Rain

All winter long, Port-au-Prince was like a dry dust bowl.  I know I often wished that it would rain because I was so sick of all the dust.  But, two weeks ago the rains started again and now I feel guilty for ever wishing for it.

Almost every night for the past two weeks, we have gotten very heavy thunderstorms.  Personally, I like thunderstorms and we certainly needed some rain.  However, I have a safe comfortable house to live in.  Yes, water often comes in under my door and floods my floor, but I never worry about being swept away or having all my belongings ruined.

This might sound like the same old sob story, but its a sad reality...thousands of Haitians are still living in tents and each time it rains, they are scared.  One of my neighborhood friends told me, "Katie, my family and I are afraid to go to sleep because when it rains our tent floods."

I read this in an article by the Associated Press: Nadia Lochard of Haiti's Civil Protection Office said Friday that five adults and one boy were killed when a mudslide crashed through their homes in the Morne Calvaire district above the capital.  The rainy season in Haiti traditionally begins in April but this year it has come early.  The capital of Port-au-Prince has been soaked nightly over the past two weeks with showers that have triggered flooding and rockslides.  The rains do little to comfort the 500,000 people who were displaced by the 2010 earthquake.  They are living in hundreds of tent and tarp settlements that flood and leak in the rain. 


This evening, I received an e-mail warning from the U.S. Embassy: The Haiti National Weather Service is predicting heavy rainfall on Friday evening (March 30) and on Saturday (March 31). The whole country is predicted to be affected, including Port-au-Prince. Please be careful, as flash flooding can occur, making conditions very dangerous.


I ask that you please join me in praying for my Haitian friends that have been and will be affected my the rain.  Please always be thankful for your warm, dry homes.

Oh the joys of running....

...in Port-au-Prince.  Today I managed to find time to go running again after school.  About twenty minutes into the run, I passed a little boy and girl on the side of the road.  They looked to be about 8 years old.  At that point, I was running uphill on a very rocky road.  I smiled at them and said hello as I passed.  What I didn't know was that they started jogging behind me.

It was not until at least five minutes later that I realized they had been following me.  When I noticed them, I walked for a minute or two to talk to them and catch my breath.  They didn't have much to say, but they told me they were going to run with me.  I warned them that I was not near my house but they didn't seem to mind.  So, we continued running.  I figured that they would get tired or bored and eventually stop following me.  That was not the case.

They actually stuck with me and ran the entire way to my house.  When we got there, I gave them some bonbons and a little money to buy a drink.  They asked me if I would be running the same way again tomorrow.  Looks like I have some new running buddies!  Here's the kicker:  the little boy was wearing denim jeans and sneakers and his sister was wearing a denim skirt and sandals!!  But, despite the fact that they were not at all dressed for running, they were barely out of breath and they did not even break a sweat.  I, on the other hand, was wearing proper running attire.  But, I was hot, sweaty, tired, and out of breath.  I can't help but laugh at my life!

My Exercise Saga

Contrary to what most people said before I moved to Haiti, eating lots of rice and beans and Haitian food has not caused me to lose weight. First of all, Haitians use lots of oil and sugar in their cooking.  Secondly, most of the delicious street food is fried.  And lastly, they serve HUGE portions of rice and beans.  No matter how many times I tell Madame Jacquline, our cook, to give me half as much food as she gives the others, she doesn't remember.  I hate to waste food, I want to be a good example to the students, and I don't want to offend Jacquline, so I eat it every day.

BUT...

    

Recently, I decided I want to try and get back "in shape" and eat healthier foods.  Eating habits and exercise have always been a struggle for me, and its only gotten harder since I moved to Haiti.  I'm certainly not an inactive person.  In fact, I think its impossible to be lazy AND teach kindergarten in Haiti.   However, it is difficult to find time and a places to deliberately exercise here.

I've been skipping out on meals at the school.  I'm about 99% sure that Madame Jacquline thinks I've become anorexic overnight.  In reality, I've been eating a healthy breakfast in my apartment before the kids get to school.

Now, the interesting part off all this has been trying to find a good time and place to exercise.  I've had some problems in this department.  The first week of making healthy changes, I decided to try a program called "Insanity".  It is a series of DVD workouts that truly are insane.  Obstacle #1: I didn't have a good place do to the workouts because my apartment is too small.  I solved that problem by going into my kindergarten classroom after all the students and staff left to do the videos.  Obstacle #2: I didn't have any sneakers in Haiti.  (that shows you how often I run here).  I ordered some trail running shoes on amazon and had them shipped to a friend of a friend that was coming to Haiti two weeks later.  In the meantime, I didn't want to lose my motivation and give up on exercising.  So, I decided that I until my sneakers came, I was going to do the DVD's wearing TOMS as a substitute for cross trainers.  When in Haiti you must degaje (make due).

