Great
Day! Today I woke up at 6:10 to leave at 6:15 for English class. I am partnered
with Jill and a guy named Alex. He isn’t here yet so me and Jill Taught. Okay.
Jill taught and I wrote on the wall because we didn’t have a chalkboard. Today
we talked about emotions. Our class is intermediate/advanced. They are so good
at English! Jill is a great teacher so it’s awesome to see her teach them.
After
English we came home and ate breakfast, Fresh fruit! Fresh Mangos, fresh
bananas, fresh pineapple and crackers and cheese. Fantastic way to start out
the day.
After breakfast we (new volunteers) had a
meeting/class on how to teach health classes such as Cholera class, feminine
hygene class (breastfeeding and menstrual class), hand washing class, and
broken bone and wound care class. These classes are for the community. We teach
them and a translator interprets everything. Luckily I didn’t have to teach
today because I feel super un prepared.
Instead, I got to go help out with gardening.
Me, Gart and our volunteer Scott who speaks Creole and then our Haitian volunteers
Junior (Big) and Styven. To get to our Gardening spot, we took a “moto”.
A moto
is a motorcycle used as a taxi cab.
This was quite an experience.
Example of a Moto Ride:
Haitian driver, usually a girl and then a boy on the back
We drove through streets of Leogane.
Tons of goats, chickens, a few naked kids and lots of “Guruguru” remains. Guruguru is what
Haitians call the big earthquake that happened a few years ago. Tons of rubble
and lots of tent communities are main remains.
We eventually made it to the gardening area.
We arrived at a house with the skinniest baby I’ve ever seen. The momma showed
us to her back yard where the trees were cleaned out and where her kids had made a mini soccer field.
This was one of our last few rows, but you can kind of see the soccer field outline.
The kids used white rocks for the chock to outline the field.
Our job was to rotta-till the ground with a
pick-ax. We had 2 pick axes and a shovel and a rake and a machete. Yes a
machete. Two of us at a time would use a pick-ax to soften the ground. We made
about 10-foot wide rows and 6 rows in all. I was so tired. And so sweaty.
This is Scott Turner. Two people worked on a row at a time- Each doing half.
We switched pick-axers each row. I think I did half as much as the boys because I was too weak.
Junior (big) laughed at my pathetic attempts. haha
After the first garden I thought we were done
but then we went to another house. This garden was a lot smaller and we
finished it in no time. After that garden we were done! Gart was a sweaty beast
so after our moto ride back home I was covered in his sweat. So gross. Haha
When I got back I wiped my body with baby
wipes. When I walked into the sleeping rooms, all the other new volunteers had
been taking naps. I was so bitter/jealous. I eventually stopped being green
with rage and we ate lunch. We ate plantains and some stew stuff (with beef
Liver). Honestly so good!
In the afternoon I got to go to the ophanage
with Bethany and Becky and our Haitian volunteers Junoir and Styven. When we
arrived at the orphanage, the children were just standing by table under some
sort of shade covering. No one was talking. No one was smiling.
As soon as we sat down, the kids came up and
held our hands and wanted to talk to us. There was a little boy butt naked
sitting on the table. He couldn’t have been over two years old.
One little boy, Joelle (jsho- el), stayed by
my side all day. He doesn’t speak Haitian Creole and he doesn’t speak English
so I held his hand, gave him hugs and threw him in the air. There were probably
20-25 orphans. Most the girls don’t have panties. All the kids had swollen
tummies and bugs were flying in their eyes and crawling on their faces.
We sang songs, played “Ring Around the Rosies”, played catch, lots of games with jump ropes and lots of tickling and hugs. The kids were OBSESSED with our cameras! The other girls let the kids play with their cameras the whole time but I decided I wanted to play games. [I also didn’t bring an extra battery for my camera so I didn’t want it to die on the first few days. I also wanted to teach in the kids games in hopes that the older kids could play the games with the younger kids.]
I PROMISE I WASN'T POSING WITH THE KIDS! The older kids stole the camera and took pictures of me with the kids. I tried to get the kids to take picture of the other kids but still they got lots of shots of me... picture overload.
There was a sick older child on the cot with the blue blanket.
She is such a beautiful girl!
The kids would take turns taking pictures with the cameras.
Big girls with the cameras
Joele
Becky and her fan club. The kids loved her Hair!
These boys were so funny!
Beautiful
Joele. I couldn't get him to smile except when I was tossing him in the air.. Love that boy
[Now do you see why I only let the kids play with the camera for a little while?
They LOVE pictures and I LOVE pictures of them
but my poor battery couldn't handle it...]
I fell in love with those kids. I hate that I couldn’t tell them and that I can’t tell them everyday. I hate that they don’t have enough to eat or proper beds or parents to love on them. I am so spoiled… When we left, I cried. We drove down the road and we could still see the kids waving from their gate… I hardly knew those kids and I cried. I didn’t expect such a reaction but I couldn’t help it. When I leave Haiti I have a feeling I’m going to have emotional problems.
After the orphanage we came home and then hurried over to English class. My class combined with Gart’s class so Gart and I got to teach together. It wasn’t as scary as I thought. My main problem is talking slow enough.
The night ended with dinner, a wonderfully cold shower, and some long talks with the other volunteers.
Night time=Bed time.
**Snippets**
I am always tired. I could nap anytime, anywhere.
Moldy Butt -> one way to describe the smell of Haiti
