Big, Bad Parenthood

A few days ago, much earlier than I enjoy, I got up with the babies to give Megan a break as I sometimes do. I really woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, probably because we stayed at Thorstens late the night before hanging out with our German pal, and am not particularly thrilled to change the poopy diaper and then be dragged into the kitchen. Michaelle brings me book after book so the three of us sit on the kitchen floor and read. You know how hit and miss children’s books are. Some of them I kind of get into and other ones make me groan; sometimes I change the words or entire plots because I can’t believe how stupid they are. It doesn’t really matter, the kids can’t understand 98% of what I’m saying anyway since these books are in English. A lot of times I’ll just point out at cow or a baby on a page and then every time they see it on subsequent pages, they point and yell, “COW! (or CA! according to Gabriel), and, “BEBE!” I’m really proud of the way they’ve taken to reading though and how eager they are to learn… even if I am really annoyed at the fact that I’m sitting on the kitchen floor instead of laying down.

Soon I fear that if I read one more of these books about cows and babies, my eyes are going to pop out. I whip them up a delicious and nutritious breakfast of either corn flakes and powdered milk or oatmeal, I don’t remember which, and we sit down on the floor and eat (we don’t have our dining furniture built yet at this point, or much of any furniture at all really). Then we go have some playtime. I develop a nice headache as the kids pull on my legs, run around, and pull all the toys off of the shelf, making a giagantic mess that someone is going to have to pick up later. As I sit there and watch all of this, I am overcome thinking about parenthood.

I know I’m only 21 years old and I shouldn’t hit the panic button, but oh my gosh, I don’t know if this is really something I ever want to do. To be a parent is a sacrifice of the most epic proportions!! It is to stop what you’re doing at 8 every single night, so that you can start the bedtime routine with two kids that don’t like to go to bed, especially the 2 year old who REALLY hates bedtime. And then parenting is waking up at 7 (and at several points in between on some nights), or whenever Gabrielle makes his poopy diaper, to the smell of a hot mess. Its cleaning up the same mess of little plastic trinkets, colors, flashcards, food, etc. that is made everyday. You can’t just get up and go anywhere you want to. And while I’m in my bad mood, this feels like prison. Just because you’re in a bad mood, or have a headache, or would rather be in bed or – maybe should I attempt this again later in life- want to go out with your husband, or friends, or whatever, you are still a parent and that comes first. Its like there is no you anymore. I know I sound like a selfish whiney baby (and I am still 21 after all), but its true, and I know there are a lot of people out there who go into this whole baby-having thing without knowing that it is this way (see Casey Anthony). So yea, I will not be having children for a LONG time (…if ever).

A little bit later in the morning, everyone is up and having there breakfast. Megan and I are sitting at her desk drinking coffee and planning some thing or another when the phone rings. Her face changes, goes white, and I know something is wrong. I don’t remember everything that happened because it went really fast but there’s been an emergency and she is flying out the door with Gabrielle. I stay at home with Michaelle, not knowing what is going on.

Then I am reminded why parents sign up for the miseries of parenting and go about them dutifully: because they LOVE their children. Our kids (mostly Megan’s kids, but mine too in some small way, definitely in my heart) are so beautiful. Seeing them laugh and play and goof off is so worth picking up the trail of destruction they leave behind. Some of my most treasured moment here in Haiti are the dance parties Megan and I have with the kids in the living room. We put on music and dance all-out and have the best time. I get SO excited when Michaelle learns new English words, gets her numbers right, or learns a new color (we’re really struggling with pink right now). Gabrielle has really come out of his shell lately and has started playing all kinds of pretend games, like when he crawls around making this really gnarly face and growls at everyone until we poke him and he erupts into a fit of giggles. I LOVE these kids.

When Megan and Gabrielle walk through the door later that afternoon, my heart turns a happy flip in my chest. I love her and these kids and I’m happy to do everything I can for them. I know this is only a small taste of what it means to be a parent; I won't be here for much long and real parenting is a life sentence. You actual parents are probably laughing at me and saying, "If you only knew..." But I am so thankful for having them in my life.

