New Day

Another day full of new things...
Saturday, the ONLY day of sleeping in...I couldn't sleep past 7. :( Naomi made blueberry muffins which started the early morning out great! We all planned on going into town today, so around 1030 we left for St. Marc. It's about 30 min up the road, where they go to the deli mart (grocery store).
This town was crazy busy. Most of the people in the town have motorcycles. So amongst the regular cars, big Mack trucks and tap-taps (taxi) there are bikes everywhere. All this traffic and no driving rules makes for an interesting experience! Cars are literally centimeters from each other, but somehow always seem to squeeze by. This town is busy and filthy. A lot different from the town Canaan is in. We stop at a store to get some keys made but the guy tries to charge us too much so we left for the deli mart. This "grocery store" consists of four aisles. Items differ each day just depending upon what comes in stock. Half the items are American and half I have never seen before. Everything is priced in Haitian dollars. But the money we use is goude. I still have not figured it all out. I do know one American dollar equals 40 goude. But the Haitian dollar throws it all off. I basically shopped having NO clue what my total bill was going to be in the end. Like a bag of chips was 23 Haitian $ and I still have no clue how much American that is. Either way I ended up spending just over 13 American $. We then went to the restaurant upstairs that had burgers, deli sandwiches and pizza. We all ordered deli sandwiches. Still have no idea what I actually ordered. But I got bread, ham, cheese, mayo and ketchup....not a fan. The ketchup thing totally threw it off. But I paid four dollars for it so I ate it!
Side note... All these places have security guards at the door with a massive gun. Just hangin out...
After lunch we went back to the deli mart to get ice cream which was amazing!
I guess I can't really describe the way I felt in his town. It was SO crowded and so dirty and so poverty stricken. Just sitting in the car waiting for the keys to be made we were eating our ice cream and a lady and her child asked us for money for food. How awful did I feel... She just stood there and stared at us.
The town sort of reminded me of a much poorer version of china town. Little booths set up all down the streets. One place selling tires and right next to it a booth selling phone chargers, the next clothes. It was all very strange. Oh and a tap-tap by the way is their version of a taxi. It's a small truck railings up the sides and they cram as many people as possible in the back. I'm not really sure how the thing even goes. It is jam packed with people! And they will run behind it and jump on to catch these things. Anyways the reason it's called tap-tap is because you tap on the side or hood of truck when you want it to stop. I am sure I will ride in one of these before I leave...should be an interesting experience.
The poverty of these people still shocks me every day. The way they live, their one bedroom "houses" dirt floors and 6 people or more piled in there. I saw a small child maybe 5 or 6 bathing in a plastic tub not much bigger than a kitchen sink. Another kid around 8 or so walking on the side of the road with no shoes and no clothes.
I am so thankful every night for my bed here and my soft sheets and the rug beside my bed. And most definitely my mosquito net! Last Saturday I spent on the beach and this Saturday in a crazy town. I can only imagine what's to come...

There are things you do because they feel right and they make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here, to love each other and to eat each other’s cooking and say it was good.

  -Real Reason- storypeople.com

 

