I’ve been in Haiti for about six weeks now and the blisters on my hands and bruises on my legs say that I need a holiday. So early on Xmas day, myself and three other volunteers wished our HODR family a Merry Xmas, opened our stocking of goodies, ate some breakfast and then wandered off down the road in what we hoped was the general direction of the bus station. The plan was to attempt to make our way to a town in the Dominican Republic called Cabarete. The reality is that we didn’t have much of a plan for actually making this happen and no map or guidebook but we were hoping for the best and ready for an adventure.

We arrived at a non-operational Texaco gas station and assumed that was the bus station because of all of the tap taps and school buses in the area. No ticket windows, signs, or even staff… just a collection of scary looking vehicles and drivers shouting their destinations loudly in an attempt to lure you on board. We found a tap tap (a popular Haitian vehicle which is basically a pickup truck with hard benches around the outside) to Cap Haitian which was to be the first stop on our route. It didn’t bode well that the tire was off and we were the only people on board but we stuck with it. It was due to leave at 8am and we eventually rolled out at 8:45am with 27 people on board, a fat woman practically sitting on my lap, an iron bar in my back and my friend’s knees pinning me down at a really awkward and painful angle. Add to that a bumpy road, sheer cliffs and a crazy driver and you have, possibly, the most uncomfortable four hour journey of my life.

Our arrival at the border soon turned from relief to distress when we found out that the border was closing. The clocks are an hour ahead in the DR and, as it was Xmas day, their immigration department had closed and the gates for the bridge were in the process of being locked. We started chatting to a friendly Canadian UN guy who told us where to get our Haitian exit stamp before we could cross the border. Unfortunately, their immigration office happened to be all the way across a huge field. With the fear of being trapped in this ghetto Haitian border town we all legged it across to the office and were hoping for the best.

We got the stamp without too much hassle and ran back through the desolate, trash fire, litter landscape towards the bridge to the promised land of hamburgers, strawberry daquiris and toilet paper. As we arrived we saw that the gate across the bridge had been closed and locked. The Canadian UN guy told us that we could go around the gate by hanging off the edge and climbing over a rope and then told us to hurry because the Dominican immigration office was closing. He then continued talking to us for another 10 minutes about buses, hotels, passport stamps, fees and a few other topics that were totally unrelated to our predicament while still telling us to hurry. We eventually escaped his conversation, got past the gate and found ourselves at the mercy of the Dominican immigration officials. We were adopted by a nice guy on the other side and he told us we could pass but would have to come back the following morning for a passport stamp.

So we were in the Dominican Republic but trapped at Dajabon, the border town. Not the beach setting we had in mind but we made the most of it and had plates of chicken and french fries for Xmas dinner and washed it down with a few beers and then a few more. we ended the night drinking Bailey’s in a gazebo after hopping a fence to get into the park. A pretty surreal ending to a crazy day but it was one of the best Xmas days I’ve had, despite the craziness.

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I can safelty say that I haven’t worked any harder in my life than I have this week so I was looking very forward to a day of lounging around on the balcony, surfing the net and attempting to practice a bit of Creole. So when I found out we had to work Sunday to shuffle the Xmas and New Years days off around, I felt a bit defeated and was pretty sure my body was about to break down. Fortunately, we were given the option to work a half day and I jumped at it and ended up having another great day after all.

Work

I’d been wheelbarrowing for days and wanted to escape them, so I actually appreciated the morning spent in a bucket line which is a job dreaded by pretty much everyone. It basically consists of standing in one place and passing heavy buckets of mud from one person to the next down a line. It’s repetetive, boring and murder on your hands and shoulders but I was loving it today for some reason. When you get a good rhythm going and are passing a full bucket as you receive an empty one, the whole thing becomes sort of meditative. It might be a sign that I need a holiday if a smoothly flowing bucket line is what makes me relax!

Football

The best part of the day was attending game one of the Haitian national football league final - Gonaives vs Cap Haitian. Tickets cost about $3.50 and didn’t buy me a seat but I got something even better - a chance to watch the match while actually standing on the football pitch! The pitch is made of dirt and is surrounded by a concrete wall with only a metre or two of space between the sidelines and the wall. We found ourselves ushered into an area along the sidelines and I ended up watching the entire match practically standing in the corner kick area.