Real Haiti Secret Marketplace Mission

Yesterday I am going about the normal things that I go about: cleaning the house, playing with the munchkins, making lunch (gahlee I’m such a house mom), when I realize we really don’t have enough food lying around to feed ourselves and this group that’s staying with us. So I talk to Tashi (who is staying with us long term now :) and we get Fifi and head off to Carrefour to go to the market. Fifi is our super awesome nanny/housekeeper who is this sweet old lady that hasn’t had a job in years and is so happy to come in. She wears the same checkered hat everyday and floral print button down dresses. I LOVE Fifi.

So the three of us leave the house with this reusable Walmart tote. I am SO excited to be the only white person; I feel like this is Kathryn getting to do Real Haiti. Instead of going the usual way, straight out of the gate Fifi takes us down this path through some grassy lots that shortcuts to the road. We pass a tent and someone’s house before getting to the main highway. Usually we have to wait awhile or walk a little bit to catch a taptap, but one passes almost immediately and we flag it down. I swear its because we’re with Fifi, she is too cool. Tashi and Fifi crawl into the taptap and squish in while I end up getting stuck on the end seat. Oh great, the blanc (what Haitians call white people [pronounced blaah, really unflattering]) gets stuck hanging out of the back of the taptap. I think about how hard everyone is going to laugh when I fall out and get hit by a motorcycle or something so I proceed to death grip the handle above me and the rail holding me in. I soon realize that this actually is a really great seating arrangement; I usually don’t fit under the taptap roof because I’m too tall. This way I don’t have to crouch down, I can breathe air that doesn't smell like armpits, and I get a wonderfully unobstructed view of the countryside and towns. It’s a very enjoyable ride.

We soon make it into the filthy grime hole that is Carrefour. I have really come to dislike that place – no offense to my friends that live there. I pay the taptap driver and then follow Fifi and Tashi along the side of the road crammed with vendors, people, chickens, oh, and filth. Tashi stops at a stand selling rice and beans. She asks me what kind of rice I want, I don’t really know, but she buys a whole bunch of this greenish-brown rice and fills the Walmart tote halfway. It already weighs what I estimate to be around, oh say, 100 pounds. I get to carry it, yay. We walk a bit further and suddenly Fifi ducks into an alley way. I get really excited, it seems my Real Haiti adventure is heating up. We squeeze through this narrow passageway and then it opens up into a full-out market place. I feel like a giddy kid going with mommy to the grocery store to buy goodies. I try to wipe the stupid look off my face because everyone is looking intently at the only blanc for miles around.

Our first stop inside the Real Haiti underground market place is the meat section. I am all at once thrilled and horrified by the meat zone. There is raw chicken just sitting out everywhere and the people selling it are practically sitting on top of it. I stand in the middle of the walkway in between tables covered in chicken parts while a voice in my head is screaming, “SALMONELLA! SALMONELLA! RUNNN!” But I do not run, even as my eyes gaze upon chicken feet for sale (meaning someone must buy them and eat them) and then I see something else… some amorphous meat shape next to the chickens. I can then make out a snout on one of these meat shapes and realize it is part of a pig face. I ask Tashi what the heck that is about, but she continues to select chicken parts that will later be our dinner. (I would be totally afraid to eat this, but I’ve done it too many times to count before I actually knew where it came from and have been totally fine.) She puts some raw chicken into a plastic bag and we continue with our shopping trip. Next we run into a man selling beef. He has this massive slab of cow that he’s just hacking away on. He cuts off something for us which we then plastic bag and keep going.

