katie loves haiti: Stories to make you smile

I would like to share a few heartwarming stories from today. In the evening, Chacha and Mich were watching one of the Lord of the Ring movies. The girls and I entered the room and sat down with them. It was the famous scene where Gandolf is standing on a bridge face to face with a giant evil creature of some kind. The girls pointed to the TV and in Creole said, "Look at the monster! He is Satan!" Then, they began calling Gandolf, "Jezi aka Jesus". Clearly, although they could not understand what the characters were saying in English, they could see the obvious battle between good and evil. If you have seen the movie, you know that Gandolf causes the bridge to break and the creature falls down into a black pit. Just when you think all is well, the creature cracks his whip and pulls Gandolf down into the pit with him. At this point in the movie all the children were watching with their mouths open in horror. Claudine said, "Jesus died, too!" Rosa quickly interjected and said, "No Jesus lives in the sky in a big house!" At this point I was so happy and intrigued by their conversation that I jumped in. I asked, "Do you love Jesus?" Claudine and Rosa both enthusiastically shouted, "Oui!" Note to reader: While that entire dialog was taking place between the girls, Chacha was quite disgruntled by the fact that the girls clearly did not understand that it was NOT Jesus and Satan! He keep saying, "No, no, no! That's GANDOLF not Jezi!" It was rather comical. :)

My second heartwarming moment happened just shortly after the first. I was sitting on the couch with Rosa and Claudine on my lap. For some reason, Claudine turned quickly and accidentally elbowed me right in the nose. You all know how that feels! Clearly in pain, I told the girls to get up quickly. I laid down on the couch holding my nose in pain. Claudine thought that I was joking around so she laughed. Rosa, however, sensed my distress and immediately called for Chacha to come "Help me". Rosa came up behind me, gently lifted my head and put it in her lap. Then after I sat up, she came over and crawled up onto my lap and hugged me ever so gently. It was absolutely precious. I won't lie, I milked it a little bit just to get the extra TLC from Rosa. :)