In the Summer of 2010 I was one of many lucky people who had the opportunity to take a short trip to Haiti. I fell almost instantly in love and just can't keep myself away. I've spent about 11 months in Haiti since the first time I went two and a half years ago and my time there isn't over. I'm exploring my options on where to take my life from here but it WILL include Haiti in one form or another. This is where I record stories and thoughts about my experiences.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Exciting News

Yesterday Sue (the American who runs the Children's home) called me in to the house. She was on the computer and said "so how much energy do you have?" I figured she wanted me to do an activity with the kids or something. However, apparently we are going to be getting 1 month old twin boys! She wanted to run it by everyone before she said yes because it's going to be a lot of work on top of all the rest of the children. I'm very excited because as I'm sure most of you know, I LOVE BABIES. Perhaps I will be teaching school to several children WHILE holding a crying baby. This should be interesting!

On to other exciting news.. I get to go to Leogane!!! The opportunity came up and I jumped on it. The couple who is adopting a girl here named Francesca are coming from the US to visit. They are coming to pick Francesca up and bring her to Leogane to spend the week. I asked if I could go with them and they worked it out for me to come. The girls don't know I'm coming so it will be a surprise. I am going to be bringing some nursing supplies to Yveline (takes care of baby Charley in exchange for nursing school) as well as some pictures for some of the kids.

I tried to upload some pictures of the house and kids but the internet just wouldn't let me. I will try again tomorrow.

For those of you who care (mom?) this is what my typical day looks like:
-I wake up at 5:45 or 6 or whenever the sun shines through our window/bars and shines in my face
-Then I shower then eat breakfast (sometimes pancakes!)
-7:15 walk the kids to school in there sweet little uniforms
-Come right back to start my day with the home schooled kids
-Their school starts with all 5 kids and they do some activities with Sue. It looks a lot like a preschool circle time. They do the days of the week, body parts, colors etc. After that, we break up into groups. I have been taking two of the kids named Peter (antsy pants) and Samantha. They have a home school program that consists of a series of booklets for 5 different subjects. Samantha and Peter are in two different levels so that adds to the difficulty. When I notice the kids struggling with certain things I stop their book work and think of some way to help them with it. Sometimes it's flash card games, sometimes is practice on a piece of paper, or sometimes I have them teach me.I'm still getting to know what each child is capable of.
-At 10 we take a snack break and they play outside for a while. I usually stay inside preparing what we'll do next.
-At 10:45 they come back in and we read a silly story to the 5 kids. Then it's back to book work. If they've finished their books we work on math or letter flash cards or vocab.
-At 12 we finish and the other kids get picked up from school.
-The rest of the day is spent rocking kids, playing silly games, reading stories and normal kid stuff.
-Dinner time is around 5:30
-Bath time (it's like a conveyer belt. All the naked kids line up and take turns getting in a big bin outside where one of the workers washes them then they come to me or whoever and get dried off and find their nightgown in a giant stack of pajamas.)
-Then it's inside to watch a kid song music video.
-7 p.m. is bedtime and that's my day.
With the twins coming, soon this timeline will last throughout the night for nighttime feedings and crying babies. Yay?

And that's that. Hope you enjoyed. 

4 comments:

  1. LEOGANE!!!!! Thanks for sharing your sched, its actually way interesting to me too! Surprised? I bet not :)

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  2. Amy aka Beccas best "ok" friendOctober 7, 2011 at 12:48 AM

    For people trying to post comment you do not need to create an account or anything. Type your comment in the "Post a Comment Box". Underneath it says "Comment as:" with a drop down menu next to it. Select Name/URL. Type your name in the name field. You do not need to enter a URL. Then you will be asked to do a word verification where you type the same word or letter combo that is shown. Voila you can make a post :)

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  3. Sooo... are you teaching them vocab or are they teaching you vocab?? :)

    ReplyDelete