Tashi then goes to buy vegetables which I have been asking for and I stand off to the side. Two girls start talking about me to my face, but in Creole, so I’m like ???? They seem to be saying nice enough things by their body language though so I make a nice white person face at them. They probably called me ugly or something... My attention is then grabbed by someone talking very loudly. I see that he has a megaphone and is carrying a speaker that is playing a hook and beat. He’s rapping about something and people are dancing. I think this is really awesome and can’t help but laugh. I want very badly to join his little parade and dance along, but that could get crazy, so I refrain. I ask Tashi what he’s rapping about. She listens for a minute and then tells me that he is in fact rapping about soap. Soap??! Hahahaha! I find this hilarious and can’t help but stand there and laugh as I watch people dancing to this guy’s rap about soap. I then remember this one time I saw an Oxfam caravan going down the main highway with a truck carrying giant speakers. They had a similar sort of rap going and I asked Megan what that was about. Turns out they were driving around rapping about washing your hands to prevent Cholera. And there you have Haitian PSAs.

Anyway, a few stalls and a gillion plastic bags later, we are absolutely loaded down with meat, fruit, veggies, and a coconut that I really wanted. Its getting to be too much for the 3 of us to carry so I figure that this trip is about to be over. We emerge from the Real Haiti secret underground marketplace through a hole in some tents and are back on the main road. That is when Tashi decides that we need to buy a watermelon. Yes, a watermelon. And then she tells me that Fifi isn’t actually going back to the house with us and we will have to carry all of this stuff back, just the two of us. I don’t think we’re going to make it, but Tashi is like, “No, we can do it. I show you.” The three of us drag the all the goods across the road to catch a taptap just as it starts to rain. I then see my first white person of the day – a man riding shotgun in some SUV with his video camera up and rolling. I’m embarrassed. Meanwhile, the first 7 taptaps or so that drive past us are not going to Gressier, but eventually we catch one that is fairly empty and pile in all of our stuff.

It’s a nice ride, we never got too overwhelmingly crowded. We drop Fifi off, I string together a sentence in Creole to tell her that I’m happy she came with us today and am proud of myself. We then head into Gressier. When we get into the “downtown” area, its down to Tashi, myself, and some other random person. The driver then yells at us and does an abrupt u-turn in the road. Oh great, he decided he’s going back to Carrefour and we are not quite yet home. Somehow, Tashi and I manage to get all the stuff off the taptap, watermelon included, and try to consolidate our bags so that we can cross the road all in one trip. I don’t know how we do it, but we actually get everything across the street the first time and into a taptap that soon comes along. We know that we won’t be able to carry this stuff from the road to our house so we make a plan. When we hop off near our house, I run down Fifi’s shortcut path to the house and bring 3 boys back with me and we all carry the stuff home. And the day ends happily with a delicious meal of rice and beans with a side of mango and fresh squeezed juice. I have yet to eat my coconut, but gee am I excited!

Real Haiti secret marketplace mission: accomplished.

Thankful

Last week was a colossal adventure of a very different kind – Megan had some meetings come up that were extremely important for her to attend back in Baton Rouge. Soooo the two of us hopped a plane back to the good ol’ US of A. I was going to just keep the trip on the down low, after all we were only there for 3 days, but I got such a massive dose of culture shock and perspective on time in Haiti that I have to write about it.

It all starts in the PAP airport on Tuesday morning. I’m feeling really weird about the whole idea of going to America – I’m excited but we’re leaving the kids and its just kind of weird timing. This was certainly not a trip I was expecting to make a few weeks ago. We’re going through security checkpoint number one and all these Haitians are trying to cut me in line to get through the metal detector and one lady who shows up in front of me keeps trying to shove my duffle off the belt so her bag can go through the x-ray scanner first. Megan steps back and yells at these people in Creole, “We are all going to the same place!” Haha. At security checkpoint number two an officer, or something like one, pulls my purse off the belt and rummages through it rather intensely. After another minute of this I look at Megan, and starting to get annoyed say, “I have never had anybody rifle through my stuff like this. What is he looking for??” She doesn’t know. And half a minute later he finds what he’s looking for… a pocketknife thing with giant plier claws hanging off the front of it. I am HORRIFIED! It got in there earlier in the week when we were moving the very last load from the old house and I used it to cut the mosquito net off our bed. When I was done, I just threw it in my purse. And now here I am trying to bring a knife onto our airplane. Oops… Good thing it wasn’t still there when we went through checkpoint number 3, right?

