Homework Bound...

Well, folks, I had a great time during spring break bumming around home. It was good to see old friends and soak up some Florida sun.
I brought a friend of mine, Nori, to visit. We used to play the same 2-D spaceship game around seven years ago, and we've been friends ever since. Anywho, it was fun to show him around my hometown, although I was thoroughly shamed by my lack of knowledge of the space program. I now know about 20x more than I used to in that area thanks to a tour of Kennedy Space center and Nori's fascination with space.



We also visited ECHO, saw some of the farm, saw some briquette presses and solar dryers, and poked around in ECHO's library. I got the titles of some cool books on solar drying (how ironic!) that look like they'll be useful in our peanut drying efforts.

But sadly, I am now back in school, working diligently on homework (with a bit of socializing and EWB stuff thrown in for good measure, of course).

Homeward Bound...

Next week is spring break! Woohoo! I'm going home to Florida. A highlight will be that a friend of mine, Nori, is coming to visit then. In addition, my brother will be home from school, a cousin is visiting, and...well...I will be in Florida. Bring on the sun and the vitamin D! I was fond of Florida when I left, and that fondness continues even when I'm gone (especially in the winter months...hmm...)



It's been a long week. Last night I was elected vice president of EWB for next year. I'm excited, because I like our president a lot, and I really enjoy being a part of EWB. At the same time, I'm nervous because I spend so much time leading the Haiti Project already.

And to think--this time one year ago, I was leaving for Haiti.

Engineers Without Engineers Without Borders

...and no, the title is not a typo



Jamie's having a bit of a hard semester. We found out early Feb that EWB-USA isn't approving any travel to Haiti. We decided that they were being reasonable, and since Meds and Food for Kids is swamped right now, we postponed the trip until the summer. We'll be nailing down the dates within the month.

We continued to process the paperwork to travel. However, when we talked to our project manager last Thursday, he asked us how we felt our project fits into the structure of EWB-USA. In EWB's model you find a specific community that wants help, travel to the community, and work with the community to implement projects that address their greatest needs. We are working with an NGO that helps a specific demographic across most of Haiti. In short, EWB works with a specific community; we do not.

Today we were notified that our EWB program in Haiti has been cancelled--you will no longer find our name on their website. This does not mean, however, our project is dying. We just won't be working with EWB anymore.

Anywho, it's a technicality that should have been identified earlier. I attribute it to lack of manning in the national organization, and that EWB national has been and still is inundated with requests for new projects and paperwork for existing projects.

Trying to help is hard. I empathize with EWB national. But I'm disappointed that all the time spent filling out paperwork and stressing about reconciling our "rogue" un-EWB trip last spring with EWB national. I'm annoyed about all the work we'll have to do to make this thing work outside of EWB, since we're a branch of our student EWB chapter.

Still, I'm optimistic. We've got some great people working on our project, MFK is a great organization, and there's a lot of potential for us to help. Maybe we will be able to get more done now that we're no longer under EWB-USA's care.