Guest Blogger Update - from Haiti

This came in from my daughter Kristin about 10 minutes ago.....

Let's see...what's happened in Haiti since I last wrote? Well, on Thursday morning while we were still in La Didge, Paige took me to the canal that flows through their village. La Didge means the dam in kreyol, and they have a whole system of canals and ditches that flow through the village and provides water to everyone. Granted, it's not clean water, but La Didge is considered a very wealthy part of Haiti just because of that. Right by where the dam is at the river, it's deep and wide enough for people to go swimming in it. It was a really refreshing swim, because of how cold the water felt compared to the air temperature. We of course had an audience of haitians that had nothing better to do than to watch us swim...it was kind of funny. It was also pretty interesting because there are two different parts that you could go in by where we were. There was a shallow-er part that you could just drop a foot into, and there was a deeper part that was a 4-5 foot drop into the water. I actually went into both. Apparently, there aren't many blans, or white people who will do the big jump into the water, but I did. Mom came along too, but she only took pictures, she didn't go swimming.
Later that afternoon, we went up to Barbancourt, where Children's Lifeline International has another one of their feeding centers. They also have a program called "Love Bundles" which is kind of like the Samaritan's purse christmas boxes, and they needed to hand some more of those out that afternoon. Troy and Tara absolutely hate doing this, because they spend all of the rest of their time trying to get into the Haitians' head the idea that they need to work for what they get, and can earn it, but then they have to go and give away tons of gifts. It also doesn't help that most of the kids who get these aren't very grateful, and will say that they didn't get the toy or whatever that they "need", and when they run out of love bundles when they hand them out, some of the people can get very nasty. It went pretty well when we were there, though. They handed out 500 love bundles, and were 58 short. Everyone who didn't get one was pretty polite and knew that they would get one later. It was really hot there, but it was another great experience to see.
We left La Didge by 7:30 monday morning, and Troy took us to the airport, where we met Molly, and then she brought us up to GLA. It felt so great to be back here. We unloaded most of our donations Friday morning, and kind of hung out the rest of the day. Jean Bell is here with her son Tony, and she was working on organizing the pharmacy, so Mom helped her with that for a little while. I took a couple really tiny babies up to the balcony, and rocked them for a while. They were so adorable! I also had to feed one of them their bottle, and he almost ate the whole thing, which was great.
Friday night, we hung around the dinner table for a while talking with Dixie, John, LaDawn, Laurie and Jean. We got to see the plans that the architect drew up for the new house, which look so cool! The actual orphanage house is going to be huge! There is a center "core" and then two wings that go off on either side of it. Each wing is two stories tall. One wing will be what the main house is now, with the kids ages 0-2, and the other wing is for the toddler house. In the center core, there is kitchen areas for all of the toddlers to eat, and for cooks to make the food for all of the kids. They will have a walk in freezer and fridge, which I think sounds really cool for days when you are really hot. All of the offices will also be in the center core. The top floor of the core will be both a covered and uncovered area for volunteers to work with their assigned children. John and Dixie and their family will get their own house, which looks quite cool, and there will also be a guesthouse that will hold 34 people! There will be lots of room for volunteers and teams to come down and help. It looks very exciting! Now they just need to get the money raised so they can afford to build it. They are having Haitians do all of the actually building of the buildings, but once everything is up, they can have teams come down to help with things like painting, putting up cupboards and shelves, putting on doorknobs, etc.
We had a pretty relaxing Saturday morning. It's been kind of frustrating to me that Haiti didn't do the time change this year, so it get light really, really, early (like at 5:30) and it gets dark pretty late. I haven't been sleeping as late in the mornings as I would like to, and I think that's because it's been so light out. I spent some time with toddlers in the morning. It's really pretty sad how many of these kids I remember. I don't remember very many at the baby house, because they grow so fast, and most of the new kids that they get in are younger, but I remember a lot of them here at the toddler house. It's also been really funny to watch some of the kids' faces when I tell them that I know their mom and dad- they start to beam! I heard one of them later telling their friends in kreyol "Kristin knows my mom!" I also think it's kind of funny that none of the other volunteers get the older kids calling out their name whenever they go into the kids' yard, but I get it constantly. I have a ton of fun playing around with the older kids, especially because they are doing so well with their english. Some of them, like Ronaldo, Adeline, Miklene, Rosemanie, can pretty much tell me everything they want to in Creole
We went out and did some shopping on Saturday. We went to the Baptist Mission and bought some things, and then ate lunch in the restaurant there. I did a little bit of shopping on the street also, and got Dad a father's day gift. We also went to the Hispanola grocery store, and Mom got all of the coffee and vanilla that she'll need to take back home, and I also got some fruit drinks, and some awesome Mango suckers that they have here. We hung around with some babies the rest of Saturday, and found some kids whose parents we know to take some pictures for them.
It's also been pretty nice, because our first few days in Haiti were so INCREDIBLY HOT, it doesn't feel very hot here at all. As long as you can stay in the shade, it's very comfortable. In fact, it was kind of funny, Friday night, when the kids were getting ready for bed, they put sweatshirts on because they said they were getting cold! Very funny!
On Sunday, Mom and I decided to go to Quesqueya Chapel with LaDawn and 5 other people here. It was a great service. The sermon was on the multicultural church, and what it looks like. We ran into an adoptive mom that we know from Michigan, and we met several other CRC missionaries from Grand Rapids! It was too funny! They seem really nice, and it was great to have a chance to meet them. Hopefully I'll have a chance to see them again if I go back to Quesqueya. There is a group from Jamestown CRC that will be going to Haiti this summer to help them.
Thank you to those of you who have prayed for the sick babies here. I think that we are just going to hang around for the rest of the day. There are a bunch of really little babies here that have been so fun to just sit and cuddle with. Their preemie/ICU room is full of tiny ones that are SO adorable, I love it! I hope I get assigned to some of them.
Tomorrow, I will get the list of babies that I will be responsible for during the day. It looks like, at this point anyways, I will be spending my whole days at the main house with kids ages 0-2. It should be fun! After I have time to get to know my assigned babies a little better, I'll write and introduce you all to them.
Love from Haiti!
Kristin