Blessings

Well for the past two days I haven't been able to teach. This week has been a trying one with the older children. There have been major issues in the school with discipline and the older children. They don't have much respect for authority. I know every child has their battle with respect. But things seem to be worse here. I definitely was not the greatest kid at home, but when I went to school j just knew I had to obey the rules and be respectful. But here there is no separation. Their principal sleeps in a building right next to them. Half of their mentors are missionaries that come and go from week to week. Some teachers are Haitian some are American. The list goes on with the difficulties. Apparently this is he best and most organized the school has ever been and that is only because of the principal miss Teri who has only been here since august.  Before her there wasn't much order. So all this to say the school has come a long way by still has many struggles. This week sister Gladys decided to try and teach the older children a lesson. We are on day two and I'm not sure they quite get it yet...
Each class has a supervisor who is there to answer questions and give you tests and sign off on your work. Clearly they have taken this role for granted. Monday the decision was made to give the principal and the supervisor of the older children the rest of the week off. The children were not told anything. They showed up Tuesday morning and no one was there. Of course they took this opportunity to goof off and mouth off to a few of us in charge of other classes. This resulted in their classroom being locked and they were not able to do any work. Which in their head was great, they had a day off. Today they didn't even dress for school or show up for chapel. My guess is that at this point the majority of them truly don't get it. There were a select few that were angry and some cried. And it sucks for those select few because they are being punished as a whole. We were instructed not to help them with work and not to answer any questions. So it's been a hard couple of days. There is not much I can do or say. I just pray they can get through this and learn respect. All kids take things for granted, all people take things for granted. I am no exception from this. But being here has taught me so much. Their true test will be when they leave this orphanage, then they will see how good they had it. Most of them will not make the connection until they step foot outside of his place. But i do hope they come to realize it sooner.
I hope that we all can take a look at our lives and realize how great we have it. To have hot water and electricity. What I would give for some air conditioning lol. We are blessed with such simple things in America. Besides air-conditioning I think I miss ice the most! A glass of ice cold water would be amazing. Television, ice cream, cell phone, carpet, washing machine, being able to hop in my car and go anywhere....just a few things I used to be blessed with on a daily basis that I no longer have. In chapel this morning we were asked to think if our daily blessings, our special blessings that don't happen so often, and blessings we can share with others. And we were challenged to thank someone today for a blessing in our life. So I want to thank my parents for all the simple things and more they were able to provide me with and also giving me this opportunity to come to Haiti. Because without their support I would not be here.  And I challenge you all to thank someone in your life for the blessings that surround you.

There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster.

Yesterday was a pretty tough day. School has not been getting any easier. The problem is they are paying a Haitian man to teach some math, I think two or three times a week.  There may be a couple ways to do math, but the way he is teaching them is so different and it is making things MUCH harder.  They are taught one way in their books and he teaches a completely different way and then I try to figure out which one they know…it is all together not a great process.  They are still trying to get to know me and trust me so they are pretty much non verbal. I can’t figure out what they actually know and what they don’t; If they are understanding me or completely lost. These kids just keep failing their math tests over and over and just not getting it. I really need strength to find ways to help them learn. I need for them to trust me and be able to ask for my help. I spent almost 3 hours on 4 problems with one girl yesterday. She is extremely far behind and I’m not even sure how she made it this far. She doesn’t know her multiplication tables or division. She is almost 18 and almost finished with the rest of curriculum. So it is my sole duty to get her through math in these next two months. Please pray.
Chibelson finally returned yesterday. He is the baby my friend Kendall took back with her to the states to get surgery. When she brought him back on January  7^th he had to go straight back to his father. He was here on a temporary orphan basis. His mother died a couple months after he was born and his father doesn’t have the money to take care of him. The main goal was to get him here for good, but the paperwork was just a headache. It took almost 2 weeks before he could come back. Which meant this baby went from almost dying, then was taken to the states for two months,  had two different surgeries but all the while being spoiled and living a normal childhood, brought back to Haiti and had to spend two weeks back with his father, who could barely feed him.  They tried to bring him back a week ago because they said they just couldn’t take care of him, but Canaan could not take him without the proper papers. So God only knows what that baby has gone through these past two weeks. But he is here now safe and happy! While we were sitting and waiting for Pastor Henry to get everything worked out so Chibelson could stay, a mother and daughter came up with these twin babies. They just cried and cried because they were starving. They spoke with Pastor Henry, but I literally have NO idea what it was about, I really need to learn this language! The older lady just started crying and they were going back and forth…in the end she left with the two babies still starving….it broke my heart.

