A day at the beach and more....

August 18, 2011

Saturday morning.  Acolyte training for Ana, Gastina, Rachelle, Wozlo, Estemi, and Christian is this morning at 8:00 AM.  The girls and Estemi are doing their chores as I write.  Christian is still asleep.  Yesterday was a busy day for everyone here at Kay Timoun.  The kids had special school classes in the morning.  Ste. Marie Madeleine does not offer summer school but I hired a teacher to tutor the kids.  After lunch we packed into the parish SUV and were off to the beach.  This group of kids played in the calm ocean waters the entire time at the beach.  They require constant supervision because they can’t swim.  Everyone competes for my special attention wanting to be carried into the deeper water.  The older children played catch ball with some water balls that were donated to Kay Timoun.  I was totally exhausted at the end of the afternoon.  The kids went on to a movie that was showing in the parish school in the evening and I took advantage of the quiet time, read for a while, and then went to bed. 

Now, as I write again in the early evening, everyone is at a soccer game being played on parish property on the site where the new church will be built.  Goal posts have been built and there is a game about every night.  Again, I’m taking advantage of quiet time…it’s seldom quiet here.  And I am in great need of solitude at this moment!

This afternoon as I sat quietly while the kids were at the game, I thought about how the kids have changed since coming here to Kay Timoun.  When they first came and were living together as a group, they fought over everything, always wanting to be first for the simplest things, like water.  The boys punched and kicked one another over any little irritation.  The girls competed for clothes and whatever else they thought they needed.  They grabbed food from one another, always looked to see if somebody was getting more than they were getting, and then took liberty to take the other’s food.  All the kids spent a lot of time in “time out”, learning how to get along with one another.  No hitting is permitted here.  The staff is not permitted to hit a child and a child may not hit another child.  It took a long time for them to learn, but they finally got it!  All is not perfect and children still hit occasionally, and are punished for it.

The kitchen is finished and Ethela is cooking all the meals in the kitchen.  Today I reviewed again with her the importance of cleanliness in the kitchen.  I gave her all the necessities to keep a kitchen clean, plus a short lecture on cholera.  I must follow up after every meal or else it just won’t happen! I insist on cleanliness in every part of the house.  With Wonel doing most of the work, the house is clean!  It’s really challenging with the girls because they have never been taught how to clean a bathroom or how to keep a bedroom clean.  They have never lived in a “real” house.  They are learning! Our next project is to fence in an area for a garden so the goats don’t eat our plants.  I reviewed this with Junior today.  It will be a “live” fence made of parts of trees that actually grow after being planted.  The cross bars will be bamboo.  Again, Kay Timoun is contributing to the economy of Bondeau by buying locally and hiring local people to work.

Occasionally I drive to Miragoane on errands.  Last week Junior and I went to buy wood for the kitchen door, nails, and hinges.  I also like to shop at Trinity Market where I can buy familiar foods like Bumble Bee tuna and the best treat of all, ice cream, which I ate immediately.  It tasted so good!  Driving through the streets of Miragoane, I must maneuver around hundreds of motor cycles, many with three or more passengers, hoard of people walking in the middle of the street, many balancing buckets or huge boxes on their heads, goats and people riding donkeys, vendors selling everything from telephone minutes to antibiotic drugs, and most irritating, big trucks that because of their size think they can dominate the street.  I didn’t mention all of this on a pothole filled narrow street!  Slow down and beggars knock on the window, looking desperate for a handout.  I, too, am learning the ways of survival in Haiti!