Why Haiti? Why Now...

Remember how The Nanny "had style, she had flair, she was THERE," and that's how she became The Nanny?

Well my story is kind of like that.

Except I had the availability, all my shots, and speak a little French. True story.

My parents took the news well. I guess after "I'm moving to Chicago;" "I'm moving to California;" "I'm moving to Paris;" "I'm going to Ireland for Thanksgiving;" "I'm going to backpack around Thailand and Cambodia for a while;" "I'm going to Kauai for Thanksgiving;" and "I'm quitting my jobs and going to Africa for 5 weeks;" they've reached a point of rolling with the punches when it comes to my announcements. One of my friends put it best (and this was several years ago) when she said, "We just know when you say you're thinking about doing something or want to do something that means you're going to do it."

But I had never really mentioned Haiti before. Sure immediately following the earthquake the breaking news buff in me would have jumped at the chance to jet down there. (And I got nerdy excited to find out I will be staying in the same hotel the 60 Minutes crew did during their month long stay following the quake.) Since then, my interest was only strongly piqued when I had to cover Anthony Bourdain's Haiti episode. He hung out with Sean Penn. They talked about the organization Sean works for, J/P HRO. I looked into that a little bit, but wasn't sure I was a good fit. Then I went to Africa and then I started volunteering around here and didn't give it much thought.

Until for some reason I did...and so I posted on FB and got responses, two of which connected to Global Orphan Project, which I saw as enough of a sign. I sent them a little note, basically saying: I was available for their next trip, I have all of the necessary shots to go and I know French. Which is apparently kinda like Creole. Which is apparently what they speak in Haiti. The lady emailed me back the next day and said "we'd love to have you." The day after that she had purchased me tickets. I would later say to my group leader that I really felt like they were being very trusting of me seeing as how they didn't/still really don't know that much about me. Apparently we all share a similar philosophy in that if you take things as they come, things happen as they should. (Which sounds passive, but in reality you're always taking the next step, until the next step doesn't work and you have to find a different path.)
As luck would have it, when I was exploring the GO network, I spotted one of my fellow Africa volunteers in one of their pictures. Signs, signs, everywhere signs.

So I'm gonna be hot, and sweaty, and might have to take cold showers (hot water is only avail when electricity is). But I'm also going to spend five days playing with kids who thrive on the love of strangers...who enjoy life despite their circumstances. This won't be my first third world country. Not even my first third world country post-disaster. But I'm preparing myself for it to be worse than anything I've ever seen, and better than anything I could imagine.

The (nearly) 5 days spent off the grid? A challenge I'm happy to take on.