Always something new

Each day opens my eyes to new things. Living at Canaan is pretty much luxury in Haiti. We are kind of living in a bubble. These kids have so much more than most. They work really hard and it is so great to see kids use their imagination rather than just being posted up in front of the television...
They are all very good at soccer! They play on the concrete basketball court and when they fall they bounce right back up. Some have tennis shoes and some wear crocs by they still play just fine. It would be great to see them play on grass! Today some of the boys were playing marbles in the dirt and just having a great time. Kendall said they will dig holes and play mancala with rocks. One of the boys even came up with this contraption today. A rope tied and wrapped around a stick inside a soda bottle and a small fan blade on top of the stick. And when u pull the rope fast it makes the blade spin and fly.    I have seen plastic toys like that before. But he just totally made this up. Soooo smart. 
We walked down the road just outside of Canaan property today and it's a whole different world. There were about ten kids kicking a ball around on a concrete slab. The little girls run up and introduce themselves. Its very hard to communicate for me because i have not learned any of their language yet. None of them had shoes. The boys only wore shirts most of them oversized just enough to come below their bottom. No pants and no underwear. One of the girls she looked maybe 3 was only wearing underwear and no clothes. They rub their bellies and say "grangou" which means hungry. But we have no food for them. 
Kendall said one of he boys invited her and Carolyn to his house one day, so they went. Just one small room and five children. He tried very hard to make the place nice for them and got them chairs to sit on. He asked if they wanted water but they said no thank you, since he water isn't really safe to drink. He then ran outside and down the road and came back with water he had gone to the little market to buy. It's so sad they have nothing but they take great pride in the few things they have and will do so much to make us happy.

One of the missionaries who is here for two months brought a gift from his neighbor. His neighbors daughter who is 7 years old called to meet with him before he left. She met him and handed him her piggy bank and said "here is my life savings I want you to give it to the kids in Haiti" she had 162.50$ and she sent it all here for he kids. Too precious!

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

A VERY long week

I have been here almost a week now. It feels like it has been at least a month. 
Saturday I got to sleep in until about 9 which was nice, but it’s really hard to sleep past 7 here, there is always so much going on. On Saturdays we normally make our own breakfast to give our cook a morning off, but she cooked for us this Sat. We walked down the road to a local market and bought some cokes. A half liter for fewer than 50 cents and it was cold! Later in the evening they threw a little birthday party for one of the boys Kawen.  They don’t know his actually birth date so they just made one up. They blew up balloons and had cake and sang him some songs.
Saturday evening was definitely the hardest one to sleep through. Kendall wasn’t kidding about the dogs. There are around 20 puppies that I have counted and 20 plus adult dogs. There are two different packs and they fight ALL the time. Well all through the night. They sleep during the day and are absolutely annoying all night long. But also on Saturdays right down the hill there is a “club” and the music never stopped. I woke up at 430 in the morning and it was still going strong.
I would like to add that I really don’t think I have ever had so many mosquito bites in my entire life! I would love to take a bath in Benadryl, it hurts!
Sunday we have breakfast an hour later, at 8 AM and then Sunday school until 930ish and then church until noon.  Then the rest of the day is free. 
We have been hiking everyday around 4 and Sundays was the hardest yet! It is so beautiful though which helps with the pain :o). 

There has been talk of this little girl in town that is sick and today they brought her to the clinic.  She is 3 months old and looks very malnourished.  It looks as though she has a cleft foot. But the problem she came here for was that she has no anus. She pees and poops out of her vagina. And every time she poops she also vomits.  One of the missionaries who is here for 2 months is getting all of the information and we have taken pictures to send to a doctor he knows back home.  The mother is 21 and does not really have a home. She can barely feed herself which is greatly affecting the child who is breast feeding. Please pray for this little girl. We are trying to work out a way for her to get help in America to get her better.  I don’t think it is too serious there are just no specialists around here that can help with this operation.  I am fairly certain they can fix this problem, but it is only one amongst many that she will face in her lifetime.  The mother is bringing her back on Thursday and hopefully by then we will have some answers.

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can.  ~Sydney Smith

My first day of school

Today was my first day at school... I realized it's going to be a serious challenge for me. The kids work with a program called PACE. Every child is at a different level. Some 16 year old kids are still at a third grade math level because there is just no one here to teach it. I do fine with math, but teaching it is a whole other story. I am a little worried I will not be able to help them. Everyone being at a different level is going to be a huge challenge for me. But I know I am here for a reason and i will get through this with everyones prayers...
We went on our hike again today. It amazes me. People just leave their goats and cows tied up to a bush and I guess come back for them later. But they are everywhere! People walk around with huge buckets on their heads and bushels of limbs over their shoulders. Some have everything strapped to their donkeys. Two men were walking In front of us today with their machetes cutting down branches. It's so unreal to see it all. Words can't describe the first shock.
But through all he shock there is so much greatness. The children are absolutely amazing! I watched the young boys ironing their clothes tonight and some of the girls clothes as well. Boys that were around 9 years old! They hand wash everything even the very young ones. They are so independent it amazes me! I never see them without a smile in their faces. I'll be laying in my room and hear the kids and adults too just breakout in song. They have such beautiful voices!
We had power for an extra 30 min tonight which was great because I didn't get in the shower until just before ten and thought I was going to have to shower in the dark. But he power just went out so I am heading to bed. Up early for school tomorrow!

