Thursday, April 7, 1998

Up and at it for the worship service at 7:30 a.m. and breakfast following. We then loaded in our vehicles and headed for the work stations. Terry chose to work in the nursery with the very sick babies. She met Diane, a nurse from Minnesota who had spent the last twelve years of her life dedicated to serving the children of the orphanage. She was very helpful in learning about the babies illnesses (AIDS, tuberculoses, pneumonia, malnutrition) and other matters about the center. Terry held, fed and changed babies. Today was visiting day for the mothers, many of them had come today to spend some time with their children. Although some of the children are truly orphanages others are merely too sick for their parents to care for them. Later, Terry ventured outside with the older kids where she painted fingernails of the children and several of the mothers. She completed her morning by returning back inside and feeding infants. John spent the morning in the nursery with 14 children. He made sure each one was held and got a chance to play with a mobile and look out the window. It was sad to observe that these children were actually older than what their size made them appear to be. Lack of food and nutrients had stunted both their physical and intellectual growth. John taught several of them to bang on the walls telling them in a humorous fashion that they were learning how to make a "jail break". The group returned to the Coconut Villa for lunch and group sharing time. Tim, John and Terry again ventured out onto the streets to get fabric and check out the "One Stop Market". After getting a couple of postcards and drinks at the market, we stopped at a fabric shop to barter over some material. Initially, they told us $4 per meter, but upon paying they wanted $15 per meter. We eventually settled on $10 per meter (approx. $3.00 U.S.) and wondered if they were trying to con us "rich" folk.

We returned to the villa and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and lounging in the pool area. John talked with Angel, a cab driver from New York who was vacationing at the villa. When asked to compare the traffic on the streets of Haiti to that of New York City, Angel said it is far crazier driving here. "At least we have traffic lights, stop signs and enforced traffic laws", he chuckled. Supper was the best yet - shish-ka bobs, grapefruit, rice, bread and pudding. It was fabulous! After dinner Terry phoned home and talked with her mom and two of our children, Laura and John. Her dad had gone to pick up daughter Annie at Brownies. They all sounded good and were very pleased to hear from us. Our speaker this evening was Necar Desot and his daughter Angeline who runs a Montessori school here. After a two hour talk we ventured to the pool area for drinks and conversation. One of our group entertained us with stories from his wilder days. It seems he returned home intoxicated one evening. He decided to take a shower before going to bed. Unfortunately, he fell alseep in the shower with his body blocking the drain. He awoke to the screams of his wife who was disraught with the water now flowing through the house.