Bon moun yo

My 2009 New Year's resolution should probably have something to do with consistently taking more photos. In the mean time I've scrapped together the few recent photos I do have of some of the good people (bon moun yo) I've encountered here in recent days. Most of the images are thanks to others who more faithfully document life here. Please note that there are lots of good people missing from them!

At the end of June I spent a week in and around Ithaca. Here are a few photos. Notable missing images include C and the G family who hosted me; my friend J's beautiful babies and our post- bed time wine and cheese in her backyard; a too short but still satisfying coffee shop hour with the lovely S and T; Friday happy hour with A and S; an unexpected chance to be a wedding date for my high school friend M; and a quick visit with the S family outside Philly.

On the Port-au-Prince side, while my world continues to be geographically limited, quite a number of good people have managed to cross into that small space. We've had a regular rotation of people through the neighboring town house reserved for short term clinical volunteers and visiting researchers. Constantly welcoming and sending off people is a little wearying....but mostly in a too-much-of-a-good-thing sort of way.

My trip to NY was a helpful reminder just how relatively settled here I've become. Flying out of Port-au-Prince, I ran into two clinic colleagues in the airport waiting room and then was recognized from this blog by another blan nutritionist volunteering in Haiti. (Little did I know when I started that blogging is potentially costing me most of my 15 minutes of lifetime fame. The other day I met another person who said she knew of me from this site.) For my overnight in NYC before boarding the bus to Ithaca, I stayed with S and T - good friends I made here in Haiti earlier this year. On the flight back, I ran into a Cornell colleague waiting to board the same flight out of Philly, was stopped mid-aisle by another Haitian colleague while boarding my next flight out of Miami , and then ran into three more women I know in the Port-au-Prince immigration line. Either this is a very small town....or it's actually achieving some degree of hometown status for me.