Quiet Saturday

The girls were up very late on Friday with Dr B, so they were almost all still asleep when I cam in at 7:10am.
Once they were finally up, we all did chores and worked in the kitchen. I made bean sauce (sos pwa) for the first time. I don't like sos pwa at all - I always give my portion to the girls at mealtimes. Making it was fine so long as I didn't put my hands anywhere near my face. When I did that, I could smell it and feel its grainy-ness on my fingers and I just have to go rinse my hands off.

I brought the younger boys over for soccer practice in the late morning. Daniel, Camille, Job and Peterson directed them in warm-ups and exercises.




At the end of the practice, they played a real game with Peterson as the referee. He made them all tuck in their shirts (except Job and Daniel, naughty naughty boys!), line up to sing the national anthem, and then pose for a team photo, exactly the way teams do before a World Cup match.

The rest of the day was spent studying and watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3. The kids have been begging me to bring them that movie since before it even came out in theatres. When I arrived and said that I had finally brought it for them, they were sure I was kidding. I had to take it out of my suitcase and let them see it before they believed me. We watched it in English with subtitles, which is good practice for the older kids. After and during the film, several of them were asking me to translate certain words like "crew" and "bilge rat". Mostly though, they just laughed wildly at all the slapstick humor.

The boys' turn to the watch the movie got interupted by the monthly delivery of provisions. First, the janitors just called 6 of the oldest boys to go help, but when I went with them and saw the mountain of food, I returned to the house and made everyone come. We spent nearly an hour lugging spaghetti, rice, water, onions, milk, cornflakes, cornmeal, and herring down the road. At first, only the younger boys were enthusiastic about the work, but by the end, all the boys were joking around, challenging each other to carry heavier loads and working like men. Acheley and Argusto slaved in the storeroom, stacking all the food as we brought it in. Peterson and Bernadin spent most of the time unloading the taptap, handing boxes and bags into waiting hands. Richecarde repeatedly took loads that were too heavy for him and would arrive at the house panting and dripping with sweat, just barely clinging to the boxes in his arms. Job, who had been the first boy to jump out of his seat and volunteer to help, bruised the top of his head carrying things. And the NLL boys waited for me at the gate each time they made a delivery and as soon as I said, "OK", they dashed out the door and literally ran up the hill for more.