Category Archives: dogs

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Variations on Exile (Baby Doc, Part 3)


(To read Part 1 of this post click here, to read Part 2 click here.)

It’s been six days since I interviewed Baby Doc and I am still reeling—whirl-winded by the sheer size of the experience, the weight, the scope of opportunity that came so unexpectedly.

And, frankly, I’ve not digested the experience yet— it seems to have exhausted me; I feel depleted–confused by having almost “liked” the version of Duvalier I met that night.  What does one do with that realization?

Quite frankly I wish I were back in Haiti now. 

Certainly, I love our home in Lexington and enjoy seeing Sara’s happiness at being here, but I would do anything to be in Port-au-Prince when Aristide arrives.  The plane to return him from exile has already left South Africa; he’s expected to arrive in Haiti within hours.

But if I had to identify one overwhelming response to meeting Jean-Claude Duvalier, it would be this—a bit of dismay at how intrigued I still am by him—not Baby Doc the dictator, but Baby Doc the man, the details of ordinary around him. 

The fact that his house, though perhaps the grandest on his street, was not as spectacular as I had suspected it would be.  The couches in the living room seemed old and worn.  There were no fancy fixtures.  The wrought iron chairs on the patio needed paint.

But then again, that’s what we all amount to in the end—the peeling paint, the nicks, the scars.  The couches need recovering.

The bottom line is this:  the story of Haiti is largely one of exile and variations on that theme—coerced comings and goings, arriving unwillingly on a tiny island, you then don’t want to leave.

So it was for the slaves the Europeans brought from Africa, and so it was for Jean-Claude Duvalier, made president for life at age 19 when his father died, a job he didn’t want, a role he didn’t want to play.  He ruled for 15 years, was exiled for 25, and has finally come home to Haiti again.

And in some ways, so it is for Sara and me.  Though we came willingly to Haiti, we were not at all ready to leave, and having left feels like a loss, an amputation.  Haiti is the phantom limb, the one I dream about, the one that calls to me at night.

Eventually we all get kicked off one island or another.  A tribal council is convened.  The votes are cast.

And someone has to go–

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My Old Kentucky Home


Having lived a year in post-earthquake Haiti and shipped 66 boxes worth of passion for Port-au-Prince ahead of our departure, my partner Sara and I, late last night, arrived home in Kentucky with 6 suitcases, 4 carry-ons, and two tired dogs in tow.

And today I am still too whip-lashed by re-entry (too shocked by easy access to electricity) to write much of substance, especially about my Saturday evening talk with Baby Doc, which in itself has left me dizzied with disbelief–clearly, the conversation of a life-time shaded by the half-light of infamy.

However, now that I’m back in the land of easy broadband, I can offer a few photographic highlights of our last days in Haiti:

Movers wrap everything, tables included, in cardboard

Lucy supervises shipping

Ralph visits Haitian vet to avoid US quarantine

Good bye party hosted by Sara's staff at Kalico Beach (near Cabaret)

Lucy oversees our departure for the airport

From atop Ralph's crate

Arrival at the Port-au-Prince airport

Lucy and Kathy wait at the gate

My talk with Baby Doc

Though I’m too tired to say much, I will add that, my 45 minute conversation with Baby Doc, would have been the coup of a life-time, were I a journalist in the traditional sense.  However, I was granted this access as a “friend of friend” and talked with Jean-Claude Duvalier, not about his recent arrest or allegations of wrong-doing, but about who he is as a man, as a president returned from exile, who sees his country suffering and is saddened by it.

I sat across the table and was stunned by the seeming humanity of an ex-dictator, some say committed crimes against humanity.   How could someone supposedly evil actually appear so warm, charming, and, above all else, humble?  I expected arrogance and experienced not one drop of it. 

Is this man maybe not what the world has judged him to be?  Are people capable of change, worthy of redemption?

Whoever Jean-Claude Duvalier is, he’s not what you’d expect.

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Pack Rat does it again!


Since Sara and I are continuing to box up our lives here in Haiti (all in an effort to move back to the US next week),  I couldn’t help but share a post I wrote some months back about the pack-rat affliction I suffer from, as well as two quick photos of our dog Lucy’s participation in the packing process:

I tend to over-pack. 

I admit it.  It’s a sickness.

It might even be a curse—who knows?

However, when you travel as much as I do, it becomes a problem—

A big problem.

