Often when I have a chance to daydream I think about what I want to write on my blog. But when I sit in front of the computer I often sit for a while thinking of what to write. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, it's that I have too much to write about and I don't know where to start. Last Sunday I attended a very interesting meeting. A group of people meet every Sunday afternoon at Coram Deo to have discussions. One Sunday is English the other is French. So I was invited to be the "guest speaker" and facilitate the discussion. I decided to have a discussion on one of my favourite topics since arriving in Haiti. "Our duties as Christian citizens of a country". I started with the story of Joshua and the fall of Jericho. I talked about how faith and action need to walk hand in hand. Joshua very much relied on God and lived his faith when he led the people around Jericho seven times, despite how foolish he must have felt. However, the point that I stressed was that he took ACTION. Now I would never claim to understand the frustrations of living in a country where the government does not fulfill its God given duties. However, I have heard just too often, "only God can help Haiti" as people sit idly by and do nothing. I asked the group who had come on Sunday to raise their hand if they had voted for the second set of elections. Two people raised their hands. So we discussed the importance of taking action so matter how little or significant that action may seem.
It's been a busy week again and it flew by. Karen will be coming back on Wednesday and things will return to normal around here. The kids will also finally stop asking me when she will return:) No matter how many times I show them on the calendar and we count down the days, they can't seem to grasp the meaning of 3 weeks.
Today we had parent - teacher interviews. As in the past we had a weak turnout and many parents arrived late. I'm thankful for those parents who value thier childrens education and make time to come and talk to us about their progress. But it's frustrating that more parents don't care.
Well, that's all I can think of for the moment. I will sign off now.

Dogs, Mothers and Elections

So apparently dogs and I just don't mesh here in Haiti. Remember the cute dog I showed you a picture of??? Well, the kids are very rough when they play with him and I often have to remind them that he is not a toy and that he is actually living. I always tell them that if they are mean to him now, when he is a big dog he will be mean too. So yesterday I walked into the yard and he came running at me and bit me hard in the leg. He bit through my pants and broke the skin on my leg. I don't get it. What is it about me that dogs don't like???
On another note I would like to salute all the mothers out there. Seeing as I am a temporary mom to 6 children and 7 teenage boys. I don't know how moms do it and especially single moms. Two days ago Manu was complaining about a sore foot. The kids here are always getting scrapes and asking for bandaids. I usually clean it for them quickly and give them a bandaid and then never hear about it again. Well this time he complained about it more than once. So I took another look. His toe was infected and before the day was done it had spread to his foot which was quicly ballooning out. Not knowing what to do, I read "where there is no doctor" and discovered that it could be a variety of things and there are a variety of ways to take care of it. I wouldn't have been so worried except that anytime I came close to his foot he would scream at the top of his lungs and wouldn't stop for about 45 minutes. Well I won't go into any details about what I did, but today a Doctor stopped by to see Karen and just in case I asked him to take a look at it. He said I did everything right. I was so relieved. I know it's not smart to take chances with infections.
Tomorrow are the final elections for the rest of the government positions. There have been no troubles on the street but everything is closed today and tomorrow. We will just sit tight and spend some time cleaning up around the house. I don't forsee any problems but then I'm no expert.

Surviving

I survived the weekend being the "director" of Coram Deo. Honestly it went fairly well. The kids for the most part behaved themselves although I did get pretty sick of hearing my name being called over and over again. They just need so much attention. We went to church Friday night for Good Friday and again Sunday morning for Easter Sunday. They were both wonderful services, I even had a speaking part in the Sunday service!! So nothing has fallen apart and we are having a nice time. I went back to my house for a little bit on Sunday just to have a quiet hour to myself. Yesterday I convinced Samuel and Cadeau to go for a walk with me:) Other than that I've been here but I'm surviving and not feeling too claustrophobic.
This week all the schools are supposed to be closed due to the elections on Friday. They are sooooo quick to close the schools here. There's no problems on the street and I really don't think there will be. I opened school today and about 25 students showed up, so we had school. I don't like to feed into the fear, if there's really something going on I'm more than willing to close the school. Until then we will teach for whoever shows up:)
I really feel like I'm coming to the end of my stay. In just over 2 months, school will be over. I have lots to do before then and I want to write down as much as possible for the next director. I want them to know all the things I wish I knew when I started!!!

Random Pictures

Too long, I know

I'm still alive to all those who wrote me a worried e-mail. We haven't had hydro during the day for about 3 weeks now so my internet access is really limited. I try my best to go to the internet cafe 3 times a week. But it gets sort of expensive after a while and by the time I check my messages the time is up. (they are very slow computers) A couple of times I've written on my blog but it takes forever because the keyboard always has about 5 keys that always stick so you have to write one word, wait for the key to unstick itself and the continue on.
Enough complaining, I will give you a quick update and then tell you a funny story. Things are going well here. The school is running quite smoothly and I gave a workshop this morning on literacy and it went well. Overall I'm very pleased with the progess the school has made this year. Karen (the director) is going back to Canada for 3 weeks and leaving tomorrow morning. This of course leaves me in charge. It will be very challenging as I felt very busy before just running the school and now I will be in charge of everything. Karen has been very busy to prepare for her absence and therefore it won't be too much extra work. I will be staying at Coram Deo again which is something I was trying to avoid as it's not healthy to spend 24 hours a day 7 days a week in the same place but somehow I will survive. Other than that, not too much is new around here. The dog is behaving himself in his "prison" and I really don't give him much thought these days.
So here's the funny story. Sunday night I was lying in bed trying to read and I kept hearing this noise. I tried ignoring it and told myself it was coming from the neighbour's house. But the noise continued and every few seconds I'd hear it again. Finally I decided I better investigate. I went to the living room and heard music but didn't see Jenny. I called her, no reponse. I walked down to her end of the house. "Jenny?" I said again. "I'm stuck in the bathroom" she replied. And she was really stuck. NO matter how much we turned the doorknob, nothing happened. I tried sliding a knife under the door but the space under the door was not big enough. Finally I found a thiner knife and slid that under. I found every tool in the house that was available and tried to open it from the outside. Needless to say it took us over an hour to remove the doorknob from the door but we manged to do it without breaking the door. I was tempted on more than one occasion (as I became more and more tired) to just take a hammer to the door. Jenny was amazingly calm through the whole thing. When the door finally opened I gave Jenny a big hug and then went to bed.