The area all around the football pitch was buzzing and, to my surprise, people were queued up in a perfect single file line that stretched on for ages. I expected chaos and brawls but was met by an orderly line. I think police and UN soldiers’ guns might have had something to do with that or the fact that Haitians are very used to lining up for food and other types of distributions. The chaos and brawls I had expected in the crowd were saved for the field and a pushing match broke out between the two teams before the game even started.

The crowd was hugely passionate and my favourite part about the game was the after-goal celebrations. Gonaives scored twice (the final score was 2-1) and each time, the crowd rushed onto the pitch, ran around screaming, waving their arms and hugging each other, and then returned to almost the exact same spot they had just been standing in. It was a bizarre combination of mayhem and order in the most random of locations and one of the coolest things I’ve done so far in Haiti.

Goodbye Party

There are a few bars that have popped up recently around our HQ and we have found ourselves frequenting Speaker Guy’s place the most. He’s known as Speaker Guy because of the giant, blaring speakers he has in his bar. He’s the guy who we went to the football match with and we all went to his bar later that night to celebrate the win and to say goodbye to friends who were leaving the next day. As always, things deteriorated fairly quickly into a dance off in the street between locals and blan. It was sad to say goodbye but great to send people off in such a strange little hole in the wall bar while eating goat and drinking Haitian beer. A great end to a great day!

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Yesteday a crew of about 8 of us finished clearing a massive house of an insane amount of mud. The house was expected to take two weeks but ended up taking five and a half days, mainly because we all worked like crazy people. I spent an hour and a half of the first morning on wheelbarrowing and nearly killed myself. There was a bottleneck in a narrow alley so we had a system in place where two people would get their wheelbarrows loaded with mud, two people would run out the alley, and two more would wait at the dumping site. It all ran like clockwork but was super fast so I had to save myself and defect over to the less intense, but still hot and sweaty, shoveling team.

I had so much fun at this job, partly because the mud was almost perfect, partly because the family whose house we were working on was so appreciative (and made us lunch twice) and mostly because our team was made up of fantastic people and hard workers which made the day really intense but also pretty inspiring. I have never seen people work that hard.

The best part, I think, was on the last day when we sorted out a pretty good system for getting the wheelbarrows out to the dumping site and back in. When we arrived that morning, a group of Haitians were in the process of clearing a mountain of mud from the street. There were about 15 of them walking wheelbarrows from the front of the house, down a narrow path beside the house to a field in the back (that they had told us not to dump on a few days before). We all thought there would be too many people on the path because it was too narrow to let wheelbarrows pass but we decided to get out there with them and try it anyways.

We had a Haitian volunteer, Richardson, directing traffic with a whistle we’d found in the first aid kit. He was like a traffic cop, all serious and waving his arms about and the only thing missing was the white gloves. The funniest thing for me was watching our volunteers making the Haitian guys out front run like hell. Our guys had been working like animals running around with wheelbarrows all day long for days and, in order to not get run over, the Haitian workers had no choice but to run as well. It was so funny to look out the window towards the alley and see Haitian guy, white guy, white guy, Haitian guy, white guy… bang bang bang running like maniacs up and down the path.

It was the last day in Gonaives for a couple of people who worked on this house from the start and we were all kind of sad that the job was over, but happy that those two got to see the end of it. It was my favourite day so far in Haiti and a reminder how amazing this experience is.

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It’s official. Hands On’s deployment to Gonaives, Haiti has been extended until February 28th and I have some decisions to make. Expensive ones. I, once again, overplanned and bought plane tickets down to my supposed next destination, Buenos Aires, in advance.

I obviously didn’t learn my lesson from the US$500 I threw away on a deposit on a course in Thailand that I didn’t end up attending and now I’m set to lose out on about US$750 on plane tickets. Losing out on the money is annoying but not the end of the world. This thing that scares me is truly not having any plans after February 28th when the deployment ends. It’s so unlike me and I’m kind of scared about it, to be honest. Excited, but scared.

I do still really want to go to Buenos Aires afterwards but I’m thinking now that Central America somewhere makes more sense. I’m not really too interested in travelling down to South America at the moment and will be on the lookout for WWOOFing and volunteering type things but have nothing in mind so far.

As of right now, it looks like I’ll be throwing away my plane ticket fares. The flight from Port-au-Prince to Miami is changeable but would actually end up costing more to change it than the actual ticket. The flight from Miami to Buenos Aires is, I’m told by Travelocity, of the ‘use it or lose it’ variety. A few of the people here are telling that I should call their respective airlines and plead my case for a credit of some kind… does anyone have any experience doing this? I think the first flight is with American Airlines and the second is with Aerolineas Argentinas.

