Hait- day 4 Saturday May 28, 2011

Well, well, well. They didn't finish the concrete inside the house last night. They were only able to get 3/4 of the front room done. A teenager that went with us had me awake most of the night (it's a long story) so I got back to bed about 3:30am. I'm exhausted! My energy is not up today. We went over to the house to start sifting sand again and the girls started painting. They were able to get the back room done. Hopefully the guys will be able to start on the outside after lunch. Us girls are going to go over and start handing out the shoes. Lillie and Emily went to finish sorting out the storage room this morning b/c Lillie is one-handed now :-(
We are home for lunch at the moment. Hot dogs and mac 'n cheese.

Saturday night

The boys were able to finish the second room with stucco. We went over to the orphanage to pass out shoes. That was priceless!! We brought them in a few at a time and sized them. They also got a toothbrush and a pack of toothpaste. It was interesting b/c some of the kids were being picky about what shoes they got, but most of them were okay.. The older girls wanted nice church shoes/sandals. The older boys also got a Galilee Mission Run shirt. The older boys like tennis shoes.
We were also throwing a birthday part for the "May" birthdays. We had about 6 different kinds of cakes and some juice. The 11 kids who were celebrating their birthday got 3 items as a gift. We had wrapped them in plastic disposable colored tablecloths. What was funny is the kids don't really know their birthday so when they come in and see a gift with their name on it, they figure out it must have been their birthday that month. It is cute to see their face light up and them say, "It's my birthday".
Melissa is doing a fabulous work here. She really is. Her funding is not at all what she needs and it frustrates her to be able to keep up with everything that needs to be done. Example: 2 flat tires and a battery on our first day here. On the second day, one sink and one toilet wasn't working. Both the refrigerators (in the team house and the orphanage) went out the third day and yesterday (day 4) we noticed the drains in the kitchen at the orphanage weren't draining properly. It is really burdening me to know that this awesome lady is trying to keep this place running. I'm gonna ask all my Facebook friends to sponsor a child. Only 75 kids to go!!
An ER doctor from Canada came yesterday to tour the orphanage. He is connected to two very wealthy men who had been supporting an orphanage in Ethiopia. The person running that orphanage was misusing the funds and was put in prison so now they are thinking of supporting Melissa. That would be way awesome. Every dime goes to the kids. She will tell you all of her budget and where your money is going. People really do want to know where their money is going to want to sponsor. I assure you, she is doing right by it.

Friday 5/27/11 10:45pm

We started the day today taking shoes over to the orphanage. We organized them on the shelves in the storage room. It looked like we had about 200 pairs of shoes. Tomorrow we are going to bring the kids in 4-5 at a time to size them. The older boys are also gonna get a Galilee Mission Run t-shirt (a mission run that raised money for us to take over there). We also have to celebrate May birthdays tomorrow so we were able to wrap up a few things for the ones celebrating their birthday. We will have a big birthday party- even cake (gato)!! Today the boys continued the work on the house. Sifting sand, mixing concrete, and putting stucco up on the walls. They got the inside walls done today.

"Finnie" (FINISH!!!)

We will be able to start painting the inside tomorrow. We ate a good dinner tonight of white rice, sausage, and bread. After dinner, Lillie fell out of a chair (it broke) and sliced her hand open on a glass Sprite bottle. We quickly took her to Open Hands Hospital in Port-Au-Prince for stitches. She had to get 9 stitches!! We joked with her that was one for every day that she was here. She would always remember Haiti!! It was a little harrowing trying to get to the hospital, but once we got there- it was all American run staff. The physician was Angelia and she was from Manhattan. They even had LIDOCAINE!! Thank God for lidocaine!! Everybody at the hospital was phenomenal.

Now we are ready for bed!!!

Thursday- 8:30pm

This young lady is the only person near this house (young or old) that actually picked up a shovel and helped us.

Our first church service at the orphanage. It was awesome. The guys had been working outside in the heat all day, but the kids didn't care that they were hot and sweaty.

Etalin in front of her home prior to the renovation. Etalin works as a cook at the orphanage, but she lives in a little small community just down the road from the orphanage. She earns $37/mth. for her work at the orphanage!

This is a small child that lived behind Etalin. I'm not sure if he was family or not, but seeing this child was extremely hard for me.

