Readjust

There comes a moment in every day when I think to myself, “MUST shower NOW or will not make it.”  That moment came early today. And after my luke-warm, trickle-when-necessary shower had taken off the caked on layers of dirt and sweat, I sat in front of two fans and let them cool/dry me off (because we finally got power after the sun set).  It was marvelous and I now feel ready to write.

Things have been going pretty smashingly here. I am really enjoying my time with Megan and the girls. Yesterday was some holiday. Megan kept saying it was Father’s Day, but Bernard said later is was God’s Day. Maybe it was God the Father’s Day or something… anyway the workers were off and school was out.  So after the AWESOME 147 Million Orphans team left yesterday (sadly), we declared a day of rest. What that ended up equaling was a huge dance party kicked off by a thriller lesson (since I just learned the dance on the cruise last week) followed by the creation of several excellent dance videos, including us doing The Wobble. That night, Megan and I enjoyed a YouTube binge that turned into us watching several episodes of TLC’s My Strange Addiction, featuring people addicted to eating nail polish, baby powder, and eating tape… Makes our life feel more normal I guess ha.

When I got in bed that night, I realized what the hardest thing has been for me to readjust to: sleeping in Haiti. Its 5 million degrees and the power was off so I had no fan; imagine trying to sleep in a puddle of your sweat. Then there are all the ridiculous neighborhood noises. Last night was real heavy on animal sounds: dogs howling everywhere, huge frogs, the family of pigs next door occasionally grunting obnoxiously, and after midnight the dumb/confused roosters start making horrific crowing sounds. There are some chickens that live in our garden and they sometimes wander into our backyard. So in the morning I heard COCKADOODLEDERRAhererrr in stereophonic sound. Really, it’s a nasty screech that doesn’t end well. Oh and a bug had gotten under my mosquito net and would occasionally buzz around my ear until I would start smacking the side of my head in hopes of killing it… I don’t think I got it. Then in the morning, the blinding, burning sun never fails to wake me, and cause me to reach for the nearest pillow, sheet, towel, etc. to put on my face to try and block it out. Sadly, I lost my cute little face mask from last year.  Oh well TIH, I adjusted last year and I will this year too. You just stop hearing it eventually and are so tired it doesn’t matter anyway. Otherwise I feel like I'm adjusting just fine. 

I taught my first adult English class of the year with Bernard today. A lot of my old students were there and it was GREAT to see them. The classes have become a lot more structured now and are pay-to-attend (very small fee) and the students are doing really well.  There are two sections; one for beginners and one for more advanced, which is marvelous. The two official teachers arrived late for the lessons today because JimmyNet was slow making copies (I think I may have mentioned before that JimmyNet is an internet café that has no internet. But Jimmy does have copy machines and printers and such. Well update: he moved to a new location now so I think mayyybe he has internet! I will have to inspect this soon.) So I knew that I needed to come up with something to entertain the students. Instead of making the crowded room play Simon Says as I normally would do, I had one of the interns, Joel dance for them. Joel is a hilarious and top-notch dancer and taught one of the brave student volunteers how to two-step, much to everyone’s delight. Then the lesson happened and it was great because I was able to do a little reverse learning of Creole. The students took a test that Bernard made up at the end of class. I looked over them and they did really well J My favorite question was the last one that instructed, “Talk about yourself. Use five lines.” I think my favorite response was something about “I’m 2 sisters. I’m 4 uncles…” But no really, most everyone did well! I’m excited to be working with these great students again in the beautiful new school. Man, it beats the heck outta trying to teach in that one room church building, aka people oven. I’ll try to post pictures as soon as I can!