, slow internet. Charcoal dust and the scents of pig entrails and tripe blow in the window from the neighboring kitchen. Two different sets of computer speakers blast music -- one kompa and the other Celine Dion. Working out at the farm is impossible since the guy who's supposed to set up the internet has said "tomorrow" since last week. A large satellite dish sits on the bottom floor of the quad, secure in its corrugated cardboard, taunting us.

We can't get the Haitian government to recognize our NGO status. An ongoing saga. Every day it's going to happen "tomorrow." This prevents us from participating in round-tables with other organizations in the area. This also prevents funding from major international organizations who would otherwise be able to provide immense help.

Organizing and requesting aid from peripherally located organizations means securing a ride into town, finding a printer that works, printing off the request, driving it half way up a mountain, waiting around, handing over the request, waiting, driving home. This can take up to a whole day, which means that not much else gets done.

EDH (Haiti's national electricity company) hooked up power to our farm. This is awesome except that EDH is highly unreliable... So there are surges and 12-48 hour periods with no electricity at all. Yesterday, since our batteries hadn't been recharged for days, we had no power... We waited and waited and finally were able to get something done on our computers by evening.

Now, the upside to all these "down periods" is that the kids are happy to see us around, hang out with us and harass us. If I let go of my neurotic, American expectations to be on the 'net every day, then I can be very happy out here playing with children and running a backhoe (yes, running a backhoe). Then, too, I recognize the ability to have other kinds of successes.

All these things taken into consideration, it'll be bitter-sweet leaving Haiti behind. Right now I am engaged in a transfer of "power." Paige is meeting my friends around town and learning about some of the projects that I have been working on. She'll pick up the mantel where I leave off in mid-August.