The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.  ~Leo Rosten

One Year Anniversary

There really are no right words to express my feelings. There was nothing that could have prepared me for this trip and the things I would see.
To start from the beginning…
I arrived in Haiti along with around 200 plus people on my flight. We walked off the airplane and had to be bussed to the immigration and baggage area. I was on about the fourth bus, packed full of people and all of their luggage and no air-conditioning. We reached immigration and stood in the non-airconditioned building waiting in line to get checked into the country. Then we went into a room where baggage claim was, there was one baggage belt and a whole lot of luggage. I paid 2 USD for a cart, as did pretty much everyone else. There was barely enough room for all the people much less all the baggage and the belt was so fast you had to be very quick to get your bag. On top of all the people and things from the flight there were all of the Haitians. They swarm you to help with your luggage so you will tip them and that is pretty much the way they survive. Needless to say It took me another hour and a half once I got off the plane to finally get outside. Where there is another large group of people waiting. I had only seen a picture of the woman who was picking me up so I was definitely overwhelmed when I walked outside. The airport is also surrounded by gates and there were children everywhere hanging on the gates yelling for your attention and money. This is the first time I have been out of the country so it was all very new to me. After waiting about another hour for someone else who was going to the orphanage with us, we finally left.
Driving is a whole other story here. Horns are used quite frequently and the only way to get where you need to go is to pull out in front of people. There are no speed limits and essentially no driving laws. You pass who you want when you want and drive as fast as you want. Keep in mind most of the roadway is rocks and dirt, but we went about 80 to 100 miles an hour the whole way to the orphanage, which was still about a 2 hour drive. That was another different experience.
It was dark when I arrived so I didn’t get to see much of my surroundings. Initially when u drive out of the airport there are hundreds probably thousands of tents piled right on top of each other. These are the left over effects from the earthquake. These are where all of the people live. Families in tents made for maybe two people. They live and sleep in these tents right on top of each other. Seeing it is much different than just hearing about it. Once u get past the heart of the city where the most destruction is, you see the way these people really live, the more fortunate ones that have shelter other than tents. It didn’t look too fortunate to me. Small cinderblock ‘rooms’ side by side lining the road for miles and miles. People sitting on the side of the road at a little table eating their dinner by candle light. It sort of reminded me of college when the weather would get nice everyone would go outside in the quad and hang out. That’s basically what these people do. They don’t really have a “living” place it’s more of just a place to sleep. They walk up and down the street and just hang out. Hundreds of people and I am sure they all know each other very well, just walking around and doing things by candle light. Keep in mind these people are on the side of this road where tons of cars and trucks are speeding past at 100 MPH. In the dark it really is hard to see these people and we literally came close to hitting a few. Again seeing it is such a different feeling than just hearing about it. It’s hard for me to explain the things going on in my head. I know that people everywhere are homeless or poor and there are bad living conditions all over the world. But seeing how these people live, every single person in the country for the most part, it’s heart breaking. They are some of the happiest people though and obviously don’t know much different.  Definite culture shock for me…