These are TOMS. 

Clearly that was a bad idea.  They kept slipping off my feet.  By day three, I had blisters on the bottoms of both my feet and I bruised my big toe.  Not to mention that insanity was really hard.  I decided that I better wait until I'm in a little bit better shape (and have proper footwear) before I attempt that again.

New plan: zumba in the comfort of my apartment.  I am not a highly coordinated person, nor would I ever consider myself a good dancer.  Let's just say that as I attempted to do zumba, I was very thankful for the privacy of my walls.  I'm sure the boys at the orphanage next door would have loved to see me try and follow the dancers on the video.  I'm fairly certain that I looked NOTHING like them.  Despite my lack of coordination, I enjoyed zumba.  However, I'm the type of person that doesn't feel like I really got a good workout until I am gasping for air, dripping in sweat, and completely exhausted...the zumba was just not cutting it for me.

With my sweet new trail running shoes in hand on foot, I decided that plan number 3 was to run.  Running, after all, is one of my favorite ways to exercise.  You wouldn't guess it by looking at me now, but I actually ran a half marathon just a few months before moving to Haiti in 2010.  It was, and still is, one of my greatest personal accomplishments, and I would love to run another one some day.  Now, let me clarify that I don't particularly enjoy running until I am actually in shape.  At the moment, I haven't yet gotten to that point.  I'm still in the "I think I might puke, my legs are burning, one minute of walking won't hurt me, I need water, why am I doing this to myself?, are you kidding I've only been running for 8 minutes?!" phase.

Getting up the motivation and courage to go running when you are out of shape is difficult even in the states.  So, just imagine how I was feeling trying to do that here in Haiti.  For the first run, I decided to go to my church.  It is just down the street from my apartment, and they have a good sized property.  A friend of mine suggested that I could run laps around the church property.  Like most places here, it has walls so I knew I could run in peace without the eyes of curious Haitians.  It wasn't a "bad" run per say, but after a few laps I was tired and bored and I knew that I wouldn't be able to tolerate running there very often.  

Several days passed and I simply did not have the free time to fit in another run.  Thanks to daylight savings, I had time to run today before the sun went down.  I still did not have the courage to run out in public, not because I felt out of shape, but because I knew how many Haitians would stare at me.  I truly don't know what I was thinking at the time, but I got the bright idea that I could just jog back and forth on the driveway at the school where no one would see me.  Again, I have NO clue what I was thinking because the driveway is really not that long.  Ten laps up and down the drive way was annoying enough for me to suck it up and go for a normal run out in public.

I left my apartment with my gate key in one hand, my iPod in the other hand, and my cell phone tucked safely in my sports bra (classy, I know).  Degaje.  My theory was that if I turn my iPod up loud enough, I wouldn't hear any of the Haitians calling me blan or making fun of me for running.  On a typical walk somewhere, I would say roughly 50% of the Haitians that I pass on the street either say blanc, stare at me, or make annoying cat calls.  I learned today that if I want 100% of both Haitians and blancs to stare at me, all I have to do is run and be dripping in sweat.  I mean honestly, you would think that I was dressed as a clown riding an elephant for as many stares as I was getting.  Oh, my life.

Somehow I managed to run for almost 40 minutes with out dying, although I felt pretty close to death.  While I was running, I passed several of my Haitian friends.  "Wow, you like to exercise?" they asked me.  When I replied, "No, not really but I have a "gwo vant" (big belly)" they got a good laugh.  When I was almost home, some of the neighborhood boys came running after me.  I was dripping in sweat, my face was red, and I was out of breath.  They thought it was hilarious when I asked them if they would carry me to my gate...I was only partially kidding.  Still, despite the fact that I was about ready to pass out, they complained that I didn't hear them knocking on the gate the day before and they asked me for some food. 

Besides being starred at and being chased by hungry children, there are other factors that make running here more difficult than running in PA.  #1- its hot...very, very hot.  #2- Its dusty.  Sweat and excessive dust do not exactly go well together.  I swear I was a darker shade of brown when I finished my run. #3 - There are no sidewalks on the less populated roads around my neighborhood. #4 - The majority of roads here are not paved and they are incredibly rocky.  Hence the reason I bought trail running shoes. #5 - Haiti is full of hills.  Literally the entire first half of my run was uphill, not even joking.  Let's just say that if I can commit to running (or any other form of exercise here) on a long term basis, it will be a miracle of God.  

