A veiw from the haiti repair shop!

It is now day 6 of the trip to Haiti and the Mission of Hope. My name is Shane Leonard and I came to Haiti with one clear objective, to repair as much Equipment, vehicles and anything else that moves. Over the last several days I have learned to use the 50 lbs of tools I was allowed to transport in the most"unique" ways possible. It is very hard to anticipate what to bring but with a little imagination you really can do anything! Like fixing an ATV to run again, a large generator, a small Toyota Land-cruiser or an Ambulance inside a large tent in the 100 degree heat with limited hand tools or overcoming a very distinct language barrier when priming a large diesel generator with Franz, the Haitian man responsible here for it's operation. With a little help from drawing pictures in sand with a screwdriver and some frusteration on my part as how to evoke my need of a 24mm wrench which took us a visual sample of my biggest wrench, a 18 mm and several tries at creole in which I may have insulted one of Franz's relatives in my crude pronunciations. LOL
All said i have been very b usy and the work required here would take several months too complete but it has been very productive as a whole. I have enjoyed the trip immensely the weather is difficult to acclimate into within a short time. One other very striking thing that needs to be mentioned is the absolute lunacy when driving in Haiti. Most of you know how involved I am in NASCAR and I have to tell you the way in which people drive is insane! It is like everyone is qualifying for the Daytona 500 here every time they get behind the wheel of a vehicle. That vehicle may be a school bus (AKA Tap-Tap) with 50 or more passengers on the roof and triple stacked inside traveling at 85 mph or a fully loaded 1967 Mack dump truck that is so overloaded and poorly maintained it can only acheive speeds of 50 mph! I have to say though how much I miss my Family especially Zachary my son who I cannot wait to see in two more sleeps.