Getting started on Etalin's house.

WHEW!! Today has been so physically hard! We didn't sleep well last night. It seemed like half the house was awake. Mainly Emily! She couldn't fall asleep for some reason. Cheryl was digging around in the bag looking for her some Melatonin. I was up at 5:00am anyways.

We went over to Etalin's house to work early this morning after eating scones, bacon, eggs, and fresh mango. We had to sift sand- a 2-part process. Once to get out the big rocks then again with a smaller sifter to get even smaller rocks and sand. They use a very fine sand to make stucco to put inside and outside the house before painting. Her house is going to be pink! The men worked hard and put up a tin roof today too. What was amazing was that there were probably 25 men looking/standing around watching all the women and girls work. This was BACK-BREAKING, very physical labor we were doing!! One very small girl, who looked to be 8-10 years old picked up a shovel and started helping us throw the gravel into the water holes while all the strapping, young men watched. It was crazy!! I rewarded her with bugspray. Bugspray is a huge commodity here. Everyone wants it, but nobody can afford to buy it!! It costs $14 a bottle. I also coated all the little ones around there. The mamas were wiping it off the children to put some on themselves.


Leave me comments to let me know you came by my page. I'm hoping you can get a glimpse into my experience through my journal.

Wednesday- May 25, 2011

The room where I slept- on the floor, on a twin mattress BUT we did have a toilet, a shower, GREAT food, and mostly mosquito-free!!

Animals roam free all over Haiti. Here is a pig and a goat right outside the team house gate.

Lillie posing with some of her kids the very first time meeting them. The little one she is holding is Shadline. She's 3 years old. Precious!!

Kevin meeting Sonson and Terelli (Alteus St.Claire or Tirene). For some reason he is called Terelli. He has just turned 15. Sonson I believe is 10. Also, they write their last name first so Terelli's first name is St.Claire and his last name is Alteus.

My new friends John (in the red) and Kenson (in the blue). John is 10 and Kenson was 8 or 9 I believe. John will be my best friends son's penpal. They love to write letters and most of them can speak/write English well. Most of the boys have ringworm/fungus on their heads, but we had their heads shaved and treated it so hopefully this will get better.

Here's my journal entry for this day:

Waking up my first morning in Haiti. I actually woke up at 3:30am and have been awake ever since. It's now 5:00am and the sun is already up, shining thru the bedroom window. The rest of the house is quiet except Lillie- she's awake too. Melissa tells us that they start their day really early here and they finish their school and outside work by about noontime because it is so hot.

Thankfully so far I haven't gotten any mosquito bites. I'm sure that will change!!

Our plans today are to help repair a house for one of the ladies that works at the orphanage. She cooks and does some laundry there. She lives in a little village right outside the orphanage. She makes $37 a month for her work at the orphanage. The team house is about 1/2 mile down the road from the orphanage. This lady is living in a small house with no doors on the house, a tarp over the top for a roof and just 2 rooms. We haven't been there yet so I'm not sure yet- this is the info. Melissa gave us.

I need to take some pictures today on my phone so I can post them on my FB. When we walked over to the orphanage yesterday to visit the kids, it was overwhelming. 127 kids living behind a gate that resembles a compound or a prison. There are several buildings with an open courtyard in the middle. I drew a picture of the grounds in my journal, but I can't draw it here. They have a big girl's dorm, little girl's dorm (where the babies sleep), cafeteria, elementary school, clinic, food depot, church, sewing room, and a boy's dorm. All of the middle is sand, dirt, and rocks. Oh, standing, stagnant water too. No grass and a very skinny tree.

The kids just flock to you and are literally hanging on your every limb. I had 3 boys- John, Kenson, and Dieunor (pronounced Juno). Also a little girl named Derline (pronounced Daylin). The kids were playing in the water when we arrived and were butt-naked. They were hurriedly putting on their clothes. All of which looked very dirty. Most didn't have on any shoes. On the walk over there people were walking barefoot in the dirt and mud in which the animals and people pee and poop in. By the way, there are a variety of animals that roam free. Goats, pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, and dogs. Melissa says they belong to someone but she doesn't know how they know whose is whose.

