Visits

from Malawi

Last week I had a friend in town. Klaasje and I lived together for 2 months in Nkhoma! She had come to work with the youth department (before that job ended for me). She came down with a friend who was a nurse and who didn’t feel confident with her English so Klaasje and I did most of the talking…She is now working in Holland for the international organization Word and Deed (Parole et Action in French and Woord en Daad in Dutch) who have quite a few ties in Haiti. She came down for some partner meetings that lasted a week. I got to meet up with her on Sunday to hang out and do what she was doing. I got to her hotel early (nice place—hot water, air conditioning, pool—thought I’d move in for the week at least) and we went to church with the former Haitian CEO of the organization. Eris drove us through parts of Port au Prince that I didn’t recognize (not really hard to do) but at one point I did recognize where we were—we just usually come from a different route (I enjoyed recognizing something). We went to Calvary Chapel which is held right now in a very large tent (they are planning a building I think). We were given headsets into which a translator translated the service into English which was nice (except when I was trying to check her and listen to both at the same time). Then we went to lunch at the Karibe Hotel (very nice). After that was a clinic opening that their organization helped with in a part of the city that I hadn’t been to.

It was great to see Klaasje and to see parts of the city I hadn’t seen and probably wouldn’t have—we get into the routes of where we go and how we go, so discovering new places doesn’t happen often.