We have a guy who comes to our house twice a week to teach us Creole. He says things like “do you understand, I need you to understand” and repeats words 20 times as we clumsily try to make the right dr sound come out of our mouth.

I swear this would have been easier if I was 10 years younger.

Then he teaches us words like “what’s up” and “chillin” and we realize he is the perfect teacher for us:)

Meanwhile Lena goes around speaking pretend Creole with her dr’s just rolling off her tongue. There are real words in the midst of her pretend Creole and I’m excited to see how her little brain works itself into this new language. Hanging in the kitchen talking with Haitians is paying off for her:)

My game plan is for her to learn quickly so she can be my translator. Or make my brain rewind 10 years so I can actually retain new knowledge at a quicker pace. Whichever comes first:)

This was Curt’s second building trip to Haiti. Last year he went to Haiti to build homes with his daughter Dana. Curt said he is already planning to return to Haiti again next year — with both daughters?

Curt and Jessica were most impressed with the selflessness of the Haitian people. When Jessica gave a child a granola bar the child carefully broke into several pieces to make sure the other children got a piece, and when she brought water to one of the local Haitians she was working with he made sure to only take a bit and pass it on. Each worker made sure to leave enough so that even the last worker got enough to drink.

While Curt and Jessica went to Haiti to build a home, a snafu with the land title forced them to change plans — a frequent occurrence in Haiti. Instead of building a home, he, his daughter, two other Americans, and seven local men added two rooms to the schoolhouse in Williamson, Haiti. The addition will allow the school to expand from K-6 to K-8 this year. The change didn’t bother Curt or his daughter.

“We don’t go to Haiti to build,” Curt said. “We go to build builders.” That’s a good thought for anyone working to re-invent and rebuild Haiti — “We don’t need to just build buildings, we need to build communities of people.”

Thank you Curt and Jessica.

I’m not big into Superbowl for the most part but being in Haiti had me unusually excited about our night out. A local restaurant was having a Superbowl get together with an all you can eat buffet and the game being projected. Football and all you can eat meant some happy people:)

True to course, the night had alot of Haiti randomness thrown in.

Like running into Sean Penn at the restaurant and realizing the irony of standing next to Sean Penn while his ex-wife Madonna performs at half time:)

And having a little scare when we left to go home because we got caught in a Carnival parade. Carnival is similar to Mardi Gras and is coming up in a few weeks. On Sunday evenings leading up to it they do some parades. They paint themselves and wear masks then walk down the street as the people join in. Think of it as a mob rather than the traditional American parade where people watch it go by.

So imagine turning a corner of a main street here at night and realizing you are trapped as hundreds of people in masks have filled up the street around the floats and are walking toward you and around you yelling some not so nice things to you. THANKFULLY a policeman was there and directed us as we turned around so we could go home a different way.

Never a dull moment.

(terrible picture of Sean Penn…I didn’t want to be rude so this is a quick snap with my point and shoot from my purse)

The team helped build a house for a pastor who has been living in a little back room of the school he runs. But they didn’t just do it their way, we hired Haitians to come and build the house and they helped along side each other for these few days. Then the Haitian workers will finish up. That is life speaking words.

Yesterday was moving day for a little family out of a shack into a rented space. A team member had met the family and fallen in love with them. The mom’s daily struggle for food and lack of decent housing showed them they needed to do something. They gave her seed money to start a small business. It cost $120 US to start a business that can provide for her family. A hand up and food provision for these little kids, not just a hand out. That is life speaking words.

I watched a mom of 6 who sponsors one of the kids in a World Wide Village school hug her sponsored child just like she would her own. Then with tears in her eyes tell her how they pray for her every night at home. That is life speaking words.

I watched another staff person sit with a principle of another school and have to deal with the harsh realities of working in a third world. People wanting hand outs, blaming you if you don’t give them the world, seemingly not appreciative of anything. When I wanted to get upset about it, she stepped in and talked love to them. She spoke words of encouragement to them and love of the community and the kids to them. Her life spoke words.

So incredibly honored to be in the midst of this country and the people who care so much for it.

