Before coming to Haiti I couldnt have prepared myself for what daily life was like at Kay Jezi Mari. I didnt factor in the man that wakes us up at
5 am most monday mornings who is “preaching” but just sounds like he is screaming with a preset song on a keyboard in the background. I also didnt factor in that there might
be cold weather here.... since we dont have heated water, that means a cold
body and freezing water when you want to be wearing a sweatshirt. Other factors are being sure the dogs are properly
taken care of (they are the princes of the house, worse than my dad spoils his
dogs), also realizing first thing in the morning you have to be prepared to
possibly greet a group of people waiting for something, usually money, skyping my family when they are all together knowing they are all having a great time, and also
realizing that you may be stopped from what you are doing to go help and do
something else. This being said, every day here is completely different.
It has been a
while since I have updated this (which my mother has reminded me of), and
during the past few weeks, we have been incredibly busy with things around the house, projects, and we have worked with a
lot of visitors coming through Gros-Morne.
A few weeks ago I decided that I
wanted to go back to Pendus, where I was for my immersion week. It wasnt there for 24hrs when Jen and Barak showed up...It was
the day Sandy started to effect us. They came to get me, due to weather conditions, or as one lady
said “ the whites have come to save you”. They came to get me, but we had about 5 days of constant rain which made things here very interesting. The constant downpour impacted everything. The rivers rose a lot, so the kids didnt have school,
people couldnt get to and from the market, there was mud everywhere, and even after the rain was finished for four days, traveling was difficult. There were also a few deaths near us,
the river current was too strong and took the lives of those people. During this time, kreyol teacher also couldnt
get to us, the road he uses was wiped out by the river.... I wasnt really upset
that we didnt have class.....however, the rain was a burden to a lot of peoples
daily life.
After that week
of rain, we had a visitor (Nick) here working on a project for a pre-k class the
sisters support. The class is across the river, and the floor of the school is mud. Nick helped us begin the process
to build a platform for the children. Previously they were in mud, especially
when it rained, it wasnt an ideal situation for learning. So we did a lot of
preparations for that, and it is in the process of being finished.
There was a man
here who is a puppeteer, and went to the grade school, and performed for the
kids. They along with the teachers, really enjoyed it.
We went to the
market with our cook, to experience that. It was such a cool day. We were
running around to the stands, getting what we need, but mostly experiencing
what a lot of women do every day. I also took a few pictures....
More recently we
had a medical group come in, who has been doing mobil clinics for the past
week. This was really awesome. Not only because we got to do something we dont
normally get to do, they saw almost 100 people a day. Ideally it is set up so
that the community gathers the sickest people to be seen, and the doctors do
what they can to treat there, or they refer them to the hospital. However in a
few situations, we werent seeing extremely sick people, but a lot of people
with a headache, stomach pain, back, and leg pain. All resulting, from
dehydration, a lot of strenuous work, and malnutrition, most everyone seen got
vitamins, tums and ibuprofen. However there were cases of kids with hernias, a
woman had no idea she was pregnant, a woman with a bad infection due to
diabetes, one very very sick child, skin problems, worms, and eye problems.
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| A little boy who was gnawing on his crackers. |
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| This woman continuously talked to me, although I couldn't understand her 80% of the time. We were in her town a second day, and she brought me some limes and kissed me alot... Im not really sure why....but she was so cute. |
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| This was the most beautiful woman. I was so obsessed, and the joy on her face brought tears to my eyes. |
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| I just loved her and her hat.... |
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| The cutest little boy singing to himself.... |
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| walking across the river. |
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| In Port-au-Prince. |
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| This was during the storm, a street became a river. |
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| A little boy wanted to take a picture of us...this is what we felt was appropriate at the time. |
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| She was sitting in the back of a classroom. |
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| All the boys took off their shirt to play soccer. |
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| we handed out toothbrushes. |
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| then they showed us how to use them... |
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| enjoying lunch at school. |
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| Just a good picture of Jen that a little boy took. |
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| A girl with special needs carrying rocks. |
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| The photos dont do the scenery justice. |
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
being challenged to remember things everyday is really a blessing, but waking up healthy and ready to face the day to live among the Haitians here in Haiti is an even greater blessing. I feel is if I am learning more from them, then they are from me.
Jen also updated her blog about all the visitors we had, and shes a really great writer, its worth reading her blog.
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