Raining in the Babyroom

Sometimes I wonder what our life would be like if we weren't in Haiti.  What would my “other self” be doing right now?? Would I be more stressed?  Less stressed?  Would I feed my kids healthier food or not?  Would they be spending more time with other kids their age or less?  Would they sit still better in church…or not J

Obviously I will never know, but it’s fun to think about sometimes.  I really think it’s a neat opportunity for my kids to spend some of their growing up years in Haiti, and with all the different experiences.  Sometimes cultural differences can be, well, different, but for the most part that’s all they are. 

I want to relate a few instances of differences in our life now compared with what it may have been, but that’s not to say it’s worse.  Just want to highlight a few things….

The first Sunday Cassia went to church, it was raining.  During the service, of course Cassia got hungry and wanted to eat.  With Orrin, I would take him out to the babyroom at church to feed him.  But here, there’s no baby room, just a cement “bench” by the front steps outside.  But with the rain…. I leaned up to Jami and whispered, “What do you do when it’s raining in the babyroom?”  You feed the baby sitting in the church bench and nobody thinks twice.

Orrin’s potty training isn’t going so well, but he knows how to go.  So, I’ve taken to letting him run around with just a t-shirt on.  If he has a diaper on (OR underwear!) he will use them.  If there’s nothing but air, he will use the toilet (or “the outside”, as he says).   I can’t see myself letting him run around the yard in the middle of Forrest, Illinois (especially in March!) with no bottoms on, but it’s working out pretty well here!

One major factor that makes our past and present lives so different is the weather.  Here there are rarely coats to worry about, there’s never snow to wonder if it will slow down your traveling (it’s just demonstrations here J).  Right about now, I would be REALLY REALLY REALLY ready for spring, for planting my garden, for going outside for a walk, pushing the kids in a stroller.  Here, my tomato plants are about a foot tall, and hopefully will produce some tomatoes soon.  I’ve got lettuce growing, and watermelon plants look promising if I remember to water them.  There is not much option for using a stroller here with the mountain we live on.  But it’s so nice that we can go outside and be comfortable most every day of the year.  Some days, it’s my sanity-saver!  Orrin can go outside with his little TONKA truck, push it all over the yard (and in the garden), fill it with leaves, dirt and rocks, or watch the other neighborhood kids ride it down the “hill” in our yard.  It’s really helpful if he can be out of the house when I’m trying to get a crying baby to sleep!

Carseats are another thing that is so different here.  I never would have let my kids ride around in the car without a carseat in the States.  (For one thing, I would get majorly in trouble if I got pulled over).  But (gasp!) down here, we rarely use one.  Most of the vehicles we use are made for getting as many people and/or equipment in them as possible, so the back seats are side-facing and it’s not real easy to strap a carseat in.  We did the other day when we went all the way to Port to get a work team…8 hours is a long time to hold a baby in the car!  We don’t have seatbelts in back, so David had to rig it up.  The result was that Cassia had her own “oh no” bar to hold onto around the curves J

One thing I don’t think I’ll ever get used to is the plethora of advise that’s freely given J  One day in town, David was in a store buying paint, so I decided to do a little clothes shopping in the street by where he was.  And as I walked around, browsing the clothes with Cassia in my arms, there was a constant chatter.  And in English, this is what it would sound like.  “Sun, sun, sun!  The sun is bad for the baby’s head!  Sun, sun!  It will make her sick!  Don’t hold her with just one arm.  Don’t hold her across the stomach.”  Then when she started fussing, it was “Hungry!  The baby’s crying!  Sun, sun!  Cover her head!  Breastfeed!”  In about 5 minutes, my nerves were completely shot, so I went back to the vehicle and when we drove away, Cassia fell asleep, which was what she needed after all…not to eat or have her head covered or lay down flat, which she despises, by the way J  

Driving

 

Finally, after all this time of living in Haiti, I drove to town!  I’ve been practicing with David, off and on over the months, and so finally when Jami and I went to Cayes for groceries, I made it the whole way J 

When I was about 15, I decided I wanted to learn to drive stick shift.  Mom had an old red Nova, and I remember trying to back it up for my first lesson.  After killing it three times, I decided I wasn’t ever going to need to know how to drive a stick shift anyway.  I mean, just buy a car without one, right??? 

I guess I never anticipated living on a mountain in southern Haiti, and feeling like I wouldn’t be able to drive even in an emergency.  David, on the other hand has been driving to Port and in the crazy Port traffic for a long time.  So, after lots of lessons with David (pretty sure he had to tell me the same thing about 100 times) some of it must have sunk in. 

