Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Word of Life - New Years' Day Celebration


Today was a beautiful day in Haiti! The temps were in the low 90's but the breezes were glorious and there was a spirit of celebration in the air.  Our sleep was a bit interrupted for most by some very loud and sudden booms and fireworks at midnight. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of oatmeal, bananas, scrambled eggs with all the fixins’, pancakes, and freshly squeezed passionfruit/orange juice. Some of the girls wanted to experience and help our staff with washing clothes by hand. We then started to organize for our party for the great Haitian staff. We’ve also enjoyed being able to meet and work and play closely with the other 2 teams of ‘goers’.  The teams prepared for the Haitian staff a great meal of sloppy joes, potato chips, jello jigglers, and popcorn. After that they taught us a typical Haitian children’s ‘follow the leader’ type of dance.

Many of the group then went out to the street to play with the neighborhood kids ~ soccer, jump rope, four square, American football, duck duck goose, keep away, and others. A lot of the kids wanted to try out their English on us and we enjoyed just chatting and learning each other’s names. We all felt that we were able to connect with many of the kids and young adults. After wearing ourselves we decided to head to the hotel pool around the block to cool off. Woot – was it cold!  The water was really cold and not all managed to brave the water. We were such a big group that when we descended upon the pool we worried we were ruining the fun of the few guests that were there. But, by the time we left we had made friends with the other guests and were playing water games with them and their kids and visiting.

We had a great supper of tacos, followed by Word of the Day, and a review of our photos. We are all amazed at our tired we are by the end of day here in Haiti!  Blessings!  Kim