John wanted to show me where his bed was, which school room was his, etc. All the kids go to school- even the 3-yr.-olds (there are 2 that live here). Elementary age go on the campus at the orphanage and big kids go to secondary school in town. Until they pass a test, which is a government test they can't go to secondary school, which is like a public school, but you have to pay to go- around $500 a year. Usually by about 12 yrs. old they need to go to secondary school.

All the kids in this orphanage are healthy. Free of diseases, etc. There is a clinic next door to the team house that sees them. That's where Lillie and I will be helping I think (we didn't).

Something interesting I saw yesterday was how the kids groomed and picked each other. A fly or mosquito might have landed on the other one's face and they would smack it off. We joked that you know you are in Haiti when someone slaps you and you say thank you! A stranger stopped our truck yesterday wanting some Gas X and he picked off a mosquito that had landed on Roselle's face like it was nothing. Invading your personal space is very acceptable, I guess.

I can't wait to see what's in store for us today........

Noon the same day

We walked over to the house where we were going to be working. Her name is Etalin. She had a 2 room block house with a little porch (uncovered) on it. Only half the roof was covered with tin, but it's leaking. In the front room was a baker's rack with a small metal bowl on top of it. That's it! Dirt floors. The bedroom had 3 small beds, no windows, and several clothing items (ripped and smelled bad like urine). There were 2 babies in the yard- no diapers and the mom and grandma (Etalin) were using an old piece of cloth swatting the flies off. This has probably been the toughest for me to see. Those 2 babies looked like the postcard for life in Haiti, like something I would have seen on TV. There is no bathroom so the babies just pee or poop in your lap or in the yard. I had a little fan with a water sprayer on it and one of the babies loved it. His name was Joseph. The other baby wouldn't open up to me.

Brian went into town to get supplies while the rest of us took to cleaning out and packing up Etalin's house. We took all the stuff outside and into her sister's house (right in front of her house). After we got that done and while we were waiting on Brian to return and the sand to be delivered we came back to the team house to rest and eat lunch. It was only 9:45am or so and we felt like we had been at it all day. After lunch of hot dogs, mac 'n cheese, left over spaghetti noodles, ham and cheese sandwiches we loaded up and went back to the house to work. They had the sand delivered by this time so we got to work sifting out the big rock and the guys got to working on putting up the trusses on the house. We were to put the big rocks down on the floor of the front room and concrete will go over the top of that. Once we got to the point of getting a base down we (girls) walked to the orphanage. One of the guys standing around outside Etalin's house I nicknamed "Smiley". He was very well dressed and smiled the entire day. I later found out his name was Enud. He really liked Emily. There were several boys around that gawked at us and never did any work. Of course when we got to the orphanage, were were immediately surrounded by "our" kids. Certain kids take possession of you and won't let the others near you hardly. They say, "Wendy mine- NO, NO, NO!!" Kevin was still working at the house so Terelli and Sonson wanted to know where he was and they hung out with me all afternoon.

Derline (Daylin) is a 10-yr-old girl that has the most beautiful complexion. She speaks great English and so does Terelli. We tried to teach the kids how to play Red Rover/Red Rover. They finally got the hang of it- sort of!!

Before we knew it we were all dispersed into little groups. The kids loved seeing pics of Tori on my phone and videos of her gymnastics. I sat down and remembered that I had some games on my phone. They instantly figured out how to play TicTacToe. While I was sitting down the girls took over braiding my hair. They kept saying, "Oh American hair, so hard-different-not braid easy". It actually ended up looking rather good, but I had to endure about an hour of torture. If a strand of hair got left out of the braid the pulled it out of your head!! OUCH!! It was all good though.

I then went to walk around and find everyone else. Lillie had about a million girls in the cafeteria dancing, clapping, and doing the Mac arena in Haitian. The kids actually know a lot of American songs. They even knew "Beat It" by Michael Jackson. Elizabeth was getting her hair plaided (braided) and it looks great. Lillie had hers done too. The girls loved Elizabeth's long hair b/c nobody has long hair here. Hmmm...... maybe I should get them to show me how to braid black people hair so I can do it for Kylee's hair (my niece is bi-racial).

What I learned today.......

