All in a days work....

Christian checking out a new mode of transportation.

Every 2 hours I fed little John 2-3 ounces - the youngest member of the family, he was born 3 months early in February, and is now about 10# I think.

4 month old Daniel

This little guy stayed with me, usually climbing into my arms for the first hour I was there.

These dudes are showing off their new shades!

8 month old Beatrice- everyone fell in love with her.

I'le a Vache from my front door

Sunset

Liz and I relaxing in front of out room.

A week has gone by with no updates...how did that happen? Partly because I didn't have internet and partly because I returned to I'le a Vache with Team Canada. A slightly different trip this time from a month ago when I went to Les Cayes and the island to Sister Flora's orphanage. This time with a group of 20 people, we left early Sunday morning, driving a large bus and made it in only 3 1/2 hours-however, we had to wait 3 hours for another person to come with our pick up load of supplies before we could board the boat to make the crossing. Although there were a few heavy black clouds, we managed to avoid any rain and in fact by the time we arrived and settled in etc, we had a beautiful sunset! Early Monday morning we boarded the boat again for the trip to Sr. Flora's. We spent the day assessing the kids, building w/chairs, building parallel bars and a standing frame for therapy, walking kids, feeding kids, playing with kids- it was a beehive of activity until 5 pm and our return to Port Morgan. Port Morgan is a 'resort' on the island, sitting on top of the hill with views of the sea all around us. Little cabin like rooms accommodated all of us as well as a few other guests. A rather large sailboat sat in the bay crewed by several young Frenchmen that had googled Caribbean something and Sr. Flora's orphanage came up so they were there working for a few weeks before they sailed on south to Australia. At Sr. Flora's the new section of the orphanage to house the disabled kids is 3/4 finished and the 6 members of our team that stayed behind will make screens for all of the windows and build a playground - although we distributed several hockey bags full of toys, soccer balls etc and by the time we were ready to leave a few sunglasses were all that we could see. Where all of those toys disappeared to remains a mystery. We left about 9 am for the boat ride back to Les Cayes to catch our bus and the 5 hour drive back to Port au Prince. Today we had a busy day with the team visiting a couple of orphanages and a lot of work in the clinic.

Tonight we had a wonderful dinner of lambi, avacado and tomato salad, beef, deep fried mashed potatoe sticks (I don't know how else to describe them), banan, rice and beans and chocolate cake. Everyone was stuffed at the end of the meal.

There was a couple from Northern Louisiana on their honeymoon while we were there. The husband said he was so scared in the small airport waiting for their flight to Les Cayes. Someone would come up and move his suitcase a few inches and ask for money and all he had were $20 bills so he gave him a twenty. Soon another person would come move his bag 6 inches, and hold out his hand so he paid again - apparently this went on and on until he had paid out several hundred dollars for having his suitcase moved around the waiting area. He had us laughing hysterically with his story...the more he passed out money the more they came. I think the Haitians must of thought God was in the airport that day. We felt bad for them that they had no idea about where they had come for their honeymoon.

It is the beginning of the rainy season here however tonight is a lovely night with stars in the sky. We've had rain every night but warm sunny days- its still early in the month but there have been a few flooded areas from heavy rains last week.

I'm down to 5 weeks here with still much to do. And places to see and people to meet....one more team to arrive mid month. My creole isn't great.
Still more to write about before I leave but for now I'll post some pictures with this and call it a night.