Registration

Well, this has been very informative. Registration started this morning at 10, and I was able to volunteer for the opening shift. Referring again to my Facebook-Diagnosed Autism, it's no surprise that I excel at repetitive, systematic activity. Compiling documents for the information packet? I'm a champ. Handing out information packets and repeating the same spiel verbatim each time? If only they had medals for such things.

One of the people I was working with was Fiona, a New Zealander whose husband is the build's Project Manager. She knows from Haiti. Remember how it was going to be a soothing 80-degrees this week? Apparently Haiti is experiencing unusually hot weather for this time of year. Today the low is 77. Highs in the 90s all week, with those crazy flash humidity thunderstorms that don't last long enough to cool anything down. Lows in the 70s. I'll say it again: lows in the 70s. That's what we're sleeping in. It's my favourite time of year for great sleeping weather, and I am eschewing the temperate climes in favour of sleeping outdoors in heat and humidity. This Carter person makes me do the strangest things.

Now that I've sprayed all my build clothes - including the three volunteer T-shirts, two staff T-shirts, and two Women's Build T-shirts - with Permethrin, a man I met at breakfast who goes to Haiti a few times a year finally told me he doesn't think the mosquitos are that bad. I suspect he's been sleeping indoors though.

One of the fun parts of today is that Women's Build set up right next to me. Lisa Nickerson, who runs the entire program for Habitat, was there giving out T-shirts. One woman was particularly interested in the shirts - I didn't realize until someone asked her to sign it that she was the artist. Not just any T-shirt artist: she is Jan Elliot, creator of the comic strip Stone Soup. It's one of my favourites. I'd seen her here since yesterday, enough times that we started saying hello to each other in passing. I told her, after she'd autographed my shirt, that I remember that she was in Thailand on the Women's Build house, but I was too shy to ask for her autograph. For this, she mocked me a little.

Time for my pregame nap, for in the end it is still Game Day. Orientation starts at 6.30 - you know that I will be thrilled to finally be oriented.