Play Day

Today we woke up at 8am and did computer work for a couple of hours.  The not so glamour part of field work is all of the administrative responsibilities that entail keeping an organization alive. Since Julie is out in Haiti alone, this work is usually done after the day is over, until late in the night. I’m glad that we were able to help with some of the work, even though there is still so much to do. Since living in Haiti makes you isolated from the rest of the donors and supporters, it’s essential to keep the line of communication open and to communicate the work that you are doing here. The administrative work entails accounting for all the money spent on supplies as well as sandals sold and many other things.

After spending a few hours on that, Ody, the shop supervisor invited us to breakfast at his house. This is first time he has cooked for Julie and her friends, and it was fabulous! We felt very honored to be invited to breakfast, even though we might have been a little scared of the food, I felt that it was important to receive his genuine gift graciously. 

After breakfast we prepared for the children to come to Caribbean Lodge for the swimming day. All of the 23 children arrived in one truck that was generously driven by Caribbean Lodge, if not the truck than a tap tap full of all children-which are much more dangerous. Caribbean Lodge went all out- they prepared to feed the kids lunch, juices and sodas and provided them with soccer balls and balloons to play with. When the kids first got here, they were so anxious it took all we had to keep them from jumping in the pool in their clothes- mind you none of the kids know how to swim. We convinced them to change, or some kids just striped down and swim naked. They clung to us so tightly but for the most part they were pretty fearless. The majority of children were full of energy and the ones that weren’t seemed to be suffering from worms and infected chick pox. EDV volunteers came to help with the swimming and also noticed some of the children who were sick. Solutions formed pretty quickly and within an hour they had arranged to bring a nurse or doctor and donated antibiotics over to the orphanage tomorrow.

After swimming for about an hour, Caribbean Lodge turned on the Jungle Book on a big screen TV and children played and watched the movie.

The most rewarding part of the day was watching all of the children come wearing their rebuilders. Some of the younger children even wanted to wear them in the pool, I think just to make sure they didn’t loose them.

After loading all of kids back in the truck, we are back to work!