Its been over a month now since I spent 20 hours trying to leave Haiti and come home to hoodies and hot showers.

People ask me what Haiti was like.

I tell them it was unbelievably fun.

They focus on the unbelievable, as they get that puzzled, is Kate Gosslin dancing or having a seizure, look on their face.

“Is he serious, a disaster area FUN?”

For me, Haiti was fun.

It was like a dream come true in many aspects.

I played in the dirt, showered when convenient, came home every night tired and lost some lbs in the process.

I played with sledgehammers and table saws, watched people with nothing give more than I could imagine.

I saw a baby be born and a dead body lay beneath hot tin on a road and watched ordinary people sacrifice themselves for their fellow man, woman and child.

I watch gardens grow amongst the remnants of unchecked deforestation.

Haiti was a mind blowing roller coast ride of juxtapositions and I loved it.

I thrived on it.

My soul danced in the dust and heat and mosquitoes and pain and misery with joy.

I am not so naive as to believe that Haiti is “fun.”

My skewed sense of altruism was always put into perspective by the cover of my passport.

“I could leave.”

As a US citizen I could make a call to the terribly ironic, American Airlines and leave.

I could leave the tent cities, the suffering, the oppressive heat and the grinding poverty because I was born in a different country.

All the same, I loved Haiti.

My life simplified itself very quickly and I cannot stop thinking about it.

Right now I am somewhere over Kansas, flying home from another school transformation project, and I just finished editing my Haiti photos.

Each image was a stark reminder that I will fail for the rest of my life at forgetting Haiti.

I will fail at readjusting to my old lifestyle, because it kills my soul.

And so I will land in Denver in an hour and try to rescue my garden from the clutches of an evil May snowstorm, and life will go back to normal.

Well its a new normal.

My life still faintly echoes with diesel generators, children’s laughter, blaring horns and women in labor.