As we were driving down the mountain, the speedometer read 25mph.  I was poking along.  Am I really the same person who used to consistently drive over the speed limit in an ambulance, communicating with dispatch on the radio, blaring the siren and air horn, and talking to the other medic?  Now I had to learn how to pass a tap-tap while driving uphill, honking the horn, shifting to another gear, and watching out for motorcycles.  Boy, this stick shift business is rough.

Thanks to Jami (telling me things like, “I think you should be in 3^rd gear right now”) we made it to town and down the busy streets of Cayes.  “Which lane am I supposed to be in??”  I guess you just make your own J  We pulled up to our first stop of the day, to pick up David and my Haitian Driver’s Licenses.  “Good thing my driver is getting her license,” Jami said. J

Quotes from a 2 Year Old

When we were staying with Grandpa and Grandma Zimmerman this summer, Orrin woke up early from his nap one day.  I brought him downstairs and rocked him, trying to sing him back to sleep.  I tried to shut the light switch off that was right by my head, but he wimpered, wanting it back on.  After a few more minutes, I thought he was deeply sleeping so I turned the lights off again.  Not even moving or opening his eyes, Orrin said, "Light."  What a great sleeper I have...not!

We went to visit new baby Cole at Troy and April's.  Orrin was in the other room playing with Tristan.  Baby Cole started fussing.  In runs Orrin.  "Baby cryin'!  I'll get it!"

Orrin was supposed to be taking a nap during church one Sunday when we were in Iowa.  Lindsy heard him coughing in the room and then he puked up some of the crud from his lungs.  (He had a bad cold.) When I came into the baby room, he was kneeling on the floor.  He looked up at me.  “I spit it out, mommy!  I spit it out!”  Sooo proud of you :-P

We were just about to land on one of our flights back to Haiti, and Orrin had had enough.  He was throwing a fit and crying.  The plane landed with a lot of noise from slowing the plane down.  Orrin stopped crying and his eyes widened.  "Airplane broken!"

Orrin had gotten the computer taken away and I put it in my room.  He was standing at the bedroom door wailing.  I told him if he didn’t stop crying, he would have to go to his room.  He snuffled and stopped.  “All done cryin’,” he said.

Orrin is a major repeater.  He will repeat ANYTHING a person says, especially if it’s at the end of a sentence.  This story demonstrates….

“Jonah tried to run away from God.”

“Away from God.”

“He was a bad boy.”

“Bad boy.”

“So God sent a big fish to swallow Jonah.”

“Big fish?”

“Just like when Orrin is a bad boy and has to go to his room.”

“Go to his room?”

“And then the whale spit Jonah onto the beach.”

“Onto the beach.  Spit it out!”

“And then Jonah listened to God.  So when Orrin comes out of his room, he needs to obey and listen to mommy.”

“Listen to mommy.”

We’ll see…..

David was lying on the floor playing with Orrin, who was walking over him and stepping on his stomach.  I said, “Orrin, that’s an owie for daddy.  Ask daddy if…”  and I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence of, “if it’s ok to do that.”  He looks down at David.  “Owie??”

Orrin came walking into the living room where David was sitting on the couch.  “David,” he says seriously.  “What time is it?”

Orrin was getting ready for bed.  After books and songs, I prayed with him.  Orrin said, “Jesus gone.”  I said, “Yes, He’s in Heaven with God.  You can talk to Him when you pray.”  “Find a girl,” he replied.  Funny.  What was he thinking??

Orrin woke up around 6:15 in the morning.  I asked him, “Why don’t you sleep in?”  He opened his eyes wide in a shocked expression, held out his hand and said, “I wake up!”  Duh mom!!

One day, after about 37 times of watching the video I took of a helicopter landing, Orrin begged to see it again.  I said no.  He proceeded to go and ask dad.  “Need to watch video!!”  David told him not to ask dad if mom already said no.  Orrin comes running back into the room.  “Need to ask Cassia!  Need to watch helicopter!!”

Things Orrin knows how to say because he lives in Haiti-

Bon jou

Bon swa

Mesi

`Lectricity’s off! 

Genagator (generator)

The States

Here's a few pictures of what Orrin's been up to lately:

Grandparents, Part II

Well, we made it into Port on the airplane, and said goodbye to my parents.  A few minutes later, David's parents, Matt K, and Pastor Nathan drove up to pick us up.  It was great to see them again!  They dropped us off at the US Embassy and took Orrin to do some errands.  We went and turned in all of Cassia's citizenship and passport paperwork.  It went really smoothly and we got in and out in about and hour and a half.  It was a crazy feeling to have most people talking English to us!  I kept telling myself NOT to try to talk in Creole...we were in the US Embassy, by George! :)  At the end, they told us we can pick up her passport in (Lordwilling) 6 weeks.  After we get that safely in hand, we hope to buy tickets to come home in May!  Can't wait to see everybody!!

