Thursday, August 23, 2007

Today I got invited to the staffs’ morning devotional meeting. It was in Creole of course; however it was still an uplifting thing to be a part of. I did not recognize the song they were singing so I could not sing along in English. When they say prayers it is amazing how into it they get. The person praying is so passionate that everyone else stands and is very faintly prayer out loud also. After breakfast I spent some time with the kids while some of the workers filled the missions’ dump truck up with all the garbage at the orphanage. Every day I get to witness a new cultural difference. Today involved the disposal of the garbage. In America if you don’t have a garbage man you have a landfill that you can take your garbage too so it is properly taken care of. Americans also have recycling center, to reuse our recyclables. In Haiti there are not garbage men, landfills, or recycling centers. We simply filled the dump truck up, drove through town, across the river like we were going to the far west, and when we got about 6 miles out, the driver found an open area and dumped the garbage at the side of the road. Judging by several other piles of trash that is how things like that are taken care of. Another thing I have been noticing is the “rules of the road.” Honking your horn in America, to me, has also been a sign of anger or frustration. In Haiti, however when you lay on the horn, it means “I am coming, move or get hit.” I’ve always felt like I have been a pretty good judge of body language and eye contact. And it is interesting to wonder if I am reading correctly when I see it from the Haitians. It seems that in most of them I get the “wow an American is here and happy to see me” look. However every now and again, I get the “stop acting like your better than me and give me something look.” I can’t wait to be able to talk to someone who has given me both looks and see what they are thinking. When we got back to the orphanage we immediately got into the other truck, which already had 2 Haitians, a Haitian baby and 3 Americans in it and 2 Haitians in the bed, and went to St. Louis. The 3 Americans consisted of a gentleman named Chuck Graham and his wife. Chuck is a mechanic that comes in like 5 times a year to service the machinery for the mission and I am not sure what his wife does. The other American was a young lady by the name of Erin. She is I think 25 or 26 and has been here since June and will be here until the end of October. She has duel majors, one in culture studies of sociology (I think) and a music instruction major. She just got back from a little vacation in Port-au-Prince. We had lunch there and then went to Ansafalure (no idea how that is really spelled, could look it up but I am really lazy right now) to drop off one of the Haitian pasters wife and children and to buy some food supplies. We did not buy the food however because the shop was too expensive. It was a worthwhile trip though because these 2 young Haitian ladies asked us for a ride to Port-de-Paix because they had just been robbed. On the way back to the orphanage we picked up a Haitian family that was on their way home. We don’t usually pick people up, however their children are in our nutrition program and the parents are too old to have to walk that distance. Once back at the orphanage I decided to lay down because my head was splitting and I didn’t feel all that well. After dinner I let Wesley wife, who as it turns out is the nurse for the orphanage, look through the medical supplies I brought down with me. She is able to use mostly all of it for the kids. Praise God. I spent a good amount of time with a couple of the girls learning some Creole. It is a lot of fun because we do an exchange, they teach me the Creole word and I say the English equivalent. For all you finding Nemo fans I have my own little squishy, and I will take him home with me and he will be my squishy. After that I retired to my journal and am going to spend the night organizing the rest of the stuff I brought down for the children. Peace.