This issue arises every time I go almost anywhere—the grocery store, the gym, even a restaurant or my mother’s house.  Heck, I even carry too much to the bathroom, if I think my stay there may be extended—a book, a notebook, a pen, a drink, a phone, sometimes 2 phones—maybe a magazine.  It all adds up.

Sara insists this calls for an intervention.  She thinks she’ll fix me.  That she can help me “edit”—her word.  And admittedly, she has a reasonable investment in my reform, as often she ends up carrying my stuff, lugging it all over the planet—quite literally.

This is why she bought me a Kindle—afraid when last  year we moved to Vietnam, where there’s not an abundance of reading material in English—that I would bring the inventory of a small university library along for the ride—that she would have to carry it.

Wise woman!

However, this week’s trip from Port-au-Prince home to Kentucky, has challenged even my advanced luggaging skills.  Even more so, since I was bringing Lucy back with me—a dog as carry-on baggage—a canine complication on top of my already dogged determination to carry too much stuff. 

When will I ever learn?

This complicating of already complicated carrying manifested itself most clearly yesterday morning in Miami.

I was running late—unusual for the chronically early like me.  I had to take Lucy outside the airport to use her version of public toilet.  She took too long. 

She wouldn’t pee!

Never did!

I was pissed!

So I loaded Lucy back into her black back-pack carrier, hurried back into the hotel to collect my 3 remaining bags—a yellow and brown messenger bag, a standard carry-on-sized suitcase, and another 55 pound monster—at least 100 kilos, if I’m doing the math right. (I’m not good at math.)

The woman at the hotel’s front desk mistakenly directed me to the American Airlines check-in in Concourse E, where the hotel is, rather than Concourse D—where I needed to be.  I stood in line for a good 15 minutes before an airport official indicated what no signage did, that this counter only handled check-in for passengers headed to Haiti—which two weeks from now will indeed be my destination.

For now—I was headed in the opposite direction—which meant trying to transport my abundant belongings outside for a 15 minute lumber to what could only be considered an outpost of the same airport.

It was far.

I was carrying a lot.

When I finally arrived at Concourse D, I tried to check in by swiping my passport.  

Didn’t work.

When I did succeed by typing in my name and destination city, the machine recognized but rejected me because of the pet, at which point an actual human being intervened, only to send me to yet another, though in the same terminal, distant location. 

Again I “luggaged.”

The clock was ticking.

Unbelievably, the third counter didn’t like me either, returned me, cursing the entire way, to location number 3.

There the slowest pet-check-in-specialist in aviation history had nearly completed the process, when I was reduced to begging, “Please hurry.  I’m going to miss my flight.”

“OOOOOOOOOOOh, you have plentyyyyyyyyyyy of tiiiiiiiiiime.”

“Not if you have anything to do with it.” I think.

However, her sloooooooowly articulated, cloooooooooosing words, were less than comforting, “Gate number 50.  Youuuuuuuuu have a longgggggg way to gooooooooo!”

No kidding!

Only after being rejected yet once more during the security check for, you guessed it, tooooooooooo many carry-on bags, did I finally persuade the less-than-friendly luggage Nazi, that I had paid 100 extra US dollars for the privilege of bringing my dog along.  I had to show the receipt.

You get the picture.

There’s ALWAYS a complication because of the bags, especially when Sara isn’t along to help carry!

Maybe she’s right.

Maybe there should be an intervention.

In the meantime, I’ll have to further sharpen my Sherpa skills—

Do they offer advanced degrees in “bag-lady?”

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Saint Sara’s Celery and a Broth Debacle Averted


As Sara, the dogs and I struggle  to “suitcase”  a year’s worth of Haiti into a less-than-large shipping container (all in an effort to return to the US next week), please notice how our dog Lucy “assists” with the effort.  She has her paw in the sorting and boxing, packing and wrapping:

Lucy "helps" with the packing!

Lucy’s romp through our packing not withstanding, today, in the spirit of looking back and celebrating some of our biggest adventures  in Haiti, I bring you Part 2 of my Thanksgiving post.  (To read part 1 click here.)  Enjoy!

Yesterday, promising a series of posts this week about the difficulties Sara and I face trying to celebrate Thanksgiving from Port-au-Prince, I outlined what I called the “oven-related challenges” that could jeopardize our thankful feasting this Thursday.

