Happy Valentine’s Day - February 14th 2015

CARNIVAL - Joan

It’s Carnival time here in Haiti! The whole country comes to a standstill on Monday for three days. You will probably be able to catch some of it on CNN! Unfortunately they did not show up to film us today but we celebrated anyway. The school had music going, hips swinging and glitter on every face. It turns out that Jonathan is quite the dancer but he is shy and will only dance when no one is watching! Now all the kids are off school till Thursday….the fun is just beginning!

School carnival

 Moise has had enough

THE WALK - Keith

The walks along the canal are refreshing, good fun, good exercise and quite necessary for me to help alleviate my cabin fever from being locked on the compound. I am sure the kids just think they are good fun and they do enjoy themselves.

The 4 amigos, Judel, Jonathan, Jofky and Keith are ready to roll

First stop was to watch a fire as a farmer cleared off a section of land.

Anyone have marshmallows?

Further along the road we came upon a mother goat and a newborn baby.
The boys were quite excited when the goat went poo. The girls were disgusted.

The goat family

Of course there are the competitions to see who can throw rocks the furthest (JJ) or who can hit a bottle floating down the canal (Keith) or who can hit a tree across the canal (Djemenia) or who can giggle the most. (Leica) I kept counting heads to make sure we didn’t lose a child and somewhere along the way we picked up an extra, a neighborhood friend of Judel.

Jofky, Judel, rental kid Judelens, Karena and Anne

Oh oh, time to get back the sun is setting. It gets dark fast at these latitudes.

Sunset over the Massif Mountains

“ELECTRICITY” – the HATS soap opera – The Sequel

Karen’s house continues to have electricity issues. Luckner and Palto decided to replace all the wiring from the generator to the house, some 100+ meters. (300+ feet for our Texas friends). Hopefully a fresh start will be positive and final. On our trip to St. Marc last week we picked up the wire and the job is taking place as I type. The blog will get posted as soon as we get some electricity……

Stay tuned.

Keith

Thursday Tidbits February 12th - Keith

ROAD TRIP

We made a road trip to St. Marc yesterday. No demonstrations in sight, just the usual traffic chaos. We were successful in getting our drinking water, groceries, pipe for the school and some other supplies for HATS. Cancel the boil water advisory.

Traffic in Pont Sonde

BLACKBOARDS

The first 120 mini blackboards (which are actually green boards) are ready for delivery to the pre-schoolers. Judel and I came in ahead of schedule and under budget. Our reward; … another order for slightly larger ones for the Grade 1 class.

Judel and Keith

NO SCHOOL

The school was closed yesterday so the older kids and teachers could attend a funeral. A young student from high school died suddenly on the weekend.

Leaving for the funeral

It’s funny to see the children have a day home from school and then play school. If the kids mirror what they live and see they have some very loud and bossy teachers. Josie always seems to be in charge of play school.

Teacher Josie

THE SICK KIDS

I think we peaked at 6 kids with fevers and runny noses. It seems to have run its course and Magdala is the only one still dripping and sporting the glazed donut look.
The following picture is SNOT for the faint of stomach.

Joan didn’t get sick and Magdala is getting better.

ADULT EDUCATION

Joan and I are trying to learn Haitian Creole. One of us is having good success. Joan is doing very well at mastering the language by reading, doing her lessons, listening to audio tapes,  practicing and watching YouTube video lessons.

Creole lessons or Netflix?

Keith

WATER

I have a new additional job responsibility. The water tanks, quantity, quality and leaks have now been assigned to me. The two previous holders of the job were fired and I am on probation for the next few weeks. The job involves climbing the stairs to the third story tower 3 or 4 times a day to check the quantity, add chlorine, make sure the tanks don’t get too low AND don’t overflow.

The tanks

Climbing the 51 stairs is good exercise BUT climbing Haitian stairs takes good concentration and muscle memory. They build their steps 6” high instead of the standard 7”. AND instead of a landing at a turn they make triangular steps AND shorten the height to 4”.

“Oh me nerves” It’s an obstacle course!

The Haitian stairs.

The view from the summit however is worth the climb and the quiet. The Artibonite Valley is lush and beautiful.

The View

The water quality is very good. It is pumped from a well into four 4000 liter tanks on top of the water tower/storage depot. From there it is gravity fed to the various building and the school.

Water mains to the compounds

The first morning I checked the quantity we had lost/used 1000 liters overnight. That’s a lot of toilet flushes!! On further investigation there was a tap, shower and toilet in the staff washrooms with serious water leakage. I estimated 50 plus liters/hour! A quick trip to the plumbing depot for supplies and I started repairs. Actually it wasn't quick and it wasn't A trip, it was 6 trips to 3 stores over 2 days before I had what I needed. Two shutoff valves, new toilet tank hose, new shower tap and new water tap all installed and leak free.

Plumbing store in Liancourt.

Those jobs are done but there is still leakage in the girls’ home shower and at the school and somewhere else as yet unfound.

For Joan and I and the visiting work teams we drink bottled water. We were supposed to go to Liancourt on Monday to have the bottles refilled. Unfortunately there have been road blockages and demonstrations the last couple of days which prevented teachers and kids from getting to school and us from getting water. We have enough for one more day and then the HATS boil water advisory goes into effect for us.