My brand new, just out of the box running shoes

My brand new, now dusty and dirty running shoes after only TWO runs

Fig Ti Malice

Fig ti malice, the cutest little figs (bananas) that I've ever seen....

Babash and Estalinda

This past week, several caterpillars have wandered into my classroom.  One day, I got the brilliant idea that I should put one in a plastic box so that my students can observe the life cycle first hand.  So, we collected the next caterpillar that came into our room, and put him in a little box with some leaves.

I found a book in our library to help explain the life cycle of a caterpillar.  Then (just for fun) I told the students that we should name our caterpillar.  I let the kids come up with three name choices, and then we took a vote.  The options were: Kenshen, Chenish, or Babash.  For those of you that might wonder if these are Creole words or Haitian names, as far as I know, they are total nonsense.  We took a vote and our caterpillar was named Babash.

The next day, the kids found another caterpillar crawling on a wall in the classroom.  We decided to put it in our box with Babash.  The kids informed me that since Babash is a boy, the new caterpillar has to be a girl.  So, they gave her the name Estalinda.

The kids have been so excited to watch our caterpillars and they are anxiously waiting for them to make a cocoon.

Earthquake

Tonight we had a 4.6 earthquake.  The epicenter was located 22 miles from PAP.  It only lasted a few seconds.  I happened to be riding in a car on a very bumpy dirt road at the time, so none of us felt it.  However, friends called to make sure that we were all ok.  We saw many people standing in the streets as a precaution.  It was very scary for the people that were here to experience the earthquake in 2010.


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb0008dbe.php

Startling

As I mentioned before, I teach an adult English class two evenings a week.  Tonight in class, my students got on the topic of dating, relationships, and fidelity.  As I've known for a long time, fidelity within in Haitian marriage is a very rare thing.  The majority of men and women in my class are married.  Out of curiosity, I asked them: What percentage of Haitians do you think are unfaithful in marriage?

I knew it was going to be a high percentage, but I was still startled.  Again, these are just guesses from my students, but they are Haitian adults so I trust their estimation.  My entire class agreed that they think at least 85% of Haitians are unfaithful to their partners.

From the outside looking in, many people think that Haiti has problems because it is poor.  However, from living in this country, I believe that Haiti is poor and has problems because the hearts of the people here are not following Jesus.  If infidelity is that common here, just imagine how common lying, cheating, and stealing must be.

The longer I am here in Haiti, the more I realize that the most important thing this country needs is Jesus.

Only God Knows

With the curriculum that I use in kindergarten, each week we have a story to read about an animal character.  Every day, we read a section of the story.  One day this past week, we ended on a cliff hanger.  I asked the kids to predict what was going to happen next in the story.

When I called on Laniese to make a guess, she responded, "Mwen pa konnen.  Selman Bondye konnen!"  Which means, "I don't know.  Only God knows!"  I laughed, but I had to explain to Laniese that I know she doesn't know the answer...that's the point of making a guess!

Beggars

I'm often frustrated by some of the kids in my neighborhood who only seem to show up when they want something from me.  They seldom come looking for me just to talk.  Sometimes they act as if they just want to hang out, but the conversations always end in with, "I'm hungry, I need shoes, I need a backpack, I need a soccer ball, etc. etc."  While I often help the kids when they ask, it upsets me inside.  It hurts that they see me for what the material things I can offer rather than the relational things I can offer.  Instead of coming to me for love, friendship and relationship, they come to me when they need something.  They might forget about me when they don't need anything and things are going well, but as soon as they tummies are empty or they want something, they come knocking on my gate.

It occurred to me today, that this is how we so often treat God.  He has so much to offer us as a heavenly Father.  He simply wants us to be with Him, walk with Him, talk to Him, and spend time in His presence because we love Him.  But, instead of coming to Him as his beloved children, we come to Him as beggars.  When things are going well, we are quick to forget about God.  We get busy and don't spend time in the Word.  We neglect our prayer time.  Until, something goes wrong and things suddenly start going downhill for us.  We get scared.  We get worried.  We get desperate.  And so, we pray.  Instead of praying to our Father because we love Him, we pray as a beggar hoping for a hand out.

I only have a tiny glimpse of what it must feel like for Him as our Father.  Just as I want relationship from the children in my neighborhood, that is what God wants from us.  His heart breaks when we only come to Him asking for things.  He has so much more to offer us, but we don't seek Him with all of our hearts.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.  In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will -- to the praise of His glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

-Ephesians 1:4-6

Pen Pals!

