Sunday, May 9, 2010
Sunday: another day of rest and relaxation
Went to bed last night with a little bit of a scratchy throat and woke up this morning with a sore throat!! This weekend has just been a do whatever you want weekend and since Brittnei hasn't been feeling well and I wasn't feeling well we decided to read, play on the computer and watch movies. Went to church this morning and went back to the main house to have lunch with everyone for Marks birthday and played with P and C for a bit. They are the two boys that Miss Vicki the nurse takes care of in her room. They are probably the cutest little ones I have ever seen. Everyone but me and Britt decided to stay at the main house for the night but I wasn't feeling so hot so decided to come back to our house and just relax since this week is going to be busy I think!!! One thing I've learned here is be flexible, we don't find out whats going on until about 9:00 am every day. Going to head to bed early tonight, was going to go down to the main house to watch Vancouver play Chicago but missed the ride down and im not allowed to walk down in the dark of course. Good night!
Tent City
I’m going to start off with a quote tonight. We can do no great things, only small things with great love. (Mother Teresa) Sorry for not being able to blog last night we got home late from the tent city and I was exhausted!
Friday morning started off with breakfast and Brandon and Nikki’s who run the guest house just up the hill from where I live here. We had banana bread and cinnamon rolls. Then after breakfast we had a chance to share our experience so far at GLA. I didn’t speak but a couple others did and it was a very emotional morning for everyone. One of the men that are here made everyone cry because he started crying when he was talking about his trip here so far. I just feel like my emotions all came out yesterday morning and I needed a good cry. Two ladies from our house left today and that was also really sad! I have made some great friendships and will miss the nights where we all stayed up talking about life and laughing.
After breakfast I was ready to go back to bed but headed down to the main house to do some baby loving for the morning. After lunch we all got ready to head to the tent city outside of Port au Prince. I was pretty excited to get this opportunity. As we jump in the car all crammed in we smell a gasoline smell. Our driver needed to go give gas to someone that ran out so we had to drive with it in our gar the whole way and it was making everyone sick! We all had huge headaches and stopped on the side of the road to grab some limes from a vendor as citrus helps with carsickness! You learn something new everyday! By the time we all got to the airport to drop Steph and Shelley off we were high on gasoline fumes I swear. We jumped in another vehicle hit the Haitian version of a Mac’s Milk at home and we were off. Driving through Port au Prince I was a little stunned at the damage the earthquake had caused in some buildings. It’s so weird how you can drive through the city and some buildings are just collapsed and some are not. We passed this one huge supermarket that had collapsed and a lot of foreigners were killed there. I believe they said around four hundred. I just wish they could clear the rubble away as it’s a constant reminder to the Haitian people everyday of the natural disaster that changed a lot of lives. I could not get over the tent cities, there are some many tents everywhere you look! The tent city we visited was outside of Port au Prince and housed 5,000 people. These 5,000 people moved there only 2 weeks ago from another tent city that housed 50,000 people. They got flooded out from the rain as we are in rainy season here so had to move someplace else. This was one of the most organized tent cities I had seen so far. They all had decent sized tents, a place to get water, a trench in case it rained, places to wash and go to the washroom and security. Our job was just to walk around tent to tent talk to the people and listen to their stories. I will share a couple of stories with you. One of the first tents we visited had a girl named Nadine who was 19 years old. Nadine had some sort of physical and mental disability. I just sat with her and she was soo excited to see us, laughing and smiling. We had Ryhan with us who knows a good amount of Creole so she could translate. This tent also had another boy who had some sort of disability and it broke my heart. At some tents we were invited in, this one lady lived with her mother who was around 60 years old which is quite old here in Haiti. She didn`t look too