You can view more on the demonstrations here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31330611

Stay tuned.

Keith

Our Very Own Photo Gallery!

I really like weekends. Don't we all? Time to do fun things! This past Saturday it absolutely poured out of the heavens mid afternoon but we were all in the Devotion Room, dry as a bone.

We were gathered there to sort through pictures. Pictures, that the kids had taken themselves when the Roma team was here in November. The team brought each child a small camera and the kids were beyond excited to learn how to take their very own pictures.

Keith and I were able to bring the 365 printed photos with us. Here’s how we got from that huge pile of pics to our very own photo gallery.

Djemima, Leica, Moise and JJ choosing their own photos.

Everyone took their time looking at each photo, chatting with each other about what was in each picture.

Sharing pictures with Mama

Next they chose some of their favorites and made a poster.

Dieunel finshing his favorites.

Moise and Anne have very different sorting techniques!

Josie, what a beautiful smile!

We made a collage on the wall for everyone to enjoy.

The photo gallery taking shape

Thanks  goes to a friend who provided some mad money for a treat to finish off all that hard work. What better way to keep cool than to have ice cream in your own individual tub!  Anyone remember making soup out of their ice cream as a kid?

TiFi thinks ice cream is the best!

Thank you Roma team for giving the kids the opportunity to be so creative.

Jonathan, it's good to the last lick!That’s how our very own photo gallery came to be.

All done!

Joan

Keith – Feb 6th – 2015

One of the things Karen stresses at HATS is preparing the kids for when they leave and are on their own. That includes doing chores, learning to get along with 15 other siblings, going to school and working hard, sportsmanship (I am still working with the hockey boys on that one) Christian education and life skills. Vladimy is the eldest at the orphanage and will soon be on his own. He is still living in the boys’ home and is working part-time with the grounds keeper, Eugene. This week he was receiving cooking lessons from the house mother Noamie and Cifila.

Cooking Class 101.

The outside kitchen and charcoal cooking.

The proud cook with the finished stew - it tasted pretty good.

Jofky was home from school yesterday with a fever and the flu. I think he really enjoyed his day with Joan and Tifi and playing word games. This morning there were 4 more kids with the glazed donut looking noses. How long till it spreads thru the others?

Stay tuned.

A very happy Tifi with Joan and Jofky

I have been given orders to make 120 small iPad sized chalk boards for the kindergarten classes and pre-schoolers. And they want them yesterday. So, nothing to do but sub-contract the painting to Judel. Despite the crowds watching he did a very good job. More life-skill training.

The contractor and the sub-contractor.

Judel in good form

Who knew painting could be a spectator sport.

Keith

Keith - February 5th, 2015

The weather this past week has been very variable. We had had some rain which is almost unheard of this time of year. However, it is always welcome in this farming valley. The temperature dipped to 20C one evening and the kids scrambled for hoodies and hats to battle the deep freeze. It didn’t take long to heat up and by mid-day we saw 38C.

The HATS weather report

Moise trying to keep warm

JJ and Judel bundled up

These low temperatures are hard on our seniors too!

Last night Joan, Karen and I had a wonderfully quiet and peaceful 30 minutes up on the roof. It was a full moon and the view of Jupiter peaking in and out of the clouds was spectacular. The stars were dimmed by the brightness of the moon but we’ll see them later in the month with the older kids, maybe we'll even see the International Space Station.

Stay tuned.

Jupiter and the full moon.

ELECTRICITY” – the HATS soap opera – The Sequel

Luckner has had his own crisis to deal with at his store so action on Karen’s electricity contract has been delayed. However, the new wiring from the generator is working like a charm.  Also the inverter automatically kicks in when the generator goes off which is very high-tech. The final problems include sorting out the house wiring and what is 220V and what is 120V and checking the output from all the plugs.

Stay tuned

Keith

CAROL’S GIFT

Saturday afternoon is a good time for special activities, all homework is done, chores have finished and there is a lull in the business of the compound.  That’s when I brought out THE BAG!

Carol Patterson, a friend from Montreal, sent an amazing gift to the kids. Carol was able to be part of our team last October and the kids here really touched her heart. She is a teacher and had her kids in Montreal send kisses. That was the first thing out of THE BAG.

The next thing out of the bag was an alphabet book, but not just any alphabet book. It is made especially for the kids with each child mentioned by name, Creole words for some letters and lots of pictures of everyone….even the generator has a page under the letter G.

You could tell that each of them was watching for their letter and to hear their name mentioned. Needless to say the book was a big hit and is now in the library to be looked at again and again.

Next out of the bag was the snack! Those fishie crackers were not long for this world let me tell you. It is fun to watch the different personalities of the kids even in how they eat a snack. Magdala had cracker everywhere, on her little face, in her hair, Jonathan talked to himself the whole time, Josie was busy making sure everyone had the same and Jofky was playing with the fish, then eating it.

Judel

The last item out of the bag is one of the kids’ favorite things to do. Carol sent down Happy Feet 2 and the kids ended the day enjoying a video.

All in all it was a good day Maggie Muggins (now I’m dating myself!)

Thanks Carol and kids at Narnia.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE KIDS

Joan