Movin' on Up (to the East Side of Port-au-Prince)

Bonjour,

Well the power is back on, so I guess I better start posting. As I alluded to in my last entry, I spent the weekend moving in to my new place. And I do mean new. I was the first person to settle into the not-quite-finished apartment building on Friday. Scenes from "The Shining" were playing in my head as I fell asleep in the dark and vacant former hotel.

But by Sunday I had a neighbor (a Haitian-Canadian working on banking reform), intermittent power and even occasional hot water, and I am being told that everything will be functional next week when the generator will finally come online (we now have to make do with an inverter, a device that basically acts like a giant rechargeable battery).

As you can see from the pictures, the place has been fully renovated, and while my studio is not huge it has all the mod-cons like a fully-equipped kitchen, cable tv and a/c. Plus it has a swimming pool that will, I am told, one day contain water.

And it feels great to finally unpack my bags and resume a somewhat normal life. This move concludes what has been an incredibly full two weeks on both professional and personal fronts and ends the prologue of my story down here. I will then be able to tell you about "normal" in Haiti starting next week. And I'll have pictures of my trip to the north of the island.

'til next time,

Max