Saturday, February 25, 2006

Saturday Review - More than you care to know

6:00am - Wake up.

6am to noon - Work on Purchase Orders, accounts payable, accounts receivable (ha- that was a little joke) payroll, and other boring administrative stuff. Eat Breakfast, email Mom and friends, do laundry and cleaning. Send head cook to the market for a few misc. items, Troy is not ready to return to the market yet. ;) Send her in a tap-tap. Paige and Britt do schoolwork and chores and play with the dogs.

Noon -Mac & Cheese for lunch. After lunch I say "Britt or Paige, go get Pouki off the porch to clean up Noah's Mac and Cheese from under the table." Isaac says "Okay, if Pouki doesn't want it, I'll have it!" Not sure when he got the impression that there was not enough food available to him, or that he should eat it off of the floor.

After Lunch- Paige goes to unlock a school room and begins playing school with Hope and Isaac as her students. Within 15 minutes she has 8 students and is teaching her siblings and a few children of employees. They cannot understand much of what she says but they all sit in desks looking forward with eyes focused on Paige. She teaches everyone how in to count to 10 in English.

1pm, during nap for Noah- Britt and I decide to attempt to climb the mountain behind us and go up to the village at the top called Petit Bwa, an hour and a half hike, straight up. We make it 1/2 of the way and turn back around. Every Haitian we passed giggles at how odd we are to be climbing for no reason. We are happy to provide entertainment and get some excerise all at the same time. During this time Troy does more boring administrative stuff and calls our boss to deal with business issues.

3pm- Paige still teaching a bunch of kids, her class size keeps growing. Britt emails with cousin and friends. Troy asks Tara to go on a "date" to get gas for the generator - about 15 minutes away. Britt agrees to watch all four kids, two are sleeping. Before we leave the bottom of the driveway, four other people are in the truck who want a ride to the main road. Tara bails out on date and returns home... the romance was missing.

3pm- While Troy goes to get gas, Madame Maxo yells for me to come to the canteen. She is preparing food for the tile crew that is working in the new building. She asks if I want some. I really don't, but I don't want to hurt her feelings. I pick up baby Shenidine (not Madame Maxo's baby but she seems to be caring for the baby half the time.) and accept a plate with goat meat on it. I eat my potatoes and carrots but am dreading what happens when the meat is all that is left on the plate. I don't think I like goat. Madame Maxo asks if I will watch the baby while she brings food up to the workers. I agree and use the opportunity of her absence to toss my goat over the ledge to another goat who happily eats it. I take Shenidine up to our house to see if Jack is awake yet.

3:15- Jack-Jack is awake, I go in to get him with Shenidine on my hip. He is angry to see me with a baby. He acts like a fool and screams and whines for 20 minutes. I put him in his crib to go return the baby but when I do he is so angry that he jumps up and down until the matress falls through the frame. I go back in to see if he has been injured in the process and he says "baby go bye bye mama." The request was pretty clear. Paige held the baby, Britt brought the baby back and Jack went back to being a happy guy.


4pm- The man whose wife had a baby emergency c-section a few weeks ago - that Lifeline helped with the bill - came to show us his baby and his wife. The baby is tiny and the mom is happy and says she is feeling well. We take their family photo and Troy thanks them for coming to let us see the baby. They stand around and visit for awhile and then Troy realizes they want a ride home. Troy wonders if he agreed to giving a ride without knowing it.



5:10pm- Troy drives the family home while two pastors arrive and agree to wait with Rony to ask him for money for their churches. Troy takes the four youngest kids along for the ride down the road. While Troy is gone a huge dumptruck shows up and wants me to sign for a delivery of dirt or cement or some substance that I cannot identify. I sign a piece of paper and take the delivery, hoping it is what Troy wants. Hope gets her hair re-braided since Madame Maxo is not impressed with what we did with it after washing it on Thursday.


5:32 - Troy is back, the 2 Pastors, friends of Rony are asking for money, the kids (not Hope though) are swinging and the dinner is on the stove. 6pm- Troy finishes witht the Pastors. Madame Maxo finishes Hope's hair so we invite her in to have dinner and go over some mission business. She agrees to come cook for the team next Wedesday night. We have fun having her for dinner. She and Rony are two of our very favorite people that work for the mission. They are both amazing people and hard workers.

7pm- Madame Maxo leaves, Pator Rony shows up to talk to Troy.

7:30pm - Rony leaves, Tipap (tee-pop) shows up to talk to Troy

7:32 - As soon as Troy is done talking to Tipap we are locking the gate, putting the little kids to bed, turning off the computers, and playing games.

Oh yeah, just remembered, still need to call the boss back.

The positive side ... No attacking dogs, no dead dogs and no weird un-gloved veterinarian. A busy day, but a good one.

Sunday we go to an English speaking church in Delmas and to eat lunch at a friend's house in Tabarre. I only have to bring bread. This is a good thing.