Progress

The houses are coming along great. The first 10 have been completely finished, and all the kids have moved from the back 10 houses to the 10 finished ones--now we will start re-doing the back 10. I have been spending most of my time putting in new doors, locks, and door handles, and fixing old ones. Weber has been doing most of the insecticide spraying, Paige is leading the charge in painting, and Will has recruited a strong force of caulkers to fill holes in the walls. I hope we finish these 10 before I leave--we are low on supplies, so I'm going into town today to make some purchases. The past 2 days, we made a huge pile of old beds and sheets out in one of the back fields and burned them--the kiddies now have new beds in the first 10 houses.
This weekend we are going to Ile a Vache, a small island off the southern coast here, where the Dutch author is building his sailboat. We are renting a motorboat to be able to get around on our own schedule--it costs about $100 for the day. We are going to drop some supplies off at an companion orphanage in the morning, and then go to the other side of the island for the afternoon to take a sailing trip and see Gert's (the Dutch author's) area. Apprently there will be some festival going on there this weekend. On Sunday, we are going to some caves and waterfalls that Dan has been talking about, but I don't know much about them; sounds adventurous though.
My runs through the countryside are always great, and the "gym" has been busier lately--I think it's becoming more famous. I told the guys in French that they could charge people a little bit to work out there; they laughed and replied in Creole, "OK, you can pay us tomorrow." Can't argue with that I guess.
I have posted a new slideshow of pictures, which I think provide a good summary of my time here so far, and provided captions for some of them. Of course, to get the full experience, you have to come see it for yourself!