Once we’re inside the terminal with plenty of time to spare before our flight we grab some coffee and I spot a group of Methodists with their matching red shirts. (Don’t shoot me, but some of the matching shirts I’ve seen short-term church and mission groups wear have been atrocious. Thanks for the laughs guys. [I guess in this case though it is helpful because I’ve been trying to find Methodists since I’ve been here.]) Megan and I go talk to these fine people before boarding our plane to the land of the free, home of the brave, etc.

We make it to Miami and seat ourselves at a Mexican restaurant just in time to see that the verdict of the Casey Anthony trial is about to be read. Both of us are like, who is this exactly? What did she do again?... Since we’ve been living in Haiti which is similar to living under a rock. We quickly surmise that she has killed her child. Hm. (Or not, according to the jury) Welcome back.

Looking around this airport with eyes used to seeing Haiti, Haiti, and more Haiti but eyes that have also grown up in America, half the time I spend going about our layover (and the rest of the trip for that matter) as though this were very normal. The other half I am in awe of all the things around me. This airport has more infrastructure and contains more technology than the whole city of Port au Prince, best I can tell. We’re sitting in this fancy wine bar having a glass of wine outside our gate before the plane shows up and there’s music playing through a sound system. No doubt there is different music playing in the shop next door that is different from the shop next to it. They’re all air conditioned. This place is impeccably furnished and decorated, there are fancy wine dispenser gadgets because in America we don’t have to pour our own wine, the technology can do it for us. For the first time in over a month it’s the middle of the afternoon and we’re not drowning in our own sweat. We sit and talk about this strange place; and the place we just came from.

After we land in New Orleans I’m in the not very large bathroom near baggage claim and have another very distinct moment of, what is going on? I look up and notice that there are more lights in this not very large bathroom than there are in our entire house, our very nice house. The toilet flushes automatically taking the toilet paper with it before I can even get my shorts up. Most people in this world can’t even flush their toilets. And if I knew what I thought about this, I would tell you what I thought about this. But instead I can only share my observations and let you tell me what you think because that’s what I spent the rest of the trip puzzling over – what do I think about this? What does this mean?

On Thursday, Megan and I are driving to New Orleans so we can fly out in the morning. We make a pit stop in Baton Rouge so that I can see a doctor at the hospital just to check on my abscesses and make sure everything is all good. He takes one look at it and is like, “Oh yea, that’s staph.” I feel like my head is getting sucked into a vacuum, like the room is wooshing past me. I can’t believe that this is staph, that I’ve had it not knowing what it was for at least two weeks and taking whatever meds. The doctor says my Haitian doctor did a good job with the I&D and assures me that its fine to go back to Haiti before loading me down with the appropriate medications to take.

I drive back to New Orleans while Megan sleeps next to me in the passenger seat and my head is back in that vacuum. I think about my friends who have been in the hospital from staph and how serious this stuff can get. I feel overcome with how blessed I am to have my legs right now in good working order. In fact I’m tearing up a little bit over it (Megan wakes up just in time to see that and laugh).

It all comes clearly into focus for me how God has been working out everything for our good here: From leading us to this new house just before our lease ran out on the old one; where Thorsten lives upstairs who just finished building a beautiful school and is helping us with supplies and machinery for ours, and where my very competent and sweet doctor lives across the street and checked on me everyday when I was sick. I think of God keeping the staph from gnawing my legs off, of all the people that prayed for me in English and in Creole. Us making a random trip to the states just in time to get some meds and have my leg looked at. God turning our day-to-day adventures, and mistakes, into good things like the mango curry bomb incident or that time we got pulled over at a police checkpoint and things should not have gone well for us, but went fine and we made our appointment. Now the school is starting and everything is coming together. And we KNOW this isn’t by our own power. It just couldn’t be. The things that happen here are too great, too random, too incredible to be accomplished by what any person is doing. God is demonstrating his power and his deep love for his people.

