Our first day here was quite busy! It started off with an amazing breakfast. (My mouth has been in food heaven for two days… I think I am taking Germaine home with me.) She made Haitian oatmeal with mangoes and honey dew. For anyone who doesn’t know… I’m convinced Haiti has the best mangoes in the world. They aren’t worth buying in Canada.. there is no comparison at all.
Ti Luc had started the morning being super charming… Aunt Karen had come in and said “Oh! I love seeing two beautiful young ladies in my kitchen!” and Ti Luc pipes up and says “No, 4! … Jennifer, Jocelyn, Mama and Germaine!”
Jocelyn has been doing physiotherapy with Ti Luc… He is gaining so much control over his arms… It is incredible. There is such a huge difference in him from when we were here about two and a half years ago. His determination is quite something. By physiotherapy, I mean play fighting… It helps him to try to control the movement of his arms. He has quite the strong hit. I might be black and blue by the time I arrive home.
After breakfast, we went to the school yard so we could see the progress on the church. It is coming along great! It will be amazing when it is finally finished. They only have one corner of the walls to finish which is being worked on right now. Then more money is needed to finish the floor and the church will be ready to paint! It won’t be long until that is full of singing and praise!
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| The inside of the church is coming along nicely |
The church is badly needed… for the school too. Luckner was doing parent-teacher meetings with everyone jammed into two classrooms and then more are piled around the doors.
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| Parents in a meeting with Luckner about the coming school year |
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| Luckner had the office FULL and they were pushing to get in from outside |
When we left the school, we came back to the compound and were put to work… We started to cut material which will be distributed to the students so they can have their uniforms made. We cut and we cut and we cut. then we folded and folded and folded and then we bagged and bagged and bagged. Finally it was lunch time which means a quick break! We had yummy tuna melts.. Did I mention I’m taking Germaine home? (Sorry to future teams.) After lunch the work continued until we were able to take a break from working to take a quick nap. Its amazing how the heat can drain you of your energy. (According to Karen, yesterday was “cool” for a summer day.. not too hot at all … Yeah, right!)
Then we continued to work until it was time to take a walk with the children along the canal… It was nice to take our time and stroll along, stopping to let the older ones climb trees and the younger ones throw rocks in the canal.
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| Our canal walk with the kids |
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| Two precious children |
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| Jennifer’s godson |
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| Tree climbers |
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| Accident of stroller with Magdala. Sandra decided she could push her |
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| Jennifer picked this one up on our walk. Thought he was cute and kept him |
After our walk it was supper time and then back to the cutting of fabric. This time the older children (Vladimy, JJ, Moise, Leica and Djemima) helped us and the process was a lot quicker… Although, I’m not exactly convinced that the boys have been taught how to fold…. After this it was rather late and we were far too tired to do any blogging. It didn’t rain last night and us Northerners are sure suffering for it today…
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| Fabric for J & J to cut up |
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| Cutting and packaging uniform fabric |
Just an important note for anyone who knows anything about Karen Huxter… she RELAXED today. She sat and ate THREE meals.. and even sat after to chat. I’m not sure where she found out how to do it, but she finally is taking a little time to slow down. She even rested in the afternoon. It truly is a miracle!
Day Two
This morning we had Magdala in her jolly jumper. She was terrified and cried most of the time but she will get used to it! She did jump a little but was too tired, she needed to be put down for her nap. When she woke up she was alone in the room and started to cry.. I went in and she was willing to come with me.. She still cried because shes terrified of my paleness but it is progress! The goal before we leave is for her to not be afraid of us!
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| Mama Karen’s fearful little girl |
By 9 am, it was already quite hot and we realized we were in for a rough day. We thought that since it was hot, we could get to go to the beach and relax with the pina coladas flowing.. but Karen insisted we continue working. All work and no play it is around here. We cut more material again this morning and then went to the school for the better part of the day helping to distribute it. We distributed around 200 lots of material. Oh me nerves, what a crowd! People were pushing and shoving to get into the office (The Haitian way) and lined up outside for hours waiting to get the material for their children’s uniforms and some were still hoping to register their children for school.. Poor Luckner is awfully exhausted by now. It’s been quite a long day for him.
Last night with the older children, Aunt Karen was trying to confuse them so she told them Jennifer was Jocelyn and Jocelyn was Jennifer. We are currently having an identity crisis. We are mixed up enough as it is.. Now I wouldn’t be able to tell you what my name is. All day we have been called Jennifer and Jocelyn and I think we are soon changing our names so they are the same and we won’t have to worry about it anymore.
We left the school at 3 and came home to have a little rest and attempt to cool down.. By that I mean I showered and felt ‘cool’ for the whole ten minutes I showered. Karen has finally arrived home from school and informed us we need to cut more school uniforms tonight. We are leaving to walk to Port in the morning.. We quit!!!
It has been another busy day.. we haven’t gotten to spend much time doing things with the children yet but we know it’s coming.. We have some plans in store! 🙂 Please pray that it rains tonight!!!
On another note, Emma, Ti Luc is in desperate need of his second momma! He was allowed to watch tv while the other kids watched a video as the generator was running. He was there a long time and was tired so he climbed onto Karen’s bed and fell asleep because we had all forgotten about him.. Karen, Jennifer and Jocelyn were all busy at the school, and Germaine and Roselynn were busy working.. They thought he was down with the other children. He thought he was just resting while the other children watched a video.. actually he was there an extra hour as everyone forgot to tell him the poor video was over and so he slept. On the bright side, one of the other kids came to tell him supper is ready so we know no one is forgetting to feed him!! Don’t worry Emma, we promise to take better care of him from here on in!
J & J