Port was crazily empty...not many were venturing out, I guess, and the public transportation was on strike, so we made good time getting through town.  We went to Dumay to spend the week with mom and dad and a work team.  Mom said that the kids had been asking about Orrin.  Was he coming??  I was really blown away by this.  They remembered his name after a whole year??  Wow.

Grandpa and Grandma with the kiddos!

Grandma and Orrin enjoying the view out the back.  Couldn't have picked a better location to build the guest house!!!

Beautiful rainbow!

We had lots of people to help entertain Orrin through the week!  Matt was showing Orrin how to make a paper airplane.  He thought that was pretty sweet!  Orrin still talks about Matt, and wonders where Jessica is, and sings "Ring Around the Rosy."  Must have good memories of the week :)  He also got to ride on the tractor with Grandpa like last year!

Another source of entertainment for Orrin (and headache for Mom) was the food cabinets.  Right there at eye and hand level, and there were soooo many snacks!  He "needed" a lot of snacks that week...or at least that's what he said!

Roslyn came out to see the kids one day.  It's really neat to still have that relationship from back when we came the first time, 6 years ago!  Roslyn's English was better this year, and so was my Creole, so we were able to communicate a little more.  We were glad to see her again and find that she's doing well.  She has one more year of school and then hopes to go on to Nursing school.  Good for her!!

One evening we sang out on the front porch with the local guys.  It was beautiful singing - they have some singing talent in Dumay!!  We sang songs in English, but they seemed to be doing good with it.  A lot of the young kids are learning English.  Some learn in school, but others just say they have a book they read and practice it with their friends.  It's amazing how much they know and how dedicated they are.  We enjoyed talking to them (in English and in Creole :) ) and spending some time together.  The neat part about coming back to Dumay year after year is meeting the same people again and again.

We also attended "Nathan's Birthday Party."  It will forever life in infamy as a capitalized occasion, as it lasted FOUR hours at the church one night :)  Orrin of course only made it through about an hour or so, and so we got to leave early.  Back at the guest house, I tried to start making supper, thinking that everyone would be back soon.  But combined with a stove that was out of gas, a 2 year old, and a baby that was crying and puked all over, I didn't get a lot accomplished.  David finally came back, and tried to get a new gas tank hooked up.  Still no one was back.  Surely it would be soon....  Around 9pm everyone finally came in.  It became quite the event to talk and laugh about as no one had expected it to last quite that long, and the whole group couldn't just slip out because we had been seated way up front :)  Ahhh, memories....and microwaved brats at 9pm...ugh.

Grandpa and Cassia

Our team...Brooke, Jessica, Heather, me and David and kids, Molly, Myron, Jared, Ryan, Josh, Dad and Mom.  Also Matt, but he left Saturday before the picture was taken...  We really had a super nice week with our group of friends and family from Forrest!  So special to see everyone!

Grandparents, Part I

We were really blessed to have my parents make their first trip to Haiti!  They spent about 2 1/2 weeks with us, and helped out a lot with the kids!  We realized how many things we have to show people to give them the Haiti experience...we kept busy that whole time!  Here are some highlights of our time together.

Orrin teaching Grandpa and Grandma how to use the tablet and play games :)

One day, we had Haiti Air Ambulance come to the hospital and talk to our staff about what to do if they needed to call a helicopter for a patient.  They're a new company in Haiti, just started last year.  So they're trying to network the hospitals to find specialties in each hospital to be able to transfer patients to where they can receive care (burn unit, ICU, NICU, etc).

We all went up the hill to watch them fly in.  The kids sat on top of the Landcruzer to be out of the way :)

They set up a landing zone at a soccer field just up the mountain...it's about the biggest flat spot in the area.  Security guards were posted around the perimeter to keep people away.  The helicopter had the pilot, two flight medics, and a flight nurse.

It was quite a draw for everyone in the area to come and see.  What a day!

As I watched the helicopter fly out of sight, I cried a little.  (Maybe just a little hormonal from just having a baby....)  But that helicopter brought back so many things.  It was a reminder of the EMS world that I'm not in right now.  It's a reminder of the dream I had of someday working on a helicopter.  And I again remembered how much I love being a medic.  

Having Grandparents here let Orrin spend a lot of time "binking"...Orrin's word for jumping on the bed :)

Randy and LaNae Meyer came up for church one Sunday and ate lunch with us.  LaNae is mom's cousin, and they're working with LSM in Haiti.  It was really nice to spend time with them, and that mom and dad could too!