We take things so day-by-day here. Unlike in America, we don’t have our days scheduled out down to the hour, we just can’t. Sometimes that can be a bit frustrating, but God makes it work; we can follow where he leads us because we don’t already have this clear idea plotted out that we’re dead set on of where we want to go. Life in Haiti has been beautiful, messy, hard, and so so difficult for me to explain. But it all just felt clear and peaceful and right in my soul when I had that time to step back from my Haiti life, the chaos of being in the middle of it, and see what it has been; what God has done.

I leave in exactly 3 weeks (I think). I cannot believe how fast this summer has flown by. I’m in awe of what God has done here right before my very eyes; in this place, in and through Megan’s life, and in my own. And I’m excited to see what lies ahead in the next 21 days.

Family Photos

"Got Money on My Mind"

On a plane back to the states from Haiti a few months ago, my very own Megan was in a particularly bad mood – cranky, dirty, hungry, etc. After she sits down in her seat, some guy comes and takes his seat next to her. He begins to talk to her and she thinks to herself, “Gee, I really wish he would quit talking to me, I’m certainly NOT in the mood for this today.” She’s very short with him, but he keeps talking. Her interest is peeked when he says that he’s in Haiti for vacation. Who goes to Haiti for vacation? ...He used to live there. She then finds out he’s the old head of a very BIG branch of the UN in Haiti. At the end of the flight, they exchange contact info and he says he’ll look her up when he comes back to Haiti.

Well he actually does. And flashforward to Thursday night, Megan and I are heading into PAP to have dinner with him. Let’s call him Carlos Santana.

I didn’t know if I would be able to make it with my leg issues, but I feel pretty good and won’t be doing much walking anyway. Someone from a team left behind a pretty floor-length dress which I now claim as my own and it does a great job of covering up the suspect spots on my legs. We hire a car that afternoon to our hotel in Petionville. Petionville is one of the nicest parts of Haiti and while our actual room is pretty basic, the pool area/restaurant/bar area is GORGEOUS. Its decorated marvelously and the view from the terraces looks like it could be in California. We go have a little afternoon snack of chicken sandwiches with cheese on them, complete with a side of French fries.

We notice a group of people nearby, rather gangster looking people, start to gather and grow in number. Then some cameras show up and other equipment – all of which leads us to believe there is to be a music video shot at our hotel very soon. I get up to go to the bathroom and on the way run into two gangster looking folks who say hello and I take this opportunity to find out what is going on. They introduce themselves as like Sniper and Swift Kick (I find out later his name is actually Straight Shot) or something like that. We have in fact stumbled onto the set of their music video, and they would like very much for us to be in it. Hahahaha. I think this is just too good/funny to be true. But sure enough when Megan and I are laying out at the pool a bit later there is a camera rolling with Straight Shot rapping into it about having money on his mind. Some other rapper who’s name is O-gun comes and sits by us at the pool and strikes up quite the conversation. I’m very entertained watching the video girls setting up in their strategic booty-shaking locations around the pool. However, it is soon time for us to be going to get ready for dinner so we excuse ourselves but promise to come back after we’ve gotten dressed. This feels more appropriate; who comes straight out of the bush looking like a wild woman with no makeup on and then is in a music video anyway?

