Wednesday, August 22, 2007

We once again tried to go to the far west today and SUCCEEDED!! HOORAY!! It was a very interesting trip to say the least. As you will see from the pictures (which should be ready for viewing Thursday night) they do not have a bridge to get across the river you just drive in the water. Good times. The house that we went to is only 15 miles from the Orphanage, but it takes almost 90 minutes to get there. Darn those country roads. The scenery was beautiful and so full of possibilities. When we got to Ms Pats house, she was taking measurements of the kids that attend the church she goes to. I did not get a chance to talk to her about why that was, but I am guessing they are making outfits for them. Several of the men that came to the house with us and I walked to the beach so I could get some pictures. As we went through the village I was amazed to see how little they had and yet how big their smiles were. We stopped at this one shack because we were going to buy some fish, however we did not know if Wesley wanted hard or raw fish, so we made no purchase. As we were heading for the beach we walked through a “beach club,” that was owned by a friend of Roland. It was nice, they had several tables to sit at, a big lounge area with a disco ball in the middle, and were serving drinks. The ocean was beautifully clear if you managed to swim out far enough. Right off the sand it was a little dirty but not as nearly dirty as the beach in Port-de-Paix. After lunch with Ms. Pat we chatted for a while and were kind of rushed out of there because it looked like it was going to rain and if you are in the far west when it rains you are stuck in the far west until it is hot enough to cross the river bed. On the way back we stopped to get 10 bags of charcoal for the orphanage, as soon as we had them loaded up it started to pour. We were only about 10 minutes into our trip at this point so it looked like we might run into an issue when we got to the river. As it turns out, we drove out of the storm so no big deal. When we got back to the orphanage and after I changed out of my wet clothes, I spent some time finishing a book I had brought with me. While I was reading one of the three year olds fell asleep on my chest. Middle of the afternoon in Haiti and no air conditioning or fan, man was that a hot situation. Oh well. At about 430 I went outside for a while and sat on the playground and let the kids sit around me and chat with each other. Right before dinner is when all the fun started. I was looking for Roland so we could go eat and the kid that was helping me, for some unknown reason, decided to run up to one of the dogs and kick him in the ribs. I was SOOO mad I could have back handed him. Don’t worry I didn’t. I took him to his “parent” and let them to the discipline. After dinner I got all the kids together and, through Roland, we had a little discussion about how to treat animals and that if they did not want to see the mean angry side of me they better be nice to the dogs. I hope they took it seriously but kids will be kids. I told them if they feel the need to abuse something to come and find me and abuse me. I said, “Trust me; there is nothing you can do to me that hasn’t happened to me already.” I am afraid I may have sparked their creative thinking. Oops. After the talk I took a shower and retreated to my journaling and email because I needed a wind down. That’s all the fun for today. Good night. Peace.