Today, however, shopping-related issues take center stage—the consumer-driven hazards that could take down even the most well-intended and tradition-centered of holiday celebrations.  In fact, it may be that the more one tries to model any Thanksgiving feast in Haiti on the one Grandma would have catered, the larger the obstacles threatening it loom.

So, buyer beware.

Wisely, Sara and I anticipated some of these issues and brought back from the US several Thanksgiving menu items we thought might be needed—imagined we wouldn’t find here, even in the expat-oriented grocery stores in Petion-ville. 

But as you might expect (those of you who know my pathetic track record when it comes to poor packing), I anticipated incorrectly—finding here in Haiti what I did bring back but not bringing what I didn’t find.  Just my bad Thanksgiving luck!

Except for canned pumpkin—that is. 

Here I hit the pie-filling nail on its not-so-proverbial-pie-filling head.  I swear there’s not an ounce of Libby’s to be had on the whole of this damn island—cherry pie filling, yes—canned yams, yes—canned pumpkin in time for Thanksgiving pie-baking—no sir—none of it—anywhere.  And believe me, I have looked. 

But we need not worry.   I may not have a thermostatically controllable oven to bake the pie in, but I have a full 29 ounce can of “America’s Favorite Pumpkin” to put in it.

Now about the celery—

Here I should mention having a bit of scare yesterday morning trying to find this vegetable, almost as essential to stuffing as sage itself.  Standing in Giant Market (right here in Petion-ville), I came so close to a celery-induced heart attack, I was imagining, “What would Jesus do?”  What would the son of God himself (assuming he were a turkey-stuffing kind of carpenter) use in his stuffing were the stalks of stringy stuff not available?  If he turned water into wine, could he turn carrots into celery?

But, again, you need not fear, as Saint Sara herself performed the miracle, finally finding what she called a “not very robust” celery (but a celery-looking substance nonetheless) in the grocery store near her office. 

Catastrophe averted.  We are that much closer to a celery-ed stuffing inside our bird that’s to be roasted at a temperature the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will themselves determine.

Then there’s the chicken broth—

Yesterday Sara sent me to the super market for some cans of it, among other things.   Actually, Giant carried the item in both the Swanson and Campbell’s variety—the Swanson, carton-ed with no added MSG and the Campbell’s, canned with all the blood-pressure-raising MSG one would ever want.  And being a health-conscious, not-wanting-to-consume-excessive-amounts-of-salt American, I selected the broth without MSG.  In fact, I tried to check out with three cartons of the stuff, since Thanksgiving dinner calls for broth in both the gravy and as a moistening agent in any well-celery-ed stuffing.

Here’s the hitch.  Though the store stocked the Swanson’s (over-stocked it, in fact)—they wouldn’t sell it to me.  And, if sheer quantity were any indication, wouldn’t sell to anybody, for that matter.  They couldn’ t figure out the price.  So, when, after thirty minutes of trying to determine one, no member of the sales or management staff could still settle on the number of Gourde to make me pay, I suggested they charge me anything. 

“Over-charge me,” I even offered—a concept they seemed not to grasp—though they seem to get it well enough when selling products on the street and doubling the price when any non-Haitian tries to buy.

But undeterred and unwilling to waste any more of my time-is-money American minutes, I gave up, bought the cans of Campbell’s, and headed home, risking ill-health all the way.

So the bottom line is this— the shopping obstacles, though they were multiple and at times bizarre, did not obstruct in any hugely significant way.  These were more imagined obstacles than obstacles of real substance—

So Saint Sara, the wise and proper packer, was (as she is in all things) probably right about this, as well–

—Since the anticipated shopping obstacle was, like the celery itself . . .

. . . “not a very robust” obstacle after all.

Have you had any strange, even borderline bizarre, shopping experiences?

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Miscellaneous Monday (and more Mindy to come)


It’s Monday.  And we’re launching another week’s worth of less-than-brilliant (but often, above-average) blogging here at Reinventing the Event Horizon. 

And, in honor of the week’s beginning, I bring you an “inspiring” (at least I’m trying) laundry list of updates:

1.  First, thanks to all of you for your kind and supportive comments in response to last week’s news that I wanted to begin moving my blog in the direction of memoir, not that I would discontinue writing about the event horizon that is Haiti, but that I would also address event horizons from my personal past:  namely my father’s organized crime connections and the black hole that is my battle with bipolar disorder.  (To read these posts click here and here.)

