- bringing supplies to the new Cholera Treatment Center
- collecting data from charts at the CTC
- hiking around the community to gather data for a public health project
- cleaning and assembling buckets for water filtration systems to be passed out in the community
- learning as much Creole as humanly possible (it involved much impatience and much laughter)
- playing outside with the kids
- watching Liz try and dread her hair
Kyle's public health project has us hiking around the community, assessing water and sanitation needs. (Yesterday we hiked about 6 miles, so my legs are not liking me right now!) Questions range from where they get their water to whether or not they use a latrine. Liz and I go off on our own most days with a translator, which is forcing us to learn Creole. I'm feeling 10x more comfortable with the language...yet frustrated and impatient at the same time, wanting to be fluent. I'm learning more and more Creole by the minute though. I'm learning dozens of new words a day, memorizing helpful phrases, and can get the gist of a majority of conversations around me. Every once in a while, of course, a funny mistake is made that sends both Haitians and Americans into hysterics.
A couple things struck me today:
1. The people here are so welcoming. We are the ones stopping them in their day and in their work to ask questions...questions they probably find silly and a little pointless. Yet, at almost every home, we were offered a chair to sit, vegetables to bring back to the clinic, or an offer to sit and talk. They have so little, yet what they do have, they are willing and wanting to share with strangers.
2. The people here are so grateful. Before Liz and I went out into the community today, our first task was to run an errand with our translator. We ended up at the same school I visited last January (Clayton took us to deliver boxes of school supplies for each of the kids. Dargelia, one of the teachers there, remembered me. She was so full of joy and appreciation. I managed to tell her in Creole that I remembered her as well, and that one of my favorite memories from my last visit was hearing the children sing songs. They sang "this is the day that the Lord has made," a childhood favorite of mine. Delighted I remembered, she led me inside, stopped class, and had them stand up and sing to me again. It was one of those beautiful moments you plan to store away forever.
They have my heart.
Janae: I was impressed with that video last year too of the kids singing "This is the Day". I made up some motions for the song and had my Storyhour preschoolers sing it every week, and they loved it. "This is the day": palms out/fingers spread open and make a large circle with both hands (like a sunrise)twice."That the Lord has made" point up "We will rejoice": jump up with hands raised. "And be glad in it" clap. repeat. Maybe the kids there would like it too!
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