Bon Voyage Parties

The last few weeks of my time in Haiti passed in a blur. I was out of my regular routine and trying to finish my "to do" list and enjoy some time with friends.  One week I completely forgot it was Tuesday and missed ladies Bible study.  The following Sunday the Pastor's wife asked if I would be coming the upcoming week because it was one of the ladies birthdays and she wanted to organize a small party for her.  I agreed to try my best to remember.  I arrived early at the school and noticed that A LOT of people were milling around and they all seemed to be very busy and no one would tell me what they were doing.  I started to get pretty suspicious... shortly after I discovered that the entire church was throwing a surprise going away party for me.

The Ladies singing a song dedicated to me!

It was a Haitian party so of course there was LOTS of food!

And because you can never had too many parties, the Saturday night before I left, Randy and Karen organized another going away party for me.

The men on "grill" duty

One last chance to bond with Levi

One little girl that I will miss very much

Samuel and Cadeau enjoying some food

Some of the ladies

Overall I feel very blessed and loved.  I will miss my community in Haiti, I was blessed to make some great friends who supported and loved me during my time in Haiti.  You will all continue to be in my prayers.

Jacmel, Mwen fou pou ou (I'm crazy for you)

Early Saturday morning (not as early as planned, but early nonetheless), Lesley, Julianna, Anne, Cadeau and myself left Port-au-Prince, headed for Jacmel.  We managed to make it to Leogone without incident but shortly after things started to go wrong.  The clutch stopped working and there we were stuck on the side of the road with a car that didn't move at all!  So much for our plans for Jacmel.  We had no choice but to wait for Lesley's husband to finish work and grab a ride back to Port-au-Prince with him.  We called the hotel and cancelled our rooms.  Just as quickly our plans were back on, we were able to borrow a car and before we knew it we were back on the road, praise the Lord for generous friends!

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful and we were able to secure 2 more rooms at the hotel (one of our rooms was already taken in the 15 minutes it took us to find another vehicle). We settled into our rooms and after a quick lunch we were off to the beach.

Anne

Cadeau enjoying some pumpkin soup for breakfast!

Hotel Cap Lamandou

The biggest disappointment of the weekend, the pool was broken!

Lesley and Julianna

Overall, we had a great weekend. Enjoying the sun, air conditioned rooms, satellite television, delicious food and great company.  A great getaway and one of the last things I wanted to do before leaving Haiti!

Vacation? Not yet...

I know that everyone thinks that now that school is over, I'm sitting at the beach, sipping
pina coladas and getting a nice tan. I wish!!! I've been working longer days than when school was open! Yes, it's true that school is over for the year, but the work is far from over. There are lots of loose ends to tie up and I want to leave things in good order for next year. Last week, Alix, Schandey (new secretary) and myself met with every parent of the school and registered their child(ren) for next year. This week we are registering new students. This is always a difficult process as we are a popular school and always have more interested parents than we have spots in the school. Starting next year we will start charging a small fee and we were concerned that this would discourage parents but this doesn't seem to be the case at all. We finally had to start turning parents away this morning as the list was getting too long. Part of the registration process for new families is to visit their homes and see what conditions they live in.  This is always very interesting, but also very difficult as many families live in truly dire situations. We will start the home visits tomorrow.

The Admin Team

Schandey hard at work

Alex is still smiling!

Registration