LQVE HAITI trips are crazy, bouncing up against your neighbor, sometimes carsick-inducing S.U.V. rides up and across tropical mountains. Sometimes the riverbeds serve as roads and sometimes the roads serve as rivers. You’ll smell poverty and see inequality. People who have nothing will offer you food. It’s food you wouldn’t choose to eat here, but you’ll eat it there because people who have nothing have offered it to you. You’ll eat thankfully. You’ll hold naked children willingly. You’ll enter into conversations with people who speak a different language intentionally. You’ll be disoriented, overwhelmed, and exhausted. The roosters will crow long before the sun rises. The goats will be neighing long after the sun sets. The bugs will be huge. There will be more than one flat tire in the middle of the jungle. Someone will get sick. Children will play with your hair. The humidity will increase as quick as your personal space decreases. You'll work hard. You’ll be hot and sweaty. The people you are with will have an unpleasant aroma. If you’re lucky enough to have a shower, it will be very cold. Electricity will be intermittent and wi-fi even intermittent-er. You’ll wait for planes, people, vehicles, translations, food and a bathroom. Sometimes you won't even know what you are waiting for, and at other times it won't even matter because what you wait for will never take place. You, in essence, will not get to do anything you would normally choose to do for an entire week. What’s crazy is that this whole thing is going to set you back a couple of thousand dollars.

Even crazier?

This will likely be the best week of your life.