In December 2011, a group from Brookview church in Washington traveled to Haiti with World Wide Village.  Part of their trip included conducting self-defense training for Haitian women.  Erin Blodgett tells her story below: 

     ”In the 10 days prior to Christmas 2011, 

I had the opportunity to travel to Haiti to teach women personal safety & survival skills. What an amazing experience! My heart was broken on several occasions, but ultimately I left knowing that I would be back. I quickly learned that my passion for teaching women can be used to meet a need that is so critical. The personal safety/survival skills taught through My Will To Survive empowered & uplifted women who live in fear of their lives daily.

     I traveled with a team from Brookview Church and through a partnership with World Wide Village, we held 2-day clinics with three different groups of women. The first was for a group of amazing and beautiful women in a deaf community outside Cite Soleil. Not only do these women face the challenges of being female in Haiti, but are further disadvantaged and victimized due to their disability. The second group, in a rural village called Luly, had a large representation of teenage girls.  Our final group was in Cite Soleil, the harshest slum and crime infested city in the Western Hemisphere. The amazing thing about all the women we trained is that they are just like you and me. They have similar dreams and desires, and they face some of the same fears. I quickly learned that across the cultural and language differences, we’ve been created with the same heart.
     There were 10 of us from Brookview Church who participated in this trip to Haiti. Although we all brought different talents and abilities, we all came with a heart to love women. My passion is empowering women and fighting injustice through personal safety training, but the clinics would not have been successful without the pieces brought by the others in our group. Our pastor and his wife, Jason and Jen Huguenin, taught the women attending the clinics about God’s design for relationships, His desire to fill that emptiness every woman feels, and they shared about God’s amazing grace. My husband and I taught some basic information about sex ed and God’s design for sex. We also had a loving and amazing group of six women who came to serve the Haitian women by washing their feet, anointing them with oil and finishing with a toe polishing.  One of the women from Brookview – Lori Boe – also dreamed up and implemented a prayer program, pairing a woman in Haiti and a person from the United States as prayer partners for the year of 2012.

   My continued goal is to empower women across the world. No matter who we are, where we live, what we have, there is the possibility that we could be victimized. God willing, I will be back to Haiti in 2012 to reconnect with some new friends and to impact the lives of others, and will continue teaching women and girls here at home with all proceeds going directly to train women in Haiti.”

     You too can be a part of an amazing experience like Erin’s.  Join a World Wide Village trip and share your skills and your heart with men, women and children in Haiti. Go HERE to find a date that fits your schedule. 

See you in Haiti!

A week or so ago we decided we would go out and have some pizza down the road. Now, pizza in the states to me meant a night from cooking and some nice convenience of paying someone to come to your door and deliver dinner all nice and hot.

Pizza in Haiti means fighting crazy traffic, saying no to alot of people trying to sell you something. Finding the random pizza place that is above a grocery store. Ordering, hoping you ordered the right thing, waiting 40 minutes with lots of stares because you are all white and well, Lena likes to talk and say hi to people, eating sub par pizza at best, then fighting the crazy sellers and traffic to get home.

Pretty much the opposite of convenience and a relaxing night.

But, crank up the music, let Uncle Jesse drive (an intern here who we have adopted as Uncle Jesse), a little video…and you have yourself a party.

Here is a peek at some of our drive that night…

We have had lots of power issues the past few days which has equaled some crazy dance parties when we rigged the generator and got power for the night to turn on our fans and, to be totally honest, some curse words in trying to figure it all out. Who knew what we really needed to have before our move here was mechanic school?

We had our first Kreyol lesson last night. Our teacher is hilarious and looks at you and goes “oh no, you don’t understand!?” He also taught Brad in our first night how to say “What’s Up” and “Chilling”. Brad loves him.

Today I went to see a recycling plant here. It was amazing. You stand among trash and feel hope for a nation.

Lena has taken a liking to Mango. It’s her new favorite. Plus she gets to use the skins as her sailboats for her pony so its a win win.

A picture of soon to be sailboats growing in our yard:)

Then this morning at 4pm we lost all power, our two backup of a generator and inverters are messed up so no power while we get someone who knows what they are doing to work on it (harder to do in Haiti…there are no Yellow Pages). So here I am, big giant to do list, no power.

