Meeting at the Williams'

Hello! It's Hannah here. As per Stephen's request, I am writing again to tell you all of our meeting that happened on Monday, the 20th of August. The Haiti Four and our familes all met at the Williams' house for a potluck and get together, our first meeting since arriving home on the 24th of July. We ate a lovely dinner consisting of many yummy things, like quiche, fruit salad, cucumber and tomato salad, vegetarian lasagna, pasta salad, foccasia bread, and barbequed chicken. After dinner, we dined on blueberry cake, cookies, and ice cream, and for the adults some decaf coffee.
We then went to the Williams' basement and watched a slideshow that Thomas and Teiga had previously put together from 200 of the 1,000 pictures they had taken in Haiti. For every picture, each one of us had a story to tell, and we all took turns explaining what each picture was of and the story behind it. After the slideshow, we sat around and briefly discussed our next steps. We touched upon the size of the group of people going to Haiti next year and determined that it should stay small so as not to interfere with the camp itself and with the experiences that the four of us got to have. We also talked about how the junior members of the Haiti Four will have another chance to go to Haiti next year, which is awesome for them! We also discussed what we will do for the Haitians now that we have returned home, and if us going there had any impact on them. They certainly impacted us and enriched our lives. My personal answer to the question of whether we impacted them or not is yes, we have impacted their lives. We went down and made a conscious effort to be a part of their society and live their way of life. Most Americans just bring money or food, and then leave shortly after. What we did was something completely different. We lived in dorms with the Haitians, learned some of their language, ate the customary food, and played music with them. All of these things helped to build friendships between us that will last our entire lives.
The last topic of conversation that we shared before we all went home was the decision to make Maine Music Outreach a nonprofit organization. Nothing was determined on the 20th, but in future meetings for next years Haiti folks, hopefully something will be.

Bonswa! -Hannah