I believe the best writing is inevitably the most honest writing and my not addressing these issues was becoming a form of compositional dishonesty—a way of avoiding the shame associated with my father and the sigma connected to my illness.

One way to lessen stigma is to stop hiding, or, in my case, to boldly address my demons in the blogosphere’s bright light, to share my struggle, to tell my story, both the pain of the past and the hope that is recovery.

2.  Secondly, I’d like to announce an upcoming series of posts from my friend and fellow writer Mindy Shannon Phelps.  (I introduced Mindy last week.  To read her first post click here.)   As she finds time, Mindy will write pieces that address our sometimes serious, sometimes silly misadventures in being human. 

3.  Finally, an update on my dog Lucy’s adventures in Vietnam—her Maltese march, North to South, South to North. 

In last Monday’s post (click here to read) I forgot to include a few of the funniest photos—namely Lucy in Halong Bay . 

(Some of you may have heard of a recent accident in Halong Bay.  A tour boat sank.  12 were killed.  To read about this February 17th incident click here.)

In case you’re not up on the geography of Vietnam, Halong Bay is an UNESCO World Heritage site and hugely popular tourist attraction in northern Vietnam.  According to legend, the Vietnamese were being invaded by the Chinese when the gods sent a family of dragons to protect the bay.  The dragons were said to spit jewels into the water, to build a wall against the invaders, what is, in fact, a series of nearly 2,000 limestone islands that decorate the bay:

   http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ha_Long_Bay_with_boats.jpg

In fact, a highlight of Lucy’s adventure in Vietnam included a swim with me in Halong Bay:

And last but not least, a photo of Lucy dressing for her outing on the bay:

The bottom line is this, a lesson I learned from Lucy:

Sometimes the most over-whelming of crises can be ovecome with the most obvoius of answers.

Indeed, sometimes the biggest of problems can be conquered by the smallest of canines in the most amazing of hats.

Hats off to our struggles. 

Hats off to hope.

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Canines in Conical Hats: Lucy Does Vietnam


Lucy is a dog with wanderlust.  She loves to go just about anywhere.  And though she looks the part of precious pup–

My seven pound “princess,” in fact, behaves badly anywhere other than her black, backpack carrier—

Very badly!

Lucy does not possess anything remotely resembling a sweet disposition.  Her bark–loud, high-decibeled, and persistent–is her best weapon in an arsenal of ways to get what she wants.

But John Grogan, author of Marley & Me, insists that all dogs are great, and bad dogs–“the greatest of them all.”

And Lucy is indeed a great traveler—

Lucy is such a perfect companion on the road, that Sara and I have trotted the globe with her in tow—if for no other reason than she’s at her best, her most charming and well-behaved in planes, trains, and automobiles.

And on our world-wide odyssey to find canine obedience and tail-wagging good manners, our first stop with Lucy was Vietnam—a country Lucy traveled top to bottom, bottom to top.

Lucy behaved beautifully during our grueling 24 hour trans-global trip to Saigon.  Honestly, I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. 

However, day-to-day living with Lucy in Vietnam proved more challenging, since, for the first several days, I couldn’t locate a blade of grass within a 10 block radius of our apartment.   There was a park a 15 minute walk away, but it was so far that even getting there involved rehydration stops along the way:

And once we finally arrived, it turned out dogs were not allowed on the lawn.  I kid you not! 

One morning, a security a guard reprimanded me, “Not dog on grass!  Not dog on grass!”  When I showed him the pink poop bag with which I intended to pick up any excrement, pink poop bag I had brought purposefully all the way from the US—biodegradable and environmentally friendly—he seemed not the least impressed and repeated his demand with all the more irritation, “Not dog on grass!  Not dog on grass!”  But Lucy refused to pee or poop on pavement.  What was an environmentally conscious, dog-toting-to-the-Far-East American to do?

What I did was find this lonely square of grass in front of the Indonesian Consulate:

But once she adjusted to only a tiny turf, Lucy was off to places like the Reunification Palace:

She visited famous fountains:

She even participated in a student survey:

She insisted on praying at Notre-Dame Basilica:

Lucy traveled the 1,100 miles from Saigon to Hanoi by train—a nearly 30 hour trip:

She loved lounging in our compartment and mooching meals from Sara:

In Hanoi she visited the Temple of Literature by back pack:

She enjoyed Sunday brunch at the world-famous Metropole Hotel:   

Lucy took us shopping in the Old Quarter:

There she bought the smallest conical hat in all of Southeast Asia:

Lucy continues to turn heads even now that we live in Haiti,  but she still insists no well-mannered Maltese would do Vietnam without a millinery consultation. 

