Reunited with my first Haitian children

Samuel, one of Dr Bernard's drivers, picked me up from clinic (I still had bloody sterile gloves on when he arrived) and drove me to my first Haitian home: HFC. It was wonderful to be back among those kids and to see their faces light up when they saw me. I spent the day with the girls, playing in their living room, smacking them when they teased me about how bad I play osle (like jacks but played with goat bones), helping with homework, telling stories and showing photos of what I've done since September, and in turn, hearing their stories.
I snuck to the kitchen in the early evening to see if anything was cooking. Nelcia was heating up her leftover wheat from lunch and Stephanie was making canned milk. She offered me some, which I accepted gladly, but she was worried that it wasn't sweet enough. It was perfect, far sweeter already than any milk I've ever had in the US. She kept adding sugar to hers though and throwing away any sugar that clumped together. Silly orphan girl, do not waste food! And so I ended up eating good Haitian cane sugar for dinner.
Merline Jean has teeth cutting in (early wisdom teeth or late 12 year molars?) so she went from being her cheerful crazy self to a miserable lump of tears by 7pm. Se Pradel gave her tylenol and put her to bed.
We had devotions together - what does it really mean to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength"? Guess who was giving the most answers? Carmelle! What a shocker.


I helped Nounoun with a homework assignment on crustaceans. I must have slept through that part of biology class because I was hopeless. I had to go through her entire book to find answers for some questions. And I still don't know how many legs centipedes really have.
Grade 11 voted for class positions this week. Mathurin is class president, Bernadin is VP, Youdemie and Jefthe are advisors. I have no idea what the class is going to do with those positions, but leadership is good for the kids. Oh! I almost forgot Duckhein. He was appointed to a very special position too: chalkboard cleaner.
Cindy seems to have adjusted marvelously to living with the older girls. She and Wislandy are inseparable little fireballs. I have yet to see this little girl pout - it's just smiles all the time.



This morning before I came to the office to work on Dr Bernard's website, I walked Kattia, Argentine, and Stephanie to school at Maranatha. They were very concerned about being late because the gate locks at 7am and they don't let anyone through. Stephanie had been up since 4:00am but she still was the last one out the door. She listed off for me everything she does in the morning: bathe, make her bed, prepare her school bag, do her hair, make and eat breakfast, brush her teeth, iron and put on her uniform. I understand that's a lot, especially the hair, but I would not need 3 hours to do it all!