H(ait)iatus

Tomorrow--at the truly ungodly hour of 5:45 am--I leave for Port-au-Prince! I've optimistically stuffed the following volumes into my bag: Midnight's Children (Rushdie), The Road (McCarthy), Atonement (McEwan), The Bell Jar (Plath), and Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky, and really slow going so far, by the way), but I'm anticipating that at least seven of the eight hours I spend traveling will involve my face on the tray table.

I am beyond excited about going to Haiti (although still not entirely sure what work I'll be doing once I get there, since it varies week to week). Obviously, once I am there, the only book I'll be using is my tattered little French dictionary--and even that probably not too much, since (I believe) Creole is more commonly spoken. I'll be sure to post updates and pictures whenever I can; electricity is intermittent, as is internet access, so "whenever I can" might actually not be until a week from tomorrow.

I know whatever I do will be a miniscule drop in a truly impossible bucket--Haiti is so broken, facing an entire litany of problems from disaster relief to political corruption. But, well, "to choose doubt as a philosophy is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." (That's from Life of Pi.)

So I go, hopefully to do something, definitely to learn something. And until then, orévwa!