Hats off to Hanoi!

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A Holiday Match Made in Doggy Heaven


With Christmas only a few days away, I thought it might be a fitting time to reminisce romantically about how Sara and I met—not only because this is a part of our history I don’t think I’ve shared even in the Vietnam part of this blog—but also because I’m missing Sara, who has not yet returned from Haiti for the holiday, and writing about our shared past helps her feel closer—or at least helps Port-au-Prince feel a little less far away.

Sara and Kathy, October 2006

(If you’ve only just begun reading “reinventing the event horizon”—Sara is my partner.  We live together in Haiti, where Sara works in disaster response and I’m a writer/artist.  We also own a home in Kentucky—a house that’s more than 100 years old in downtown Lexington.  I have come back to the US a week ahead of Sara, who won’t arrive here herself until Christmas Eve.)

In 2006, however, Sara was still directing her NGO’s response to the 2004 tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in Southeast Asia, while I was working in Lexington as an artist-in-residence, facilitating creative learning opportunities for disabled adults.  These employment realities brought us together, my needing to supplement my measly artist’s income by pet sitting and Sara’s needing to travel internationally while at the same time caring for her dog. 

One afternoon that summer my writer friend Kristy called to say her new neighbor Sara was looking for a dog-sittter and wondering if I could take on another client—something I was willing to do, since I was preparing to purchase my first home— was a starving, soon-to-be-home-owning-artist fighting for every dollar she could get.

So when Sara called several days later and we met a few days after that, I eagerly agreed to care for Ralph.  And ours was ultimately a match made, for all intents and purposes, in doggy heaven.

Sara, Kathy, and Ralph in October 2006

However, I didn’t fall for Sara immediately.  Though I found her voice intriguing, the first time I heard it on my voice mail, and though I recognized when she brought Ralph to me the morning she returned to Asia, how terribly attractive she actually was, I wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time and simply filed these sensual details away for later romantic retrieval.

Retrieval that came by way of a dream.

When Sara returned from Asia a month later, I was already in love with her dog, so much so that it pained me to give him up for the few weeks she would be home—that is, until a week or so later I dreamed I was in love with Sara and woke up the next morning with a passion for her that has yet to wane.

The realization was as profound as it was simple—that I not only loved this woman but also that I would spend the rest of my life with her.  Period.  End of Story.

Kathy and Sara in Thailand, March 2007

Sometimes things are meant to be, and though I’ll save the particulars of our romantic story to share in future posts, I will pass along now one surprising and seemingly important detail neither of us was aware of when we first met.

That our mothers had been dear friends for a number of years before either of us knew anything about  the other—had been friends until Sara’s mother died more than 10 years ago.  Both were elementary school teachers at Lexington Christian Academy.  My mother taught third grade; Sara’s mother taught fourth in a classroom across the hall.

In fact, I remember Sara’s mother being ill and my mother’s grief surrounding her eventual death.  My mother even spoke at Sara’s mother’s memorial service.  During the years our mothers were friends, Sara and I were adult women living outside the state, so we never met in the context of that friendship.

However, sometimes lives are linked in profound ways.  Sometimes lives are linked and love is forged against all odds, even with matches made in doggy heaven.  Sometimes there’s a cosmic rightness about a relationship in which lovers are not only star-crossed but mother-blessed, something precious to remember, especially during this sacred time of year.

Silent night.

Holy night.

All is calm.

All is bright.

May the brightness Sara and I share be yours, as well, this Holiday Season.

Kathy and Sara in Vietnam, Christmas 2009

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A Pack-Rat’s Parable: on Traveling with too Much Stuff


I tend to over-pack. 

I admit it.  It’s a sickness.

It might even be a curse—who knows?

However, when you travel as much as I do, it becomes a problem—

A big problem.

This issue arises every time I go almost anywhere—the grocery store, the gym, even a restaurant or my mother’s house.  Heck, I even carry too much to the bathroom, if I think my stay there may be extended—a book, a notebook, a pen, a drink, a phone, sometimes 2 phones—maybe a magazine.  It all adds up.

Sara insists this calls for an intervention.  She thinks she’ll fix me.  That she can help me “edit”—her word.  And admittedly, she has a reasonable investment in my reform, as often she ends up carrying my stuff, lugging it all over the planet—quite literally.

