Bon Fet Sen Valanten

Yesterday as you know was the hallmark holiday, Valentines Day. The day that is filled with love hearts, pinks and reds, flowers, teddy bears, and chocolates. Although I missed going out for heart shape pizza with my family, I spent the day along with the people in our community, experiencing love without the flowers, teddy bears, chocolates and Lou Malnati's pizza.  Here there aren't those things. At one of the schools here they had a fundraiser where you could buy a flower, and there were Haitian love songs, and a little opportunity for some karaoke. 

I made a valentine and had 500 copies made, gathered crayons and Jen and I brought them over to the school. Although these kinds of things were my favorite in school, I was weary of how they would enjoy the activity. 

The kids had Monday-Wednesday off and typically kids take the whole week off. Sr. Pat wanted to try and increase the attendance after the holiday. This activity was the attempt to do so. In each class there was a range of 8-20 kids in the younger class and between 20-30 in the older classes....We had announced last week we would be doing something special for valentines day, but obviously a lot of them didn't care. 

We went around to every class to take pictures after they started.  It was interesting to see that the younger classes had the exact same method to color (no individuality or creativity) which the artist in me really was upset about. The older kids were better, they had the same ideas but added their own individuality to them, at the very least used different colors.

The younger pre- k kids got instructions to color their heart it could be any color, but they had to stay in the lines.

Pre-k

The first graders all colored their hearts pink and had green on the outside. 

first grade. 

 The second and third grade had a little variety, some solid colors but a lot of them spilt the heart in two and made it two different colors.

  Second and third grade.

Fourth grade had some individuality, but this is what we saw a lot. simple coloring and a simple phrase.

Fourth grade

 The fifth and six grade did a great job. They had the same idea. But really were all different. They decorated them, and wrote a nice message inside. I was really impressed by them.

Fifth and sixth grade. 

The Principle of the school colored one as well. 

Here are just some other pictures of some classes and cute kids holding their valentines! 

  

A small part of one of the first grade classes I am working with. 

A small part of the other first grade class I am working in. 

In other news: 

Jen and I went to take pictures to send to a group who is supporting a school buy funding for new uniforms. 

We were under the impression the uniforms were made and we would take pictures of the kids in the new uniforms. They didn't have the uniforms done yet, so we had to be creative on how to show they were getting new uniforms. They had the fabric there so we had the kids hold the fabric and we had them throw it in the air. I thought the pictures were going to turn out better, but it was still fun doing it. 

 One of the women who will be making the uniforms was measuring the kids then "cutting" the fabric.

                              Of course I found the cutest little boy and had to take a picture....


Last week we had a medical team come and work in our community. We did some translating and helping with the flow of the people, I got to do some finger pricks, gave a shot, and  a few times I was asked to give scabies treatment.  All over their bodies.

Just some random pictures I have taken the past few weeks. 

 

sunset from my room.