Almost a year ago I wrote a post on a brief trip I made to Haiti…as in the Haitian embassy in D.C. This past weekend I made an actual trip to Haiti with Ayanna and my teammate Moise and had the weekend of a lifetime; to say the least. The purpose of the trip was to visit Shalom Village, an orphanage in Cap Haitien which is the country’s 2nd largest city and about an hour flight north of Port-au-Prince (PaP). The city also has a population that is nearly 65% under the age of 18, so you can understand the value of an orphanage there at this point in time. While the city itself wasn’t directly affected by the earthquake, some kids at Shalom Village and other Cap Haitien orphanages are from PaP. Of course even before the earthquake, orphanages in  Haiti played a crucial role in providing children with a chance to live safely with people who care about them and eat meals on a consistent basis (even though 2 meals is less than “normal,” 2 square meals is a great day for a large number of children in Haiti).

While my time with the kids was certainly the primary highlight of the trip I also had the opportunity to see and do things in Haiti that people who haven’t visited the country might only expect from other, more “tourist-friendly” islands. I even got to spend some time with my uncle and aunt which was a great experience in and of itself. This was before spending some time chatting with Wyclef about Haitian track and field and the country’s Olympic prospects.

We had some travel difficulties here and there and even with those in mind, it was a GREAT weekend. I came back to the States with a more heightened and focused sense of purpose overall as well as a desire to get back to work on the track with even more intensity than before.

We all know that a picture is worth 1000 words; so to keep this post from getting too wordy, I’ll share some pics from the trip.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►