coffeefog

Who goes to Haiti for Spring Break? Just tell her to go to Daytona Beach or Cancun like the rest of the heathens

y'know, even before the recent warning, I still don't think I would have gone to haiti based on the existing us department of state advisories. These excerpts caught my eye:

• Haiti is one of the least developed and more dangerous countries in the Western Hemisphere.
  
• U.S. citizens who feel they must visit Haiti should exercise extreme caution
  
• The Haitian police are poorly equipped and unable to respond to most calls for assistance. Police complicity, if not involvement, in violent crime in Haiti as well as in the illegal drug trade is regularly alleged.
  
• There are no "safe areas" in Haiti.
  
• Medical facilities in Haiti are scarce and for the most part sub-standard
  
• The judicial process in Haiti can be extremely long... Detainees may wait months or years for their cases to be heard before a judge or to have legal decisions acted upon by the authorities
  

yeah, sounds like a fun spring break

Ok, those advisories are a little scary. But your sister has the right idea. Why would you travel to a place that's just like the one you left? That's a waste of a vacation.

http://www.kateconnick.com/postcards/basset032103a.jpg

I was planning to go to Haiti with a friend of mine who grew up there. His parents have worked at a hospital in one of the poorest parts of the country for more than 15 years. Ten students were going on the trip to Haiti, and we were going to help with work around the hospital and at an oprhange: painting, making repairs, playing with the children, etc.

Does that include wet t-shirt contests?