I arrived at Canaan around 830 and had supper. Fried chicken and rice, which I think I will be seeing a lot of! We had about an hour of electricity left after dinner so I came to my room and unpacked  a few things and showered… We live in a “house” there are 3 bedrooms and everything is pretty much open air. We have a ceiling and doors that we can lock, but it is basically a building screened in.  Since there is no air-condition it stays cool with the breeze blowing through the room.
So let me explain the electricity and water situation…
Our power runs on a generator that is diesel powered.  Diesel is expensive that is why we only have electricity for certain hours. None throughout the day, but once it gets dark at 6 they turn the generator on and at 10 they shut it off. This generator is also what powers our internet. While it is on it “charges” our internet, which is what we use the next day. If people download too much or spend too much time on it, then the internet essentially runs out.
Then there is the water….on top of each building there is a large bucket. Each morning it is filled with water. This is for showers, washing hands and the toilet. When that bucket runs out, there is no more water until the next day. Our house went from 4 people living in it to 7, so our water runs out much quicker and we have to be careful throughout the day. The shower is just a small pipe coming out of the wall that kind of just dumps water on you and it’s the coldest water ever! My first shower lasted maybe 2 minutes and I couldn’t take it anymore. Even though it is seriously hot here, it is going to take me a while to get used to the cold shower thing!
There are 2 bunk beds in my room and right now Kendall and I in there, but we have two more girls joining us soon. We cover our beds with a mosquito net and have a tiny battery operated fan we use if it gets too hot. Right now things are comfortable but 2 more girls in that room is going to be interesting.

So my first actual day here was the anniversary of the earthquake…Haiti has declared it a holiday and everything is to be shut down except the churches and everything played on the radio has to be “appropriate” and they fast. My first day here and they are fasting! Technically they are allowed to eat once it gets dark so I think they will eat dinner. The teachers and staff however did not fast.  We had oatmeal for breakfast and ramen noodles for lunch, which totally reminds me of survival in college. After breakfast we went to the chapel, again I was not prepared. I couldn’t sit through church for more than 30 min when I was a kid, but we sat for three and a half hours! There were bible versus read and a lot of singing and then people telling their stories of the day the earthquake hit. All of this in a different language. It was very difficult for me to sit through! But it was also very touching. Every now and then someone would translate into broken English which was also hard to follow. Even when I couldn’t understand what they were saying, you could tell how passionate they were. How happy to be alive and how sad for friends and family lost, grown men crying and little children too. It took everything out of me to not break down. I survived the almost 4 hours in the chapel sitting on the smallest most uncomfortable benches and again no air. It was difficult but great experience. The people here are so amazing and passionate about what little they have. Sitting on a bench next to about 50 orphans wasn’t the easiest morning. As uncomfortable as I was it didn’t matter because what I was experiencing was great. They have beautiful voices and LOVE to sing. All the children got up front and sang it was so precious. I am finally unpacked and settled in for the most part. Just resting having a day off with everyone!

We went hiking and it is absolutely gorgeous here! I will share pictures when the internet is working better. Our power just went off, not real sure why, but our 4 hours of light just turned into 1...

"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength"

 

Count down

In 9 days I will be leaving for Montrouis, Haiti. The day before the one year anniversary of the terrible earthquake that shattered thousands of lives. I will be working at Canaan Christian Orphanage helping the children with math. I am overly excited but also weary of what is to come. This will be by far one of the most life changing experiences I have faced. I cannot wait to see all the little children and learn about their lives. I know they will touch my heart unlike anything else and I hope to touch some of theirs.

All of this has happened so quickly, I only decided for certain to leave about 2 weeks ago. Thanks to all my friends and family I am able to make this happen. Everyone has been so supportive and understanding with my decision. Things in Haiti are still no where back to normal. Even a year after the destruction, new problems keep arising. In the last few months there has been a Cholera outbreak that has killed over 3000 people. Poor sanitation is the primary cause of this outbreak and there is not enough money or resources to fix it. There have been around 150,000 cases and in the next 12 months they are expecting that to rise to over 400,000 people infected. This country faces new problems every day. I cannot fix a whole country but I do hope to change a few children's lives and help to teach them to better their future. The truth is, most of these children are there to stay. They will face the problems of a third world country every day for the rest of their lives. Three months out of my life is nothing compared to what they face in their future. I hope to lead them and bring joy to their lives for the short period of time I am there.
This whole trip has fallen into place and I feel like it is definitely where I am supposed to be right now. I thank you all for your support. I don't know that any measures can prepare me for what I am about to witness, I just ask for all your prayers.

" In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul"

Psalms 138:3