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.