Back to Reality

Back in Petionville. Back to reality.

It was a good day. Busy, but good. I did a ton of work this morning. I felt like I spammed Lisa's inbox about various COR related things I e-mailed her so much. I also inventoried two huge boxes of medical supplies which took for-ev-er... especially since I am not a doctor or nurse and so I didn't know what half the things were. After all that, though, I definitely feel like I accomplished quite a bit today.

This afternoon I mostly hung out with Oge. We shared music and stories and good times. He gave me some of his Compas music and I gave him some Hip-Hop and pop. Yes, I did introduce my Haitian friend to Lady Gaga, too. I fully expect him to come to work humming it tomorrow. I also showed him the "Forever Wedding Dance" video on YouTube. He thought it was pretty funny that they were doing that in a church. Good stuff. Then, I set him up on Facebook. I got him logged in and gave him a full tutorial. I've noticed that Facebook isn't a thing in Haiti. I may have started a Facebook revolution after teaching Oge how to use it today, though. I suppose we'll see how many of his Haitian friends he gets to sign up while I'm here.

Tonight, though was... weird.

I came back to my room after dinner to find some of my boys around waiting for me. It was a joy to see them after being gone this weekend. I put my things inside and then went back outside to say hello. Michle came right up to me and wanted to play the paddy cake game again. I played with him for a while and soon all the boys wanted to play. I paired them up with each other so they could all practice together, not just with me. I may re-teach myself the cup game so I might be able to teach them that while I'm here. I think they would love it. Although I will have to find some cups. Hmmm...

Then Davidson arrived and gave me a big hug. Soon, all the boys were taking turns giving me big hugs. I couldn't stop laughing because they were all cracking me up. I felt loved though. We talked a lot about building relationships in the training I went to before coming to Haiti and I'm really glad I came in with that mentality. I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to get to know and love these boys.

However, the evening took a sour turn. The boys started wrestling. Now, I know that "boys will be boys" but these boys play ROUGH and kids get hurt. Sometimes kids get hurt that weren't even involved in the fighting to begin with. When Davidson got kicked in the head really hard (on accident) is when it got bad. Davidson started running after the kids and others tried to pull him back. But that just caused him to push them and go after the others still. I tried yelling stop and I tried to get them to calm down but they couldn't understand me. I have never wanted so desperately to be able to communicate. If only I could communicate to them that they needed to stop because they were really hurting one another then everything would be okay!

However, I could not communicate with them and they started to get crazier. Finally, feeling very hopeless, I went to find someone who could speak Creole and tell them to calm down. However, what ended up happening is folks got upset and shooed them away.

Now I know that there needs to be boundaries. And Mike did tell them that if they started fighting then they would have to leave. But in that moment I felt defeated. I wasn't trying to get them in trouble, just trying to get them to calm down. Also, when I walked up there with the folks yelling at them, they knew I was the one who told on them. It felt like they were all looking at me, feeling betrayed. I just hope that they understood that it was because they were fighting... not because I wanted them to leave. Blah. Mike said I shouldn't worry because they'll be back again tomorrow happy to see me again. Hopefully that will be true. :(

Anyway, I'm off. I do have photos up from Jacmel, though. Go here to see them!

Love to all of you,
Beth