As I was clearing downed trees today, I thought about Haiti and the deforestation there.  Jim and I are up at our place in the Black Hills of SD this weekend to cut down some more trees.  Some (a lot) of our trees have mountain pine beetle.  We're trying to save the healthy ones by clearing the infested ones (so the beetles can not fly to our healthy trees during their annual flight next year).  Whereas in Haiti, the trees are used for charcoal for cooking, we are simply piling cut sections for burning.  The Black Hills is infested with the mountain pine beetle and everyone is cutting down trees.  You have to use or burn the trees this winter to kill the pine beetle.  If only we could easily send all these trees to Haiti.  What a world apart we are from Haiti...

While I've learned a lot about fundraising with my experience so far in the Carter Work Project, I'm also learning more than I ever wanted to know about social media.  This is my first blog (which I figure is a good experience if I ever do write a book), I joined FaceBook just a couple of months ago, and I am now thinking about establishing a Twitter account for a Twitter party about Habitat in Haiti this week.  I've been trying to find out exactly what a Twitter party means.  For a computer science major, I'm really illiterate when it comes to social media....though I really don't feel as if I've missed anything in life.

Two weeks from now I will be in Haiti.  It sounds like our schedule will be very busy (I'll post the schedule later).  I know the week will go by quickly, though I want to absorb everything I can (except mosquito bites).  Habitat for Humanity International wrote to all of the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project (JRCWP) volunteers the other day.  In it, they tell about one Haitian woman who is a current Habitat homeowner who moved her family of five from a small, thread-bare tent into her new home in the Habitat community of Santo.  She says that she feels safe and wants more families to feel safe.  Families already living in Santo are getting back to work, sending their children to school, and helping prepare the site for the 2012 JRCWP and the next round of Habitat partner families.  I can't wait to join them in two weeks to help make a home a reality for more Haitian families.