Wow. Some days are just summed up in that one word. There really are inadequate words to describe some of the things that happen here. Saturday was one of those days. It was such a day that most of it went undocumented by pictures. Things just happen and who thinks to pull out the camera when life is happening? Especially this life.
I crawled out of my cot at 7:45AM like I do pretty much every morning. I was met at the door of the main house by Lony, our 11 year old and oldest boy on the compound. "The children are trouble today! When Lori gets here there will be big trouble!" he informed me emphatically. Uh oh, what happened? He proceeded to fill me in on the mayhem that had transpired in the wee hours of the morning, while I slept. Have any of you had those children that went through destructive phases? You know, when you're 3 year old gets into the pantry and proceeds to dump an entire Sam's Club size jug of chocolate syrup in your carpet? Just because? Well, imagine if you had sextuplets, all going through that phase at once and somehow they slipped away from the supervising eyes of their nanny during the night! Well, lets just say that some of our adorable little boys had been very, very naughty!
We had planned an outing to the local market at 9:00AM but that was postponed for a few hours because when Lori arrived there were discussions to be had and consequences to be dealt out. At times like these we remind each other that these children have endured a tremendous amount of change over the last 3 years. First of all no child is meant to grow up in an orphanage. They were meant to live in a family where they don't have to constantly compete with numerous other children for attention and love. They were meant to have a mom & a dad, who they can follow around and absorb the proper way to do things, care for things and interact with people. Add to that being moved into tents in the yard and then plywood houses, due to earthquake damage to the main building and volunteers coming and going without any real consistency in staff over that same time, you end up with some rather wild kiddos in serious need of structure and a lot of patience.
We did finally make to the market. Once again we traveled via motorbikes. In the previous 4 times that I've been to Haiti, I had a total of 1 motorbike ride. Now it is a very common and convenient mode of transport and we take them everywhere. Market was hot and busy as usual but we didn't delve into the deepest, smelliest parts; instead we merely perused through the vendors along the main entrance. In a few weeks when Jason and our friend, Carolyn, arrive, I think we'll need to make another more in depth trip. Everyone should see a large bowl filled with goat heads at least once!
The rest of my afternoon was spent reading to kiddos, washing my sheets and cleaning my room. The cleaning part was progressing along nicely until I spotted some long, hairy spider legs stretching over the side of the air mattress that is currently leaning against one wall of my room. Bug spray only stunned it and then it scuttled across the room and under my bed. Oh boy! I knew I would have difficulty sleeping that night if I didn't kill that creature, so I hunted it down and beat it to death with my flip flop! Yuck! I'm not particularly squeamish about spiders but this one was definitely out of my comfort zone!
It shriveled up to much after it was dead to be sure, but I'm pretty certain that it was a tarantula.
Supper was almost ready at 7:00pm, when the truck showed up for us to take some of the children to get their passport photos taken. When I say "showed up" I mean the truck drove through the gate without prior warning and we all dashed about fetching children and changing them from their pajamas into 'church' clothes as quickly as possible. I was told that Haitians only take their pictures in the evening because they don't want to look sweaty on their photos. All these random, interesting facts that one learns. Anyway, we covered up the food to keep the creatures at bay and off we went. It was an adventure, to be sure. Five white girls and 6 little children in the back of a rattle trap pickup headed into town. The children did relatively well considering that they hadn't been in a 'machine' in a long time and rarely get outside the compound except for walking to church on Sundays. We crowded into a little hole-in-the-wall waiting room and it kept filling up with more and more people; sitting on every spare inch of bench and hovering in the doorways. Just for your information, there is ALWAYS room for one more in Haiti. Even if there isn't. Finally, the pictures were taken and tired little children were falling asleep with little sweat beads forming on their foreheads. On the way home, it started to rain and the truck cage was not water proof in the least. That was bearable but what I found disturbing was the large spidery thing that crawled across my foot in the dark.
It was 9:00pm before we sat down to eat our supper, exhausted but content. Mostly contented anyway, the rat that seems to have staked out the back of the bathroom door as it's own personal hang out sort of disturbs my peace.
health nut that I couldn't bring myself to feed them candy every time they bravely endured the cleaning of a cut or some other minor medical procedure? Hey, they thought the vitamins were rather yummy!
health nut that I couldn't bring myself to feed them candy every time they bravely endured the cleaning of a cut or some other minor medical procedure? Hey, they thought the vitamins were rather yummy!
We traveled to a remote mission, riding for miles and miles up a steep mountain road, on the back of a truck. There we visited a school . . .
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