Looking out of the airplane window as we fly past the mountains over the bay and over and into Port-au-Prince, it's easy to spot the sometimes colorful sometimes plain white or blue tent camps all over the city, occupying any free public space, from a cluster of 10 tents in a neighborhood park to the hundreds or thousands occupying larger spaces such as sportsgrounds. It was not until later, on the ground, that I could clearly see the piles of ruble and decrepid houses barely still standing, reasons why millions have been forced to leave their homes for these tents, and thousands now stay in life-threatening situations as their houses could collapse on top of them at any moment.
After a slightly chaotic first welcome at the Port-au-Prince airport - the conveyor belt being broken meaning all luggage was laid out more or less in a big heap with everyone crowding in to get to theirs first - my reception in Haiti has been one of great peace, love, hope and celebration!
I was picked up by Dada Unmantrananda, a Danish monk who is one of the administrators at AMURT, who soon told me that at the school and children's home also functioning as the AMURTEL base where I was going to stay, there was a big meditation retreat going on with about 100 people attending!
It turned out to be a great introduction to the place and to this ever smiling people of Haiti. As well as singing, dancing and meditating together, the Haitians also had the opportunity to share with everyone their experiences of the earthquake, an important part of their individual and collective healing. Several expressed how their faith and spiritual strength helped them cope and in turn help their families and friends.

In terms of AMURTEL work, we had a good long meeting yesterday, their first real debriefing of all the emergency relief efforts since the earthquake, and a chance to touch base and check in with all the members of this small team who has achieved an incredible amount of amazing work for our surrounding communities here. Although things are naturally still a bit unclear to me, it seems like things will start kicking off for me more today, so you'll get to hear more about what I'll be getting up to next time...