So I need to book my shuttle out of town tonight and that means I need to make the call now. It’s not the end of the world if I can’t go back on the shuttle because it’s full, but it’d be a pain in the arse. I am loving it here at the moment. My body is sore all over but I’m addicted to mud, loving the people that I’m here with and really can’t imagine leaving on January 12th. On the other hand, I had been excited to head to BA and I don’t really want to throw more money away.

Nobody here at the moment seems to want to leave and people are extending and even coming back to Haiti because they’re having so much fun. I think I’ve got a good thing going at the moment so staying seems like a no-brainer… why am I still having a hard time making the call?

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Six girls wandering around the outskirts of Gonaives with tents is apparently a confusing thing for the local population to see. We decided it would be a fun (and ridiculous) idea to go camping for a night near a lake on the outskirts of town.

As we walked, we amassed a small following of people who were trying very hard to grasp the concept that we wanted to go sleep in the middle of nowhere. Eventually one guy, Charles, caught on and led us to a field caked in cow poo. People came out of the woodwork to see what the crazy blan were doing and we eventually had amassed a crowd of about 50 people, all staring at us as if we were from another planet. I think I can safely say that their community has never been descended on by white women wielding tents before and we were their entertainment for a good few hours.

Since we accidentally set up our tents in the middle of the village’s football field, we figured we should entertain the children for awhile. We played with the kids and chatted a bit with the crowd before retreating to our tent to eat tuna sandwiches and drink wine. As it got dark the crowds dispersed and we made a fire out of twigs and coals and sat around it chatting and probably getting gassed.

Charles stopped by to check on us in the morning which was really nice of him except that he did it at 5am just as we’d all finally managed to fall asleep. The whole experience was pretty ridiculous and it’s not a trip I’m going to forget anytime soon.

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The other night I was chatting to a volunteer from Belgium about travelling, life at home, future plans, and all that good stuff and she asked me if I could ever se myself living back in Canada. This question always gets asked and the reply is quick and to the point - ‘no’. I asked her the same question and she replied that she couldn’t really see herself living anywhere else and that, as much as she wants to travel and see the world, Belgium will always be her base.Her main reason was that she has just a great network of family and friends and if she were to spend years away at a time she would feel like she’d be missing too much. Her answer sort of caught me off guard only because it’s something I had never really thought about.

When I return home after a year or two I am always surprised at how little has really changed. Things seem to tick along like clockwork and I am able to slot right back in to where I left off. Some friends have had babies and bought houses which are pretty major things, but life at home generally feels the same as it did 10 years ago. I don’t feel like things are passing me by if I’m not at home, I tend to feel the opposite. I feel like when I’m stuck at home, things in the rest of the world are passing me by and I can’t wait to get back out there and experience those things… whatever they may be.

I might feel differently if all of my friends were still living at home or if I had neices or nephews there or if a family member was ill but, as of right now, it just doesn’t feel like there’s much I’m missing. Does that sound really harsh? I’m not sure.

Do you feel torn when you travel because there are things going on at home you want to experience and be a part of or are you happy to let life at home keep on ticking on in your absence? Do you see home as a place you’ll return to eventually once you get travelling out of your system or are you happy to keep your time there to short visits and call a new place home?

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A while ago I bought the domain name http://www.london-2012-games.com with the hopes of starting up a simple site about the London Olympics. Yes… the domain name is kind of lame. It’s spammy and I know it but it has the keywords I want without using the term ‘Olympics’ which might get me into trouble down the road.

As you can see, I haven’t done a thing with the site beyond a couple of lame posts. Despite looking neglected, the site is high on my agenda for development. So far, according to Google UK, there doesn’t seem to be too much competition for my target keywords ‘london 2012 olympics’. There are some obvious sites on the main page including the official sites, official blog, Wikepedia and some unofficial sites too. There are also two BBC news story pages which I am pretty sure could be bumped if I build a good site and am smart about my SEO.

I tend to be able to rank on the first page of Google, often at number one, for terms I specifically target so I’m pretty confident in my SEO abilities. Of course, those terms probably aren’t nearly as competetive as the ones I’ll be targetting for the London Olympics, so I might be in for a nasty surprise.

