Oh the Fun of Writing Letters

Oh the fun that was had today trying to write the letters with the Preschool One class! The children in Preschool One are 3 and 4 years old. Defnitely cute, but impossible to get a straight answer out of. The single biggest challenge came from getting their names sorted out. Sounds like it might be an easy task, right? You simply ask them their name and they tell you, right? Wrong!

Writing sponsor letters

 

Mariah asking preschooler’s name

In Haiti most young children have a name that their family calls them, say Tilo. All their lives they’ve learned that their name is Tilo. Little do they know that their legal name (the name on their class list for example) is Lorestema Jeannette Philistin. So we ask them their name and they say “Tilo”. There is NO Tilo on any list anywhere at HATS. So we go through the list again asking them each name one by one. Each time you ask them, “Is your name —?” They say “Oui”. For each of the 15 names on the list! In the photo below, you can see Mariah trying to figure out the name of one particularly cute little boy. After he said “oui” to each name on the list, she started asking him, “Is your name crocodile? Is your name Liette? etc” and of course he answered in the affirmative every time. I was laughing so hard that I could barely catch my breath. After that gong show, the grade 6 and 7’s were a piece of cake!

Yvette hugging Dieunel, Ismyis and Judel

Once school was out, we were back to scanning and downloading photos. The internet is amazingly slow here, so please be patient if you’re waiting for your sponsor letter and photo.

This afternoon included a trip to Pont Sonde to pay the electric bill. Seems like an awful lot of money for a couple of hours of power per day if we’re lucky!!

I had a chance to teach English to a great group of young people at Luckner’s trade school. Energetic and eager to learn we enjoyed our time together.

Magalie and Sandra

The day was rounded out by a lovely walk along the canal and then a soccer game where Vladimy beat Yvette and I playing together against him! And he had bare feet. But he only beat us by one point, so our self image is still somewhat intact.

Canal walk at sunset

Mariah with Sandra and Karena

Karena and Sandra both sleeping

This evening we are busy scanning, scanning, scanning. Tomorrow we have the fun of letters and photos with the other two preschool classes.

Dieumima and Isymis

Yvette has her more normal hairstyle today, but unfortunately her feet are swollen and she’s not enjoying having “fat feet”!

Thanks for reading!

~Liette for Karen, Yvette and the rest of the HATS gang