This is why she bought me a Kindle—afraid when last  year we moved to Vietnam, where there’s not an abundance of reading material in English—that I would bring the inventory of a small university library along for the ride—that she would have to carry it.

Wise woman!

However, this week’s trip from Port-au-Prince home to Kentucky, has challenged even my advanced luggaging skills.  Even more so, since I was bringing Lucy back with me—a dog as carry-on baggage—a canine complication on top of my already dogged determination to carry too much stuff. 

When will I ever learn?

This complicating of already complicated carrying manifested itself most clearly yesterday morning in Miami.

I was running late—unusual for the chronically early like me.  I had to take Lucy outside the airport to use her version of public toilet.  She took too long. 

She wouldn’t pee!

Never did!

I was pissed!

So I loaded Lucy back into her black back-pack carrier, hurried back into the hotel to collect my 3 remaining bags—a yellow and brown messenger bag, a standard carry-on-sized suitcase, and another 55 pound monster—at least 100 kilos, if I’m doing the math right. (I’m not good at math.)

The woman at the hotel’s front desk mistakenly directed me to the American Airlines check-in in Concourse E, where the hotel is, rather than Concourse D—where I needed to be.  I stood in line for a good 15 minutes before an airport official indicated what no signage did, that this counter only handled check-in for passengers headed to Haiti—which two weeks from now will indeed be my destination.

For now—I was headed in the opposite direction—which meant trying to transport my abundant belongings outside for a 15 minute lumber to what could only be considered an outpost of the same airport.

It was far.

I was carrying a lot.

When I finally arrived at Concourse D, I tried to check in by swiping my passport.  

Didn’t work.

When I did succeed by typing in my name and destination city, the machine recognized but rejected me because of the pet, at which point an actual human being intervened, only to send me to yet another, though in the same terminal, distant location. 

Again I “luggaged.”

The clock was ticking.

Unbelievably, the third counter didn’t like me either, returned me, cursing the entire way, to location number 3.

There the slowest pet-check-in-specialist in aviation history had nearly completed the process, when I was reduced to begging, “Please hurry.  I’m going to miss my flight.”

“OOOOOOOOOOOh, you have plentyyyyyyyyyyy of tiiiiiiiiiime.”

“Not if you have anything to do with it.” I think.

However, her sloooooooowly articulated, cloooooooooosing words, were less than comforting, “Gate number 50.  Youuuuuuuuu have a longgggggg way to gooooooooo!”

No kidding!

Only after being rejected yet once more during the security check for, you guessed it, tooooooooooo many carry-on bags, did I finally persuade the less-than-friendly luggage Nazi, that I had paid 100 extra US dollars for the privilege of bringing my dog along.  I had to show the receipt.

You get the picture.

There’s ALWAYS a complication because of the bags, especially when Sara isn’t along to help carry!

Maybe she’s right.

Maybe there should be an intervention.

In the meantime, I’ll have to further sharpen my Sherpa skills—

Do they offer advanced degrees in “bag-lady?”

(By the way, me and all my bags are finally home!)

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Photos from Haiti: entertainment for the journey home!


Minor victory--Finally able to upload photo of Ralph and Lucy!

 Good News—-If you are reading this, I have likely left for the airport in Port-au-Prince, Lucy (pictured above) in tow!  Ralph, the larger dog, will remain in Haiti with Sara and be with a dog-sitter during Sara’s short 5 day holiday in the US.

I apologise for the brief and unfocused nature of this post.  Please know I want to offer you at least a little something during my two-day travel to the US.  Lucy and I will over-night this evening in Miami and fly on to Lexington (via Chicago) tomorrow.

We have two armed guards around the clock at our house in Haiti. This is Jean-Jean, one of my favorite!

Finally, before I head to airport, let me try uploading a photo taken last spring in Cabaret, a small village about a two-hour drive from Port-au-Prince.  The children were totally intrigued by the digital camera and the images displayed of themselves–never seen before!

Kathy with children in a village outside of Cabaret, Haiti.

Again, I apologise for the brevity of this post, but wanted to take advantage of actually being able to upload photos from Sara’s office.  My blog has always lacked a visual component, since we have such a dismally slow internet connection at our house–too slow for uploading photos.

I will try to post tonight from Miami!  Off to the airport—————–