well. They invited us to sit in their tent and she told a story about the earthquake and how she was in her house when the building collapsed. I have no idea how she got out. Most tents had very little in them. There were flies everywhere and it was sooo hot in the tents. Just think when you go camping in the summer and go into your tent during the day, how hot it is. That is constant in the tent cities. They had some clothes, shoes, and a couple belongings but not much. There were things called mud cakes that the people had in their tents which are made of flour, water and mud. Yes these people eat these for food. One little baby that we met had a little bracelet made out material on her arm. Ryhan informed me that it is a voodoo bracelet and they do it to ward off sickness, etc. I don`t know all that much about voodoo but it is common here in Haiti. Halfway through our trip we had a following of children, holding our hands as we walked tent to tent. All of a sudden we saw a huge group of people hurdling towards us and we had no idea what was going on. Then a little dwarf man lands in front of Brittnei, I guess he is the water man that delivers water to them and they love him and think it`s funny since they don’t see that often here in Haiti. Stella joined in on a game of jump rope and the kids loved it. If you looked in the sky you could see kites made of anything they could get their hands on. One little girl who spoke a little English asked me if I loved children and I said yes and then she asked me if I would adopt her. I just wanted to cry she said she didn`t know where her mother or father were. I didn`t know if she was telling the truth or not, but for a child to have to say that is not right. They have no schools other than a kindergarten school at the tent city and a group of Haitian youth were there trying to see if they could start an elementary and secondary school up. Once it got dark they put a film on for everyone to watch called incomparable grace that Pastor Joel had made. It was about two hours long and I could not understand a word as it was all in Creole. I just stood in the crowd with two little girls one on each side of me holding my hand. By the end everyone was praying for each other. There were about 2,000 people watching this video. In the front row were all those that were disabled in some way. Some missing a leg from the earthquake, some old that were blind, deaf etc. I was so happy that they brought them down to be able to watch the video.
We left around 9:30 pm and I was soo exhausted physically and emotionally. I cannot believe that I have so much and these people have so little. Honestly, my problems are so tiny compared to the hardships that these people have. Some may wonder what the point was of just going to the tent city, well what it was for me was a chance to just be there and show the people that someone cares and we have not forgotten about them. It was a chance for me to have my eyes opened to the extreme poverty our world holds. It opened my eyes to the resilience of the Haitian people and how some way they always bounce back. It was a chance to let them talk and have someone listen to them even if I did not understand their language. It changed my life. Words cannot explain the emotions of yesterdays experience and pictures cannot describe it.
Saturday was a day of rest and relaxation. Got to sleep in until 9:30 am and then just lazed around all morning. Britt wasn`t feeling well so me, her and Amy watched a couple of movies. I went down for a bit and hung out with some of the older children as some of the volunteers had made balloon animals for them. At around 4:00pm me and Amy headed down to the main house for dinner, it was a nice walk today as there was a nice breeze and it wasn’t too hot. After supper headed upstairs to say goodnight to the little ones and get some cuddles in. Off to bed.
Sorry for the long post!
Friday morning started off with breakfast and Brandon and Nikki’s who run the guest house just up the hill from where I live here. We had banana bread and cinnamon rolls. Then after breakfast we had a chance to share our experience so far at GLA. I didn’t speak but a couple others did and it was a very emotional morning for everyone. One of the men that are here made everyone cry because he started crying when he was talking about his trip here so far. I just feel like my emotions all came out yesterday morning and I needed a good cry. Two ladies from our house left today and that was also really sad! I have made some great friendships and will miss the nights where we all stayed up talking about life and laughing.