We go back to the room and get dressed. It is SO good to have makeup on my face again and my hair down and a dress on!! We go back to the pool/restaurant area and find our rapper friends hanging out. They’re in between shooting the pool scenes and the club scenes. We go down to this “club” area where the next shots are supposed to happen and feel like we’re back in America. There are a bunch of couches, a nice bar, and flat screen tv’s all around showing ESPN. Woah. We sit with Straight Shot for awhile and chat; we decide he’s cool enough to be our friend and exchange numbers. (He’s doing a show here in Gressier/Leogane on July 17^th and he called this morning and said he’s getting us backstage passes, after inviting us to go to Jacmel this week, haha.) Mr. Santana then gives us a ring and is here to pick us up, so we go back to the lobby area to meet him.

Carlos Santana is a very good looking man, right in between Megan and me height-wise. He uses our room to change out of his suit, having been in meetings all day (including one w/the president the day before) and into something a bit more casual. He then takes us out to his car which happens to be one of those armored UN vehicles and two men with gigantic guns open the doors for us. This is all feeling a bit surreal. Megan keeps pinching my thigh and stifling giggles while we make some small talk.

For dinner we go to a restaurant called the Latin Quarter or Quatier Latin or something like that in Creole. There are tons of cars outside on the street, this is one hoppin' place. We go in and its beautiful, I feel like I’m in some hip restaurant in Miami. It feels very Cuban to me, which is strange because I’ve never been to Cuba, but you know. Also very strange is how many white people are there. We’re so not used to seeing white people, but there they all are! Its like the big white people reunion at the Latin restaurant.

For dinner I order beef medallions. My mom’s hamburgers are of better quality beef, but I don’t care because I haven’t had red meat in a month. Megan and Carl Santana get fish. Talking to Mr. Santana is a hoot. I love when he lets the juicy details of his run in the UN slip out. We have a very interesting and wonderful dinner. When we finish up we go to the back bar for a drink and there is a great Latin band playing; they are SO good. And Carlos Santana knows everyone of them, ha. As we get glasses of wine, Mr. Santana runs into some other important person that he knows who’s wife happens to be the head of a very large international humanitarian organization (WFP). Then he starts talking to me. He’s French and adorable. Megan and Carlos Santana go hit the crowded dance floor so me and the French guy do the same. It is too fun! Then Megan dances with a Haitian who’s got quite the moves which leaves me to dance with CS, who is a bit awkward. And at this point I really just want to sit down because I feel like my foot has swollen up a bit, so that’s exactly what I do right when the song ends.

As we sit and sip, Megan and I wonder where we are exactly because this just couldn’t be Haiti. This train of thought is cut short however by the next boys that want to dance. A boy from Argentina comes up and starts chatting. His English isn’t awesome and neither is my Spanish so we kind of struggle to communicate, but he’s precious and I really appreciate him trying! So I dance with him and then am done for the night. I run into my French friend on the way to the car as he is backing out in his Land Rover thing. I go to shake his hand through the window and he grabs it and instead plants a giant kiss on my hand. Haha, how French.

Back at the hotel, Megan and I crash hard, exhausted from being rap stars and international diplomats.

The next morning we get up and go sit out on the terrace for breakfast. Breakfast is MARVELOUS. We get real coffee, fresh squeezed juice, fruit, and eggs. I have a Creole omelette that is just divine. I think that we have stumbled into a little slice of heaven. We also giggle about the night before. When we get in the car on the way home, we tell our driver (Moliaire, our favorite driver) about our adventures. He gets excited and tells us he's seen our rapper friends on tv before, so they're legit. Haha, what a life. Perfect.

I&D

During one of our visits to Thorsten, we found out that a doctor lives across the street from us in our new house (ain’t that lucky). When I first started feeling sick, that’s who I went to go see last Sunday. He gave me some meds, ordered me to rest, and then said that he would do perform an I and D on my abscess in a week. I&D being incision and drain, cut me open and push all the crud out of my abscess. Ew. Come Wednesday though, the thing hurts like flaming Hades and looks like its ready to pop right open so Megan helps me across the street to get the doctor. He comes out and takes a look at the beast and says, “Ok, I’ll do it later.” And I’m like WHAT? Because I think he means later as in, its not ready yet... try again later in the week. But he reassures me that he means today and says he’ll get his tools and slicers and such ready and be over in a little bit. So we turn around to go home. I plop down on our bed and wait.

