Ben....

I have a PC laptop that was murdered by a Spanish-speaking virus last month. MS-13 connections, maybe? I was running the free version of AVG anti-virus software, which clearly does not speak Spanish. I've spent the last two weeks trying to download Ubuntu and was finally able to download it yesterday afternoon at nice hotel. This was not a small feat considering that it's 699 megabytes and internet in Haiti is usually only crawling. It took me four hours and $16 in overpriced snacks. So I now have Ubuntu and it's really sweet. My advice: if you're still using Windows, you should (1) write a letter to Microsoft about their terrible operating system and (2) switch to Ubuntu. My only problem now is trying to get Adobe Lightroom to run on Ubuntu.

I'm slammed with work now. I'm spending these hot, humid rainy season weeks hiking through the mountains of the Central Plateau visiting CLM clients, collecting baseline information and writing individual profiles on each one for our donors. An average day has me out the door by 6:45 AM, crossing a river by canoe at 7:30, visiting program participants until 3:30 in the afternoon, trying to beat the rain back to Sodo (4:15ish) or Desarmes if Alexis is there (5:00ish). Then I shower, have dinner and try to stay awake long enough to get some writing in before I crash around 8:00. Breakfast: bread, jam and coffee. Lunch: not usually. Dinner: rice, beans, vegetable sauce and, if I'm lucky, a piece of chicken. On weekends which seem much too short, I'm back in Port hanging out with Alexis, trying to catch up sleep and get a little more work done.

The latest update on my bicycle is that it's still awesome. I may have hit some single-track in the Artibonite a little too hard, though. The area we went riding in was flooded and I sort of fell into a four-foot deep stream. Later, while riding/pushing my bike though mud I managed to break my chain and trash my rear derailier. I had to push my bike back to the MCC office where I converted into a single-speed. I've always wanted a single-speed, but have never had the will-power to remove gears from a bike (and thus create a more painful riding experience for myself). I like to think that in spite of the pain, my single speed makes riding simpler and more zen-like. To say the bike is rigid is an understatement- the rocky sections of trail I hit are brain-jarring, and my vision blurs when I clamp on the brakes and try to stay upright. I'm going to put a riser handlebar on it when I get chance, which should help a little.