After breakfast I was ready to go back to bed but headed down to the main house to do some baby loving for the morning. After lunch we all got ready to head to the tent city outside of Port au Prince. I was pretty excited to get this opportunity. As we jump in the car all crammed in we smell a gasoline smell. Our driver needed to go give gas to someone that ran out so we had to drive with it in our gar the whole way and it was making everyone sick! We all had huge headaches and stopped on the side of the road to grab some limes from a vendor as citrus helps with carsickness! You learn something new everyday! By the time we all got to the airport to drop Steph and Shelley off we were high on gasoline fumes I swear. We jumped in another vehicle hit the Haitian version of a Mac’s Milk at home and we were off. Driving through Port au Prince I was a little stunned at the damage the earthquake had caused in some buildings. It’s so weird how you can drive through the city and some buildings are just collapsed and some are not. We passed this one huge supermarket that had collapsed and a lot of foreigners were killed there. I believe they said around four hundred. I just wish they could clear the rubble away as it’s a constant reminder to the Haitian people everyday of the natural disaster that changed a lot of lives. I could not get over the tent cities, there are some many tents everywhere you look! The tent city we visited was outside of Port au Prince and housed 5,000 people. These 5,000 people moved there only 2 weeks ago from another tent city that housed 50,000 people. They got flooded out from the rain as we are in rainy season here so had to move someplace else. This was one of the most organized tent cities I had seen so far. They all had decent sized tents, a place to get water, a trench in case it rained, places to wash and go to the washroom and security. Our job was just to walk around tent to tent talk to the people and listen to their stories. I will share a couple of stories with you. One of the first tents we visited had a girl named Nadine who was 19 years old. Nadine had some sort of physical and mental disability. I just sat with her and she was soo excited to see us, laughing and smiling. We had Ryhan with us who knows a good amount of Creole so she could translate. This tent also had another boy who had some sort of disability and it broke my heart. At some tents we were invited in, this one lady lived with her mother who was around 60 years old which is quite old here in Haiti. She didn`t look too well. They invited us to sit in their tent and she told a story about the earthquake and how she was in her house when the building collapsed. I have no idea how she got out. Most tents had very little in them. There were flies everywhere and it was sooo hot in the tents. Just think when you go camping in the summer and go into your tent during the day, how hot it is. That is constant in the tent cities. They had some clothes, shoes, and a couple belongings but not much. There were things called mud cakes that the people had in their tents which are made of flour, water and mud. Yes these people eat these for food. One little baby that we met had a little bracelet made out material on her arm. Ryhan informed me that it is a voodoo bracelet and they do it to ward off sickness, etc. I don`t know all that much about voodoo but it is common here in Haiti. Halfway through our trip we had a following of children, holding our hands as we walked tent to tent. All of a sudden we saw a huge group of people hurdling towards us and we had no idea what was going on. Then a little dwarf man lands in front of Brittnei, I guess he is the water man that delivers water to them and they love him and think it`s funny since they don’t see that often here in Haiti. Stella joined in on a game of jump rope and the kids loved it. If you looked in the sky you could see kites made of anything they could get their hands on. One little girl who spoke a little English asked me if I loved children and I said yes and then she asked me if I would adopt her. I just wanted to cry she said she didn`t know where her mother or father were. I didn`t know if she was telling the truth or not, but for a child to have to say that is not right. They have no schools other than a kindergarten school at the tent city and a group of Haitian youth were there trying to see if they could start an elementary and secondary school up. Once it got dark they put a film on for everyone to watch called incomparable grace that Pastor Joel had made. It was about two hours long and I could not understand a word as it was all in Creole. I just stood in the crowd with two little girls one on each side of me holding my hand. By the end everyone was praying for each other. There were about 2,000 people watching this video. In the front row were all those that were disabled in some way. Some missing a leg from the earthquake, some old that were blind, deaf etc. I was so happy that they brought them down to be able to watch the video.
We left around 9:30 pm and I was soo exhausted physically and emotionally. I cannot believe that I have so much and these people have so little. Honestly, my problems are so tiny compared to the hardships that these people have. Some may wonder what the point was of just going to the tent city, well what it was for me was a chance to just be there and show the people that someone cares and we have not forgotten about them. It was a chance for me to have my eyes opened to the extreme poverty our world holds. It opened my eyes to the resilience of the Haitian people and how some way they always bounce back. It was a chance to let them talk and have someone listen to them even if I did not understand their language. It changed my life. Words cannot explain the emotions of yesterdays experience and pictures cannot describe it.
Saturday was a day of rest and relaxation. Got to sleep in until 9:30 am and then just lazed around all morning. Britt wasn`t feeling well so me, her and Amy watched a couple of movies. I went down for a bit and hung out with some of the older children as some of the volunteers had made balloon animals for them. At around 4:00pm me and Amy headed down to the main house for dinner, it was a nice walk today as there was a nice breeze and it wasn’t too hot. After supper headed upstairs to say goodnight to the little ones and get some cuddles in. Off to bed.
Sorry for the long post!
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