One Saturday afternoon, we went to the beach.  It was a lovely day of relaxing and swimming.

We took them to Cayes where we go shopping and showed them the stores, did some shopping in the clothes market, and ate at Hot Spot.  They also watched Orrin while we went to get our Haitian Driver's Licenses.

We did a lot of walking to different places over the course of a few days.  One day, I had a lady who wanted me to come look at her house that I thought she said was falling down.  I was going to have to be gone when she came, so I told Madam Ino to let her in and ask her to wait for me.  Mom said she gave Cassia to her to hold, and she really liked that.  I asked her if I could come see her house, since I didn't want to give her money without seeing it first.  She said it was a short walk to her house.  So, I followed her through the mountain for about 20 minutes until we (finally!!) got to her house.  :)  They pulled out a chair for me and we tried to stumble through some conversation.  I think I understood that she lives in that house with her sister and brother-in-law, and her daughter-in-law and her 3 or 4 kids.  It sounded like her son had died in the earthquake in Port 5 years ago.  Anyway, the brother-in-law is the only one who has a job, and they have a plot of land she showed me where she wants to plant beans.  Soon I was walking back home, really glad that she took me back because I would have been completely lost.....

That same day, Madam Ino came to work and said they were killing a pig and wondered if I wanted any meat.  So that afternoon, we went with her "by" her house...maybe a 10 minute walk through the woods.  As we passed her son's home, I saw her daughter-in-law lying on a cot on the front porch area.  Madam Ino had told me a while back that she is pregnant and very sick.  I've talked to her some when I see her at the hospital, but I know she's missed work because of being sick.  Madam Ino told me one day that after she leaves my house, she goes home to cook for her family...because her daughter-in-law can't handle the smell of oil cooking.  I feel horrible for her, but it did make me feel a little better...at least Madam Ino didn't think I was crazy when I was the one lying on the couch all day and telling her I couldn't handle the smell of garlic!!  

I was hoping to pick up the chunks of meat, put them in my ziplock bags, and go back home.  But I felt like I had stepped back into the early 1900's in the Appalachian Mountains or somewhere when they brought us out chairs to sit in and unhurriedly worked on cutting up the pig laying at our feet.  Then pretty soon, someone came bringing an old rusty produce scale, and hung it in the tree.  They weighed our chunks of pork and we put them in our sacks, and headed back, again following someone to find our way.  I had wondered that morning how smart it was to be going off by myself, but I realized I just had to trust....

Marvin and Nancy came to the Hospital to visit, and they wanted to go see the Hydro plant.  So we dropped Orrin off at Jami's and headed down with them and my parents - and Cassia :)  We stopped at the Reservoir first, seeing the view of the mountains.  During my walks I had come to appreciate a little how much surface area was crammed onto those mountains, as opposed to the island being all flat.  It's crazy to look at mountain after mountain and think of all the people living all over them...and how far they have to walk to get anywhere!  It blows me away.

We got quite the workout on the hike...it was a lot more strenuous than I remembered.  Whew!

Proof that we made it down to the hydro building :)  We really enjoyed our time with Marvin and Nancy.  Glad they got out safely through a lot of demonstrations that were going on during that time.  It was really good to have people visit from our home church!

Mom gave blood at the hospital before they left...it was her 9th gallon!!  Too bad it won't count in Iowa :)  but it will help someone here though!  For fun, we took Orrin up to the hospital wearing doctor scrubs, and we got a lot of smiles out of it :)

We took mom and dad on a gator ride up the mountain to a beautiful lookout one evening.  So much to see and do!  We also took them to the local market one Saturday to buy our produce.  They also got in a lot of walks with Orrin and a lot of time holding Cassia in the evenings when she fussed :(

When it was time to go home, Port-au-Prince was still having major problems with demonstrations, and the embassy was sending out emails advising people to remain in place.  It was the first time since we've been here that I've gotten emails advising that.  David and I were planning on riding into Port with dad and mom, and going to the Embassy to start Cassia's paperwork and then meet up with David's parents and spend the week in Dumay with them.  But with all this going on, we just didn't know what to do.  Should we leave late afternoon and stay in a hotel in town?  Leave at 1 or 3am and try to get in before things heated up again?  Finally Monday evening, we found out about a small plane that was flying people from Port to Cayes in the morning, and they would fly us back to Port for $300.  Wow, that totally turned out to be the best possible solution!  We got up Tuesday morning and left at a reasonable time, drove an hour to the Cayes airport, and then took an hour flight to Port.  Brent and Alisha were also flying with, so we ended up paying $50 per person to fly in.  Now that we're spoiled we'll want that to work out every time so we can skip the 4 hours of driving :)

Orrin was so excited to be able to fly in an airplane!!  He was a big boy!

