Staring at a warm beer

An unopened can of warm Prestige is on the table beside me. This is Haitian beer, brewed and canned in Port-au-Prince. Apparently it has won the World Beer Cup Medaille d'Or. Has anyone ever heard of this World Beer Cup? In any case, it was as I stared at the beer that I realized today is the day that most people who read this are thinking about fireworks and picnics.

Today felt like a normal day.
1. Woke up at 7:13 a.m., saw that I had a bit of time before Gusly arrived, and decided to finish proofing a couple of documents.

2. Dug into my food stash and ate one portion of "dairy dessert with mango", a "long-life product". Basically it was a yogurt.

3. Rode in the back of a pick-up truck over to Chada, Wednesday's mobile clinic site. Spent 3.5 hours there, weighing and measuring kids that didn't want me anywhere near them. Everything takes place in a small cement room with a roof of metal sheeting, and there were at least 13 people inside at any given time. It gets hot and kids get cranky. One unhappy 18-month old, whose 9-year old brother had brought him in, took a nice leak on the floor (understandably, diapers are not a purchasing priority in the face of malnutrition). Luckily, I got my backpack out of the way before the liquid reached it.

4. Felt overwhelmed by the mounds of trash outside that serve as both playground and bathroom for most kids. Watched kids flying kites made out of trash.

5. Snapped out of it. Weighed and measured more kids who would clearly have preferred to stay near their mothers' breasts.

6. Rode the pick-up truck back from Chada. On the way, stopped for a big jug of drinking water. Ate a Clif bar. Almost got rear-ended by a speeding vehicle with bad breaks.

7. Washed my arms and face at home. Blew the dirt out of my nose.

8. Sat with Tom and Dumel to discuss some programmatic strategies for the site that is being set up this Friday. Since I'll be eventually engaging in research with this cohort of caretakers and kids, I won't be going to this site until it's time for me to collect data (which won't happen until I hear from the IRB anyway). But, I pretend to help them think through some new programmatic strategies.

9. Ate a piece of bread with some 'long-life' cheese on it.

10. Scrubbed out 2 used joint-compound buckets, purchased down by the dock yesterday. These are hot commodities. I'm going to use mine for food storage.

11. Filled the roof-top water tanks.

Now, I'm thinking about going out to dinner. Maybe I'll take a picture or two for posting afterwards.