1. Haitians love cat meat! They saw a picture of my cats and said, "mmmm" cat tastes so good! Oh how sad! Guess if I was starving I might feel differently too but that just about got to me!

2. The older girls in the mission have very beautiful skin. Maybe it's from all the sweating I've done, but my face has never felt this soft either.

3. Mosquitoes here by the billions and they can bite thru clothes- especially socks. I might have one bite though still. I'm keeping lots of bug spray on.

4. As a general rule, Haitians don't care for the American military. They love Brazil though.

5. They don't know where GA is. They know Miami, Florida and they know Ohio (where Melissa is from), but not GA. I'm gonna try to send a USA map to Melissa for their school.

6. One boy today asked me if I knew Osama Bin Laden and I said yes, he's dead. Our conversation went like this.

Terelli: "You know Osama Bin Laden?"

Me: "Yes, but he's dead"

Terelli: "NO, he's not dead!!"

Me: "Oh yes he is. Americans kill him. Shoot him in head two times"

Terelli: "You see with your eyes?"

Me: "No"

Terelli: "you see on TV?"

Me: "yes"

Terelli: "I like Osama b/c he's my color!"

Me: "Yes, but I like you and you're not my color. It's what is on the inside, not the outside. Osama was evil"

Terelli: "Are you Christian?"

Me: "Oh yes, I'm a Christian.

Terelli: "ME TOO! ME TOO!" (conversation over- haha)

7. The average life expectancy is 45!!

WOW?!? Sorry this entry is so long. Tomorrow's won't be! I promise. Let me know that you were here please. Leave me a comment.

Haiti Mission Trip

Brian- our fearless youth minister and leader. He was an awesome leader and remained calm every step of the way (even though he probably knew I would be way out of my comfort zone). Lol.

Kevin and Brian on the first leg of our journey to Haiti.

The teenagers and Brian in Miami Airport

A view of Haiti from the sky. Wow, our mission is about to begin!

We were responsible for bringing shoes to the 127 kids at the orphanage. I think we probably had over 200 pairs. It was awesome.

We've just returned from our mission trip in Haiti late Thursday night. We had an amazing experience and it was definitely life changing. I am going to blog my journal just like when I was there each day and post pictures.

Here is my first journal entry:

05/23/11

Well, it's the night before my first mission trip to Haiti. I'm laying in the church sanctuary thinking how very blessed I am. I may never have this chance again but if I don't, I can cross it off my bucket list. My feelings tonight are of nervousness, excitement, joy, and a little bit of fear.

I'm sure I'll come home changed, with a renewed sense of accomplishment, that I conquered something else. I hope to come home to my own child with a bigger heart, with more compassion, and a steadfast spirit.

05/24/11 10:00am

I'm on a plane headed to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. I'm so excited about this opportunity. Brian gave us these journals last night and told us to write down our thoughts and we would be able to go back and reread them some day. You think you won't forget, but I am sure with time, some of the memories will get foggy.

Everything has been very smooth so far. The plane is very full. I'm told we are in for a huge experience and it will be shocking and eye opening. A gentleman on the plane with us is from South Dakota and he has made this journey several times. He is starting a food program called Aquaponics. We have to travel one hour in the back of a pick up truck once we get to Port-Au-Prince to get to the orphanage. That ought to be interesting with 11 of us, 22 checked bags, plus 22 carry on bags.

9:00pm

Brian wanted us to list the things we saw today:

1). Almost saw a fight at the airport over our luggage. We had been told repeatedly to say "no mesi" in regards to Haitians helping us with our luggage at the airport. We even practiced carrying everything the night before so we knew we could handle it, but when we got there we didn't know "who" exactly was with us and who was against us. Finally, a gentleman came in and ushered us out the door, but not before someone grabbed Stephanie's bags and the men were screaming and shouting over who was supposed to be helping.

2). A dead dog on the side of the road.

3). A woman with only half of her top on so her breast was exposed (sorry, but that's what I saw and then journaled). haha

4). Children walking in urine and feces without shoes on.

Things I smelled today:

1). Trash

2). Sewer

3). My own sweaty butt!!

How I felt today:

1). Sad

2). Overwhelmed

3). Burdened

4). Blessed

5). Surprised

6). Tired

7). Scared

8). Hungry (before Mecula made us the best spaghetti dinner)