 Cassia, at 4 weeks old, took her first airplane ride!  What a busy life she's had :)

Thanks Dad and Mom for coming to visit and helping us out!  Hope you enjoyed your Haiti experience, and come back next year :)

A Conclusion

After a few days and a talk with David, I came to a conclusion as to what was bugging me so much. I guess some things just take time to sort themselves out :-) I told David that when we move home from Haiti, I don't want all my friends to be white Americans! I want to have friends from Haiti! But during this time I felt like some trust was broken and it made me question the sincerity of...well, most everyone. I had to step back and remind myself not to "blanket statement" everyone.  Another thing that's been hard is seeing those who claim to be Christians who seem unkind or uncaring or go along with "the crowd." I have to remember to forgive, to not judge, to remember that I have to be more loving, kind and caring too!

So I guess I'm hopefully back to more rational thinking :-) and I'm so thankful for those who I KNOW are truthful and sincere and have shown themselves our friends.  Very thankful especially for our cook, Madam Ino, and our language instructor, Falens.  Yes, we do have friends here!!

Wanderings of my Mind

There are so many things I want to write about tonight, I'm not sure even where to begin...or what I'm going to focus on, or what I should title this.  Sorry...my thoughts are really scattered tonight.  I know somehow this all is connected, I just don't know if you'll be able to follow the giant leaps my mind is making....

David and I took a walk tonight *alone* - one of the perks of having grandparents here to visit.  I decided we really need to get a nanny :)  or at least someone to watch the kids once in a while so we can have a little "date."  It's a big stress relief to be able to just leave the house and spend a little time together.  We're trying to pray for direction on how we could work this out...who would be able to come for an hour, who would we trust....???

Anyway, the walk was great.  There's something about looking up at the palm trees under the stars.  It's magnificent.  But in the background there's the beat-beat-beat of the drums, they've been going constantly for about the past 2 days and nights.  It's leading up to Mardi Gras, and there've been more drums, more "rah-rah" bands playing their music and marching up and down the roads at night.  David said, "It feels like there are evil spirits at work."  There's just so much going on right now.  Both of the hospital x-ray machines are broken down at the same time, a tree falls down in the night and cuts power and internet to several houses, there's turmoil with some of the staff over pay periods.  Several days this week there were violent demonstrations in Port-au-Prince, with people blocking roads, burning tires, throwing rocks at cars..... You start to wonder how many of these problems are "normal" and how much has to do with the fact that Satan wants us to lose.  He doesn't want the hospital.  He doesn't want people to get better, to find relief for suffering.  He doesn't want them to hear about God and salvation.  He doesn't want us to get along.  He doesn't want us to have time to spend with our families.  He doesn't want us to have time to pray about these problems.

I guess tonight I'm stressing over the staff issues at the hospital.  I don't know exactly what's going on since I'm not directly involved, but it's been a tough few months here.  There was some over-staffing in the hospital, and some people had to be laid off in December.  It was really hard emotionally on everyone.  How were people going to react?  What were they going to do in a country that doesn't have many jobs available?  Things seemed to go well, considering, but there have still been some issues that have come up that make things tough.  It seems like some of these issues indicate a lack of trust, and that's hard when you felt like you were forming real relationships.

I guess I just don't know what "they" (the staff, the community, the Haitian people in general) think of us missionaries.  Do they see that we care?  Or do they just think we're rich spoiled Americans that think we know better than them?  What am I showing?  I thought that by living here and trying to learn the language, by building relationships, and giving someone a ride up the mountain, we would show that we care.  I thought that by working side by side, by shopping in their market, we would show that we don't think them or their culture inferior.  I thought by having our baby born here, by following someone through the mountain on a 20 minute walk to their house, we would show that we trust them.  And then a situation comes along and you just wonder if it's making any difference at all.  I know it shouldn't matter so much what they think of me, but I feel that someone has to know you really care before you can have a true relationship with them.

As I got home tonight, I looked up at the stars again.  They're so beautiful tonight.  It makes things seem more in perspective.  God has the answers to our problems.  Heaven will bring the end to these problems.  Who will we meet there?  What will it be like to spend eternity with those that we know here?  What will it be like where (I assume) there is no cultural difference, no language difference, where nobody gives a hoot about skin color (or calls you a "blan")?  Where you don't have to second guess the relationships you have and wonder what someone really thinks.

We need your prayers.  The hospital needs your prayers.  These "tough situations" need your prayers.  Thank you for those prayers!