"What made me so special as to be blessed with everything that i have and these people have nothing? Why did God see fit that i get electricity when these people are lucky to have generators that work for a few hours. I feel so selfish.. like i dont deserve what i have... I catch myself feeling sorry fot them for what little they have when they are the happiest people in the world. The smiles on the childrens faces melt your heart, the pureness of their songs and laughter makes you weak to the knees. They dont know anything of playstation, facebook, the movie theatre, or ipods. They have to choose between paying for food and going to school.... Here we are with our cameras and videorecorders but what is that going to do for them besides put them on display like they are helpless people who have nothing. When they dont! They have so much....
... When we were out playing after dinner the women were in the kitchen and one of them was sitting on a chair shaving a goat head. Tiffany thought she was washing it or something so she called to her husband to come down and see. By the time he came downstairs she had turned the goat head around and Tiffany saw that it had no body and it was just a dead goat head. She was heartbroken...
...the streets of Ferrier are wet and muddy and there are children running around everywhere with no clothes on, no shoes, and just as happy as can be... I have learned so much on this trip already... we played games with the kids, passed out some toys, and now they know our names and follow us around everywhere... The kids were in a circle playing "down by the river" in english... It took them a while to get used to us and warmed up, but after a while they were playing their version of "lil' Sally Walker" with some of the other girls with us. Its amazing the respect these people have for one another, the way they look out for them. In America its all about self, here its about community. If one parent dies the neighbor takes in their child with no hesitation or second thought. Chickens and pigs and dogs roam the streets and everybody knows who they belong to and dont bother them. The children, all they want to do is wave at you and play with you. One little boy had the biggest smile on his face and was just happy to have someone to wave to. Like the kids going through town. This makes me realize how superficial the problems that i have had recently really are. I have made them seem so big, really magnifying them with my own over exaggeration when all along i am still blessed and have it better off than some other people. Yes i knew this and told myself this before, but now i am experiencing it first hand..."
This is my first time reading what i wrote since i left Haiti. This is only part of what i wrote on Saturday. I remember how i felt when i first got to Haiti. It was life changing the moment I stepped off the plane. We left Friday, the plane to Houston too off at 12, we got to Fort Lauderdale at 7:30 and flew out to Haiti the following morning around fi
ve. About 18 of our bags did not make it to Haiti. They included drill bits, water purifiers, medicine, and personal luggage of some of the people who went with us. My bag made it and unfortunately the extra space that i left to pack for the people of Haiti was filled with toys for the kids. There was kite string, which kept in hand when we put up the mosquito nets (the ones that did make it to Haiti). Riding through Cap Haitian we saw sights unfamiliar to the U.S. i could describe all of them but... pictures are better... We saw children walking down the street as we rode through town many carrying water, dead animals, pushing wheelbarrows. All waving. They we so happy to see "blondes" ( white people) a rare sight. We rode, 19 of us, on the bed of a little white trunk. That was our means of transportation for the entire week. After about an hour of riding we finally got to Ferrier. The ride previous years, we learned, had been about two and a half hours, our ride took less time because the UN had put do
wn a road through the town at the beginning of the year. It is amazing what we take for granted. We noticed after the road began to run out how difficult it is for the people of Haiti to get around without a road. The ground was wet from the rain, muddy, cars got stuck, children walked through the mud, and it was bumpy. When we got to Ferrier we were welcomed by the children who immediately surrounded us. We wasted no time and broke out the toys and started playing. But enough talk... i'll just share pictures....
ve. About 18 of our bags did not make it to Haiti. They included drill bits, water purifiers, medicine, and personal luggage of some of the people who went with us. My bag made it and unfortunately the extra space that i left to pack for the people of Haiti was filled with toys for the kids. There was kite string, which kept in hand when we put up the mosquito nets (the ones that did make it to Haiti). Riding through Cap Haitian we saw sights unfamiliar to the U.S. i could describe all of them but... pictures are better... We saw children walking down the street as we rode through town many carrying water, dead animals, pushing wheelbarrows. All waving. They we so happy to see "blondes" ( white people) a rare sight. We rode, 19 of us, on the bed of a little white trunk. That was our means of transportation for the entire week. After about an hour of riding we finally got to Ferrier. The ride previous years, we learned, had been about two and a half hours, our ride took less time because the UN had put do
wn a road through the town at the beginning of the year. It is amazing what we take for granted. We noticed after the road began to run out how difficult it is for the people of Haiti to get around without a road. The ground was wet from the rain, muddy, cars got stuck, children walked through the mud, and it was bumpy. When we got to Ferrier we were welcomed by the children who immediately surrounded us. We wasted no time and broke out the toys and started playing. But enough talk... i'll just share pictures....
The Kids welcoming us to their village
Passing out toys and playing with the children
My excellent Frisbee skills.... playing in the mud
These are beautiful children
We were playing in the mud while they were staying out of the rain. Classic.
Me and some of the girls and DoDo- farthest left. (he is the same age as me, he has down syndrome)
There was a little boy who went with us. He is nine, the same age as the other boy in the picture. By the end of the day the little Haitian boy was calling him his friend.
This is one of the boys who would have waved at us all day if he could
The coke bottles there are 1/2 liter!!
Katie with some of the kids she and her sister sponsor
Little Sally Walker Haitian style
The goat head!!! Our dinner for the week....
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