A wonderfully busy summer for HHA (part 2)
On the last day of our Trinity groups week our 3rd group for the summer came in. As a matter of fact, they passed in the Cap Haitien airport!
This group was small with only 7 volunteers. Bill (my husband), Jim (HHA board member), Todd (our architect for Kay Anj Village), Dave (working on farming at our Kay Anj Village), Patsy and Jeanette from McLean, Va and my friend Amy. This week was more about “business”. The group did spend time at Haiti Hospital Appeal, Children of the Promise, church with the street boys, and hiking (with 10 of our Kay Anj kids) to the Citadel. It was heartbreaking to see that there was in increase in cholera patients due to rain in the country.
We spent the first day at the kids new school talking with the Headmaster and principal while the kids took their entrance exams. They came running to us one by one as they finished their test! We anxiously awaited our meeting on Monday with the principal who would give us the kids exam results. We headed to the orphanage where Patsy, Jeanette and Amy were met by 44 excited, screaming, jumping kids! Just a few minutes later Luciana (one of our older girls) ran to me and said “the baby is sick, please come”. I followed her to find Adeline, our head mama, with baby Andrise who was having a seizure. Andrise is only 2 1/2 and came to us in March. We were so worried. We put her in the truck and drove her to the clinic. She vomited the entire way there. The Doctor drew some blood and determined that we need to take Andrise to Port au Prince to see a specialist.
We spent this week working on our designs and blueprints for our future Kay Anj Village. We stood on the property, rolled out the blueprints and put the Family Homes, Church, School, and Clinic where we thought they should be. Bondye Bon!
This week was also spent “getting vertical” with our staff, kids, mama’s, security. We had “spa day” in the big girls room at the orphanage. Our girls gave us makeovers, new hair do’s and foot massages. They loved it almost as much as we did! They were precious moments spent loving each other. A highlight for the week was asking our eldest girl, Yolande, if she’d like to take on the roll of “baby mama” at the orphanage. We needed to hire a mama and thought Yolande knows us, how we run, what we believe and she knows that God comes first. We couldn’t have found a better mama! She was ecstatic! She takes her new role very seriously. The day after she accepted her new position we noticed that she was dressed beautifully and had a little lip gloss on. We asked if she had plans for the day and she just smiled while all of the other mama’s said “she’s a mama now!”. That brought tears to our eyes.
It was finally time for our appointment at school to get the results of our kids entrance exams. Unfortunately we were very disappointed at the results. A handful of our kids did well but the rest did not. We asked to see a copy of the exam and learned that it was completely in French. Our kids haven’t learned French! No wonder they didn’t do well! We spoke with the headmaster who suggested we hire two tutors for the rest of the summer and the school year. The headmaster said ” there are no unintelligent children in Haiti, just children who have not been given opportunity”. School begins October 1st and ALL of our kids will be in their new uniforms ready to learn!
Later that day our sweet Joncli was playing soccer barefoot and tore off the top of his toe. Our head maman, Adeline who is a nursing student tried to give him an injection of lidocaine so that she could then cut off the hanging piece of his toe. Jeanette tried to hold him but he was having none of it. He kicked and fought until we had no choice but to stop our minor “surgery”. We learned later that Adeline was able to get the lidocaine in and cut the toe with a razor blade. As they say in Haiti…Fini! (finished!). Jeanette held him for a while which made him feel much better.
Thank you to all of our wonderful summer volunteers! Thank you for your time, open hearts and love for our kids. Children that feel love, give love. Mesi anpil!
MVI_9748 Yolande and Luciana singing…beautiful
