Spending over four months in a place will always make leaving a bittersweet experience for me. On one hand I loved Haiti, the work I got to do there, the people I met and the feeling of home I was able to establish. On the other hand, I will forever have itchy feet and after several months in one place, I almost always long for some new challanges and adventures.

So as Haiti has drawn to a close for me I am left with amazing memories and great friends. We had our last meeting a few days ago and it was a tear jerker as everyone took a moment to stand up and speak their mind about what their volunteering experience in Haiti meant to them. The best part for me was listening to the young Haitian guys speak about how Hands On had changed and affected them and then listening to the foreign volunteers say the same about the local guys. Haiti is a screwed up kind of place but the young guys I was able to work alongside really give me hope for the future of the country, as cheeseball as that may sound.

We finished off the deployment with a party for 200 of our closest friends complete with chicken, drinks, speeches, hugs, tears, dancing, singing and this slideshow that I put together from some of the photos taken since Hands On first arrived in October.

I’m looking forward to Nicaragua and reactivating my brain with a bit of language studies but I will miss Haiti and think about it often.

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