Like me, one of my college roommates is also a kindergarten teacher.  However, she is teaching in the United States.  She contacted me about a month ago and asked if my class could be pen pals with her class.  Excited about the idea, I agreed.

Just this week, we received our first letters from her kindergarteners.  They also sent photos of their class playing in the snow.  My students were VERY excited to see the pictures and read the letters.  I hung the pictures on the wall in the classroom.  Yesterday at the end of the day, I caught two of my little boys kissing the picture and saying, "Wow, that little girl is pretty!" Haaaaaa, they sure keep me laughing!

Kattiana and I helped each of my students to write a response and draw a picture along with their letter.  When they were finished, I read each of the letter's that they wrote out loud for the class.  The kids were SO proud of their hard work, and they are very excited for me to send the letters to the United States.

Absent Blogger

I feel as if I've been an absent blogger for the past couple weeks.  I'm sure you can all understand that life gets in the way.  Sometimes, even when I have the time to sit down and blog, I just simply don't know what to write.  It's not that I don't have things to say.  It's not that I don't have wonderful (and difficult) things going on in my life.  Mostly, it is that I don't know how to put my life or my experiences into words.

You see, everyday is full of laughter and accomplishments.  I am constantly surprised and amazed with my students' progress.  However, its too complicated to explain every little detail about each student.  It's too complicated to explain their struggles, their personality traits, and their learning ability.  So, for me to just tell you, "Oh, today Patrick was able to sit quietly and listen to the entire story today without getting distracted!  It was amazing!  I'm so excited!"  It would not mean much unless you are in my class everyday with me seeing how difficult it is for Patrick to stay focused.

For me to try and write to you about how I was moved to tears hearing the teenaged girls in our youth group worshiping God would not do it justice.  I am not an eloquent enough writer to put you in my shoes and have you see things through my eyes.  Everyday, I have millions of emotions on all ends of the spectrum.  Everyday, I have failures and accomplishments.  The problem is, you all aren't here with me to experience it first hand.  Sometimes I would rather not share the stories at all than to unsuccessfully try and explain them.  So, when I'm an absent blogger, its not that I have nothing worthwhile to say.  Most likely, I'm busy living life or I'm starring at my computer screen unable to put my life into words.

Zanmi'm yo

Many days, I am homesick, I miss my friends and family, and I feel like I'm not "accomplishing" much here in Haiti.  Then I pass a neighborhood friend walking in the street and see their face light up as we chit chat, and I am reminded that I have many loved ones here, too.

Tonight, I was walking home from the English class that I teach two nights a week.  I usually have a ride most of the way home, so I only have to walk a short distance to my house.  Along the way to my house, I always pass by a teenaged girl, Jenny, that I have become friends with; she is thirteen.  Her family lives along side the road in the most pitiful looking tent that I've ever seen because their house, like many others, was destroyed in the earthquake.  In the mornings, her mother sits along the side of the road selling bread, drinks, or bonbons.  In the evenings, Jenny and her younger brother take over selling their wares. 

If Jenny is out when I pass, I always stop to give her a hug and a kiss, and we usually talk for a little while.  Tonight, we ended up talking longer than normal.  She told me about her family, she told me about the time that someone snuck into their tent and robbed them, she told me about her fourteen year old brother that has been in prison since he was eleven, and she told me about her school.  Our conversation was interrupted a few times by people stopping to purchase a coke or a couronne.  Once, Jenny's brother left us to sprint down the road and retrieve the glass coke bottle after one of their customers was finished.  Jenny even offered me a komparet, which is a hard sweet tasting bread.  When I offered to pay her for it, she shook her hands at me and said, "No, no, take it!  Just eat it."  I've been trying to watch what I eat, but how could I possibly say no to this friend offering me some of her food?  Besides, it was really good.

Eventually, Jenny's mama came out of the tent (probably to see who Jenny was talking to this whole time).  When she saw me, she got a big smile and said, "Oh!  Jenny's friend!  I'm so happy to see you!  What are you doing out here by yourself?!"  Then, she promptly told Jenny to walk with me to my house to make sure that I got home safely.  As Jenny and I walked to my gate, I was beaming from ear to ear knowing they are my friends, knowing that they want to share what little they have with me, and knowing that they are concerned about my safety.

Tonight, I'm thankful that I can speak Creole.  I'm thankful that I can laugh and joke and small talk with my Haitian friends.  Tonight, I feel loved.