Bonswa again,

There is no difference between afternoon and evening.  It is evening now. I thought yesterday was good, today rocked! 

Tap Taps

I took a tap tap today with the kids.  I never heard of a tap tap.  It’s basically a truck taxi that has a roof and you “tap tap” on the side of the truck when you want to alert the driver to stop.   You sit in the back of the truck.   I was a little nervous about going out but the guy who drove us works at the orphanage.  Being a retired police officer, I get a little nervous about unfamiliar things and I am skeptical of a lot of people.  The Haitian people all look the same.  They look like they don’t trust us.  At the end of the day, I was waving and say “hey you” to everyone.  All the kids here either call you “Blac” or say “hey you”.  It was a fun day.

First we went to an equestrian center to take 4 of the kids for horse therapy.  One of the girls, Christine is a hydrocephalic.  This basically means she has water in her brain.  In the U.S. they would drain in but here they haven’t or maybe won’t.  She smiles, laughs and claps but we don’t know what her other abilities are at this point.  The man who runs the center said that today he though she was using her leg muscles to hang on while she was on the horse.

Christine and Paco

Jean Daniel

A little boy named Jean Daniel loved it!  He has muscular disorders but since he is in a wheel chair so much, his leg strength is very weak.  He has great potential though.  He loved every minute of today’s therapy session.  He walked up to all the horses and started brushing them.  This mode of therapy suits him well.

Cade

Another boy, Cade (like caad-a) is very autistic. He does not like the horses and is very nervous around them.  He had the grip of death on me.  He doesn’t even want to look at them.  But this therapy is also good for him because he needs to get all the energy out of this brain to calm and relax him.  I even tried bribing him with cookies and he wasn’t going for it.  When he is stimulated he just shouts out and it scares me to death.  It comes out of no where. Once all that stuff is out of his head, he becomes very calm.

The last girl is about 15 or 16.  Her name is Rosalind. Older kids in Haiti go much unnoticed so we thought it was good for her to go.  She is paralyzed on her left side but her brain works to understand.  It’s hard to judge the age of kids here because they are about 5 years younger looking I’d say than to kids back at home.  The boy Jr. who I showed his picture when it was his birthday earlier this week, I found out he’s really 21.  What?!

Rosalind

Some of the money we raised helps pay for these kids therapy which is $35 a child.  The man who runs the program, Paco, had been in the same boat.  He was in a horse riding accident and had to have horse therapy.  Today, he is good as new.   Paco is the one in a blue shirt.

We had a little problem when we were waiting for a ride back home.  A few of the kids with learning disabilities were dropped off at school today.  A short time later the orphanage found out there was no school.  They didn’t receive a note saying that.  So the school decided as punishment that they were going to keep the kids for the day and not let the orphanage take them home.  Can you imagine your parents not being able to take you home?  Eventually Gertrude worked it out with the school and the kids came home.

Necklaces at Apparent project

After lunch time, which again everyday is easier to manage; we went to a school for artists.  You have to be good to work there.  The school will sell the things you make.  It’s called the Apparent Project. (www.apparentproject.org)  the stuff there is beautiful.  Some of the jewelry is made out of the paper boxes you collected.  It is eventually turned into jewelry.   It took over an hour to get there through downtown Port au Prince.  I found a certain amount of pride in the people who call this country home.  They are always dressed as nicely as can be expected and even though they have very little; they have a lot of pride.  Everyone is always out and about and will wave back when you wave, even though they may look at you like you’re little nuts.  White people were far and few between and it was a weird feeling to feel like a minority in an unfamiliar place.

Port au Prince from Radio Hill

Radio Hill moments later

After we bought some stuff at the shop, we went to a place called Radio Hill.  It’s only named that because of all the radio towers on top.  It was about 15 degrees cooler and I can’t believe I was complaining that I was cold since I was complaining I was hot, hours earlier.  It looked out over the City of Port au Prince.  I could see the ocean and within 5 minutes and some pictures later, serious clouds rolled in.  We could barely see anything including about 20 feet in front of our faces.  It was crazy!

When we finally arrived back at the orphanage, we found out one of the nannies did not report for her shift.  Two of the girls that live here were now responsible for the showering of all the disabled girls.  It was a very hard task.  I felt bad so I decided to pitch in.  The girls were probably middle school age.  I dressed the kids for them after their shower.  They all wear cloth diapers and I could tell they were not happy about pinning the diapers on the kids so I did it.  It all worked out in the end.

Currently, it’s raining cats and dogs…not literally but it feels good.  I hope there are not too many mosquitoes out tonight.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.  I know we have a lot of stuff to do.

Poverty in Haiti

Poverty in Haiti