Into the Bat Cave!

It's hard to believe that I have only been here for two days...already we have done so much! Yesterday morning, some of us took a bus down the road to a family's house that was being relocated from Port au Prince that needed a concrete floor. We got there to find a pretty good group of Haitian men already gathered round a big pile of dirt. Occasionally a child would come with a bucket of water on their head and pour it into the pile. We took the cement bags over and dumped them onto the pile. As soon as we did this, the usually mild mannered local men went into overdrive, mixing the dirt and cement, filling up 5 gallon buckets, and passing them down a line of people into the house where the flour was being poured. I jumped into the end of the line near the house and threw the buckets that came my way to a man who poured onto the floor. There was yelling, buckets flying, and sweat pouring... If ever some water would start to leak out of the dirt puddle that was made, someone was run up and stop it from leaking out...they wasted nothing...even the dirt water. the best part was that even though only a couple men were actually being paid, the community came out to support this family. It was an incredible thing to be a part of.
This morning, we got up once again at the late hour of 4:00AM in order to pack up and leave for our "Hike to the Bat Cave" Hiking through the fields leading up to the cave at dawn was a pretty amazing way to experience the beautiful haitian countryside. Upon reaching the cave, we were greated with the warm dank smell of "guano" (or bat poop) and the hissing of thousands of bats. As we expored deeper into the cave, the bats began swooping all around us frantically in response to our flashlights. The haitian man that was with us took us to an area where vodoo sacrifices take place...I even saw a few bones and the skull of some type of rodent on the ground. The craziest part of our whole time in the cave was the thick mud that covered everything..only thing is, it wasnt mud...it was guano. At several points I stepped in the stuff and it went up almost to my ankle...real pleasant indeed. At one point we even had to jump across a guano "river" where if anyone was to fall into it would go up past their waste. Needless to say, this was quite an experience that I don't get everyday at home.
This afternoon we will be going with the youthgroup here to their town market and helping to clean it up with them as a service project.