Acclimatizing

So, what's up.  Guess I'll start by telling you a little about my day.  Up at 5 am.  Its great to get a little time in the morning to start the day right - with a time for devotions and prayer.  It also allows me time to plan for the day.  However, a word of caution - the day often changes - by 8 am today my list was out the window and I now had a new list to work on.  Spent some time early this morning doing a little design work for the new building - its coming along nicely.  Also been doing accounting the last few days and its now nearly up to date.

So, today my plans got superceded by about 8 am.  Had maintenance to do on the cement mixer; office/network/wan issues to resolve and a couple of other priority items.  Of course there is always plumbing, electrical and other work that needs to get done.  Plumbing was on my list, although its a priority, didn't get that far on it, some progress, but the problem is now on the list for tomorrow.  I always find it "interesting" to work on building mtce here - because you'll never know what new and "interesting" plumbing you'll encounter.

I hope you can read the slight element of sarcasm in my writing.

Anyway, we got a call early this morning from one of the boys in the church who was very ill.  I went with a couple of others to see him, and to take him to see a doctor.  Now this doctor runs several different clinics here in Haiti and so the clinic that he was at today was down near the airport.  Not that terribly far in distance, but far in time.  Hopefully you can recall some elements from one of my early observations regarding time warps that occur here in Haiti.  Also, don't forget that this is still rainy season here and I've discovered that there is a correlation between rain and the strength of the time warp over the next several days or weeks. 

Driving here is at best difficult - and today I've discovered yet even more (many more) mini grand canyons in our roads.

So, got off track this morning first thing.  Now on my list for early afternoon was taking Pastor Michel to the airport to catch his flight and on the way stopping off to order cement blocks from the bloc factory - these are custom made to order - just cause it makes life more interesting so that's the way we do things here.  Mission accomplished.

This afternoon, plumbing was going to be back on my list - hey but wait - higher priority item.  The fridge in the guest house has not been working.  3 or 4 days ago, borrowed a R12 hose from a friend to add R134a refrigerant - just cause it makes life more interesting so that's the way we do things here.  The refrigerator had an R12 connection, but the compressor is labeled as R134a.  The refrigerant helped for a few days - but never got cold enough to freeze things - of course the limited amount of hydro and aging batteries would be a contributing factor as well.  Now its not an automatic decision as to where to buy appliances and what models are available, so it takes some time (there is that warp again) and some energy to figure things out.  That was on the agenda for this afternoon.

Please hang in there, I'm almost through my day. 

Finally when I got back, started to look into the plumbing issue, but it was too late, my "helper" had left for the day.  So, finished up the afternoon with a little office work and straightened out (at least temporarily) the DNS errors. 

Today I went into autopilot at one point.  What's autopilot - you know - when you start to drive in a certain direction - you always end up at the same place - like for example going to work.  When I was in Ottawa - if I left my house driving and made the first two turns towards work - I hit autopilot and went to work - even if that is not where I was intending to go.  The fact that I went into autopilot here in Haiti is truly amazing.  First of all, I'm in Haiti, and if you haven't already guessed it, everything, including driving, is anything but routine. Secondly its rainy season which sharpens your navigation skills.

So, the good news - If I can hit autopilot in Haiti - it must mean that I'm acclimatizing quite well.