I plan to keep people updated on the progress of this site and what I will be doing to sneak it up the SERPs. I’m still not sure if a blog or a static site is the way to go, though. I’ve never had much success ranking with blogs, but there are many advantages and the interactivity of a blog is attractive. On the other hand, I have done well with ranking static sites and, given that I won’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time interacting with people on this topic, maybe throwing up a static site will be the way to go.

I plan on getting started this week so feel free to check in on the site and explore. I will be using this site as an SEO case study type thing and will tell all in an effort to see what works and what doesn’t and to share ideas with you all.

It’ll be my first time attempting to play with the big boys and target what will become a mega popular search term in three years but I think getting in early and being smart about SEO will pay off in the end.

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At these volunteering projects there is always talk of possible extensions. The Hands On deployment to Peru in late 2007 was extended by a couple of months and the Bangladesh project in January 2008 went on for an extra month. Last night we were all informed that, if the stars align and partnerships with UNICEF and Oxfam pan out, this current project will go until late February, at least.

I would jump at the chance to stay for longer but, as things stand now, I have two flights lined up for mid January, one to Miami and then from there to Buenos Aires. I’m loving it here right now! I’m surrounded by a great group of volunteers, both local and Haitian, the work we’re doing is challenging and rewarding, and Haiti itself is a very interesting place. It sucks to think that I might have to give up on the opportunity to stay for the sake of a couple of plane tickets.

I seem to have found myself in this situation a few times since starting my travels in January and it makes me ask the question: How long should I wait before booking my onward flights? I only tend to book onward flights well in advance when my plans are set in stone or if I need one to make it through immigration for my next destination. I have since realised that no plans are set in stone and that’s how I like it. Unfortunately though, the reality is that waiting until the last possible moment to buy a plane ticket could potentially end up costing thousands.

I didn’t really want to buy my tickets out of Haiti, but it’s a very expensive place to fly from and I wasn’t too keen to get stranded here. I saw some cheap flights, bought them on the spot and, as a result, locked myself into a set leaving date. Is there a limit to the price you’re willing to pay for travel freedom? Is a super cheap flight worth giving up a bit of your flexibility? Maybe I should start having no plans whatsoever and just roam around willy nilly.

I am seriously considering staying longer here, even if I can’t change my current ticket. It’ll cost me a fortune on lost flights but, in the end, it’s only money. It would be a shame to leave a good thing early for the sake of a cheap flight.

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November saw my earning sdrop down to $1355 and I deserved for them to fall because I’ve done nothing to prevent it. November has been a pretty slack month and, besides partly building a site about Sydney, I’ve really done nothing to prevent a fall in income. Still, I can’t complain, especially since I haven’t done much work. I know that, with a bit more effort on my part, I will be able to kick things up a knotch but I think all of that good stuff will have to wait until I hit Argentina in January because Haiti isn’t really that conducsive to getting work done.

Earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $240 - Adsense is poo yet again this month and getting worse. I’m not losing readers, in fact my sites are getting more visitors than ever, so I’m thinking it had something to do with falling payouts. Economic climate and all that stuff. Whoe knows. The city guides I’m building at the moment will be monotised at first mainly with Adsense so I hope that brings the monthly payments back up.
  
• Affiliate Sales - $1005 - I’ve started to spread the wealth a bit to a few different affilite programs but still not as much as I’d like. Each month’s performances with the various affiliates are a bit sporadic and I’d like to have things producing month after month, rather than having a good month one month and a bad one the next.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $23 - I kicked Text Link Ads to the curb and I am missing out on the $75-ish monthly income… but not that much. The prices paid per link were dropping each month and I wasn’t happy that the ad space they were selling was going for as much as it should. I am hoping that, by removing TLA, I will be able to achieve higher PR on several of my sites but time will tell.
• Private Link Sales - $87 - It was a pretty crappy month with no new link sales and a few cancellations. I have a biggie lined up for December first though so here’s hoping December is much better in this area.

My bank balance is slowly creeping back up to a healthy level so I’m happy about that. I’m not making as much per month as I’d like but I ‘m not too worried about that. I am loving it here in Haiti but it’s a difficult place to get work done due to lots of interesting conversations going on all the time combined with the whole being super tired at the end of each day. I think as a minimum I will try to finish my living in Sydney site but mainly I want to enjoy the time I have here and worry about the work stuff later.

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