Hello from Gonaives, Haiti

I am sitting in a computer lab at Holy Family School in the slum of Trou Sable, in Gonaives, Haiti.

Internet access was an unexpected opportunity for me in Haiti. The school, which enrolls 1,100 students and is support by the American relief group Hands Together, has electricity thanks to a generator that will be shut down at 9 p.m. It has a nine-unit computer lab to teach students the basics.

There is no electricity in the surrounding neighborhood, save for a few homes with generators. Most of the homes are one or two rooms and made of cinder block and tin. The streets are mud and lined with garbage. Pigs, goats and chickens are almost as plentiful as the people.

The people could not be any more kind. Before dinner, I walked with my interpreter, Augustin, through the neighborhood. It's a humbling experience when children approach to rub the skin on your arm, because you're white, and they cry, "Blanc, blanc." It's as though touching the skin of a white American will bring them good luck. If they only knew the true nature of many white people and the history of oppression wrought by our race.

I am the guest of the Diocese of Gonaives. The school is run by a Sister of Mercy from Florence, Italy, Sister Vincenzina. She is teacher and in her eighth year in Haiti. She previously was assigned to Burundi and Rwanda and witnessed the genocide in Rwanda. She said she still today cannot speak of what she saw. She is a true hero and wonderful face of the Catholic Church and has selflessly devoted herself of serving the least among us throughout the world.

Gonaives is the city in the heart of a sea-side region hit hard by Hurricane Jeanne in 2004. More than 3,000 people died when rain poured for several days, the sea rose and water rolled down from the arid mountains. A lake three kilometers square still exists outside Gonaives where there once was only sand and rock.

On Thursday, I will begin monitoring development projects funded by the group Hands Together. I will visit schools, medical clinics, construction sites and agricultural and far-reaching water projects. I also will spend a great deal of time with three families here in the Trou Sable.

Because this is a football blog, I feel compelled to tell you that very few people in Haiti are interested in American football. Soccer is king, followed by basketball, and the favorite team is the Brazilian nationals. Radios were screaming today with play-by-play (in Creole, of course) of the Barcelona soccer game.

I did see four signs of the NFL on the two-hour trip north today from Port-au-Prince. I spotted a No. 10 black Steelers Kordell Stewart jersey, a No. 40 red Buccaneers Mike Alstott jersey, a No. 7 black Falcons Michael Vick jersey and a No. 13 aqua-colored Dolphins Dan Marino. All of the shirts, like many of the clothes worn by everyday Haitians, are donated from the United States.

-- Mark Curnutte