We're practically Haitian now...

It's been hitting me lately how many things we take for granted when life is good and easy. Take for example, electricity. Being able to flip on a switch whenever you want and instantly being able to see in the dark. Power in Haiti is a finicky and funny thing, we are coming to learn. The government, for a reason we haven't been able to figure out yet, only turns on the power at certain times of the day; maybe the morning, sometimes the afternoon, and if we're really lucky, in the evening or during the night so we can have our fans on to sleep. There are some solar panels on the compound and there is an inverter, but our house isn't hooked up to it yet, so as we patiently wait for that to happen so we can have lights on at night, we use solar lights in our house and bathroom.

Another thing we take for granted is the availability of food. We've only been in Haiti for two and a half weeks but already we CRAVE cold, fresh salad. It's not that there isn't any produce here, but we have to be really careful about what we eat and where it comes from because it could make us really sick. Our cook Kanal gets his produce from very specific markets and people. It's also safer to cook them most of the time, rather than eat them raw. The other day we had a rare treat of fresh pineapple with lunch.

There is also so much poverty here that we can't help but be thankful everyday for the house that we have to live in. Some people in the village have tied together pieces of material and a tarp roof for a house. Guilt is an emotion that can creep up almost daily here when we stop to look at what the people don't have, and how much we do have.


Laundry. I need to tell you about doing laundry here. Krist and I did laundry for the first time one morning last week. It felt like we were dripping sweat the whole time, and it's not even as labour intensive as it could be because the compound has this ancient washing machine that creaks and groans and runs on electricity. So we sort our laundry to similar colours, pour buckets of water into the machine, put the first load in, pop in a laundry pod, and let it run for 10-15 minutes. When it's done, you turn on the ringer that's attached to the top of the washer and run all the clothes in that load through one at a time. While one of us goes to hang up that load of laundry on our balcony railing, the other one puts in the next load of laundry. And so it goes until we're done. It probably took us about an hour and half in total for a week's worth of clothes.

I think our Creole lessons are also worthy of a mention. We started them on Monday, and our teacher is a guy by the time of Elysie, who used to take English classes but essentially taught himself how to speak and write English. He's super smart, and we're super not good at Creole right now, but he always says, "Nou se tre intelligen!" (You are very smart). It makes us feel better about our Creole abilities. We have lessons every Monday to Wednesday. On Wednesday our lesson was 2 hours, but I think we're both appreciating the challenge and like having something concrete that we can tackle to get us one step closer to adjusting to life here and being ready for school in September.

(That's our super high-tech lesson board)

The other day we also got to do some iPad activities with two of the orphanage kids next door, Mischi and Israel. We were trying to get them to do some educational games but they ended up having more fun running around taking pictures of random objects and having us pose.

(This is Israel- he has the biggest eyes and cutest smile you've ever seen)

(This is Mischi- she's a girl who knows what she wants)

Krist and I are starting to feel a little more adjusted everyday, but I can't say we're getting used to the heat. I am not a fan of sweating day and night and we try to stick to the shade as much as possible. The humidity has also done terrible things to our hair. There is virtually no possible way to be vain here because we care more about feeling cool than having matching clothes, and our hair usually gets piled up on our head with a headband. Haitian men are total fashionistas though... they take a lot of pride in having nice clothes, and will sometimes change their outfits two times a day. They also wear jeans, which I will never, ever understand.

Last Wednesday two pastors arrived from a church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where Mission Haiti is based out of. One of the pastors is on the Mission Haiti board, and it was nice to be able to talk to other people who speak English! We found out that they had been praying for us even before we knew about Mission Haiti. God is so good to give us glimpses of His intricate plan far beyond what we have an understanding of.. it makes you realize how out of control and small you are in the grand scheme of things.

We hope you're getting a little glimpse into our world here!
Sending more love from Haiti!