So I walk to the other staff house, get about a half hour of work done. Boom, no power there too. Which means no internet.

Confession: I lost it a little. Mostly on my amazing husband who just listened to me rant about nothing working. Bless him. Say extra prayers of blessings to him tonight.

So we ended up driving to a restaurant where we can get some internet. While we drove there I was slapped in the face by the reality of my stupidity. Here I am complaining about my day’s to do list and my lack of communicating with people across the globe on a machine while people down my street try to make enough to be able to eat today.

What is wrong with me?

I feel complete, whole, blessed (as always), and useful tonight. I am sitting under a bug net in a guest room at the Sister Augusta School for the Deaf (SASD) in Cap Haitien, Haiti.

Today I was finally able to take part in the first step in the process of getting someone a hearing aid. Starkey Hearing Foundation has partnered with World Wide Village in Haiti to distribute hearing aids to deaf Haitians; they have been teamed up for about a year and have covered most of Port au Prince. Part of my job with WWV is to help facilitate the distribution of hearing aids with Starkey.

For my first time I traveled to the north of Haiti, a six hour car ride through the mountains-its starts off on a very deceiving paved road that quickly turns to what would be considered a trail or river bed in the US. SO after a 22 minute plane ride-that I was complete freaked out about, but I have to admit I was very impressed with the pilots of Tortug Air-we landed in Cap Haitien. It was like a scene out of a movie, an old seemingly condemned flight station surrounded by grass half way up the walls made me feel like I had entered the Twilight Zone-I’m just glad there was not a thing on the wing!!!

We had a very warm welcome at SASD; the students wrote us a sweet note on the black board and were all excited we were here! I was so excited to be here as well, for once all the things going wrong didn’t bother me…the flight was 30 minutes late, they didn’t put our bags on our flight, they will be on the next one….no only one made it on that flight the second bag is on the 11:30 flight. I should have known better than to think we could come up and back in one day-to think things would go smoothly!!!

Starting with the older classes we registered the students and some members of the community, by the time our bags and supplies got to the school we only had an hour before our group of five became a group of two. 250 people seemed like a lot when there were five of us, soon it would be two. Still I didn’t mind, I was so happy to be learning and feel very blessed to be a part of this project.

2:15 came fast and soon it was only Jamil and I left with what seemed like an overwhelming number of people. Somehow a calm set in, we got into a grove and finished out the day at 5:30 and 159 sets of ear molds completed!!!

The kids were so cute and the older students were excited we were there and very appreciative. Most everyone was a good sport about the process, although I know it hurt some of them. The cutest part were when we took the molds out of some of the younger children’s ears, they began clapping near their ears to see if they could hear!!! I tried not to laugh and quickly explained the green stuff in their ears did not make them hear, they had to wait a month until when we come back with hearing aids then they can hear the clapping!

It was an amazing experience and I am excited to return in a month with their hearing aids! I feel like I start or end every blog with this, but I truly feel very blessed with the opportunities I have been given in Haiti and the path that is in front of me. Although when I first realized I was moving to Haiti I had a very different vision of what I thought life would look like, I would not change anything. All the twist, turns and experiences are shaping and growing me. I am overwhelmingly blessed.

I sat down around a table with 6 Haitian women who help keep World Wide Village running and we chatted and laughed, we talked about Haitian food and menus, they made fun of my trying to speak Kreyol. It was the first time here I have felt a little included and accepted in the culture.

Last night a couple of the ladies decided to cook a new Kreyol dish that we haven’t had before. Partly because they learned Lena’s fave is black beans. The amount of crazy work that went into that meal of black bean sauce and a goat stew was nothing short of amazing. Seriously, we cheered for them, it was that good.

So Lena and I decided to get in on the kitchen fun and we made cupcakes and sweet tea to top it all off. I will say that when you have freshly squeezed orange and key lime juice, sweet tea has some hard competition. Gasp, I know.

I am thankful for cooking. For the community it brings to stand in a kitchen and laugh with people even though you don’t know each others language.

(a shot of our fridge with the cupcakes in it. To the left you will see some sugar cane, in the bowl behind the cupcakes is pikliz (a spicy coleslaw they make alot here), and to the right of the cupcakes is our Haitian peanut butter)