A little less than an hour later, he comes to the gate. And can I just take this opportunity to say what an amazing guy I think Doctor Frantz is? He is Haitian but speaks wonderful English, works in a clinic in a neighboring town, he’s funny, and he is darn good looking. What a guy! (He still checks up on me almost daily) I really couldn’t have picked out a better doctor to cut on me here if I had to. So anyway, I ask where he wants me to sit or whatever and he says the bed is fine. I lay down. I’m starting to feel very nervous. This thing HURTS and I can’t imagine cutting on it will make my sensory experiences more pleasant. Doctor F asks me if I’m ready, and I think, “aw what the heck,” and give a somewhat enthusiastic Yes…!

I didn’t want to make this too big of an affair, but I guess it just wouldn’t be my style if it didn’t turn out that way. So Megan has decided to be the junior doctor is running around the room excitedly scrubbing up and gathering supplies. At first I said no pictures, but then decided maybe pictures would be kinda cool, so DJ comes in with her super fancy camera to capture the memories. She stands next to me and I wrap my hand firmly around her thigh so I have something to squeeze on. Someone turns on the ipod speaker to some soothing Norah Jones. So we’re all in position, and here we GO.

I wrote the first sentence and then deleted it because I realized this is really graphic. I’m not sure if yall really want to hear all the nitty gritty details. So the short of it anyway is that I get jabbed on with at least 4 needles and then get my abscess cut open, as promised, and all the goods come out just like a piñata. All the while I’m trying not to scream because it is probably the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life. I don’t actually cry like making sobbing noises (except for one time...) or anything but tears involuntarily shoot out of my eyes and run down into my ears. At some point, Megan yells, “What’s your favorite song!?!” As calmly as I can, reply, “My favorite song is Electric Feel by MGMT.” And she promptly runs to the ipod speaker and begins blasting Electric Feel. Its really weird, I’m not sure whether I’m at some super fun party or if I’m actually getting operated on in my bedroom in Haiti.

Eventually, after I really don’t know how long, its over. He wraps me up and I lay there for a minute before sitting up to survey the damage. Its pretty gross, so I’ll spare you those details on this part too. My adrenaline is pumping hard so I’m feeling really cool at this point thinking about how tough and bad-a its going to be to tell the story of my 3^rd world operation. I thank the good and wonderful doctor profusely; he really did a remarkable job on everything.

After he leaves, I lay back down and let things die down. I notice that my right leg is hurting worse than the left, which just got cut on. This strikes me as odd, and ominous. Megan comes to have a look at it and squeezes on it to get some of the juice out which hurts like MAD. She finishes up and the pain is overwhelming. My adrenaline is gone; I don’t feel cool anymore, just exhausted. And on the verge of tears. They sneak up on me really quick and just start rolling out of my eyes. I wimper at Megan that I just want to be alone for a little while, so she turns up the music and leaves the room.

And I bawl like a baby. I cry for how much I’m hurting, for how traumatizing the last hour has been, I cry for how miserable I’ve been the past week, and for how alone I’ve felt sometimes being in this far away, strange place with all the familiar comforts stripped away.

I hardly ever cry. Its like I'm outside of myself watching me cry and wondering what is this thing this girl is doing. I think the sound of my sobbing is the strangest thing. Its such a weird and foreign noise to me, so pathetic and sad sounding. I struggle to remember the last time I REALLY cried like this, a good bone-shaking cry that wells up from some unknown place deep inside. (I conclude that had to have been when I broke up with my first boyfriend). I let it ALL out right there, and its liberating in so many ways.

Its in these moments where you come to the end of yourself that you can see the truth most clearly, that God is there, sustaining and providing for you moment by moment. I felt him holding me in the palm of his hand.

A little while later, Megan comes back and takes me to the beauty parlor (aka our bathroom) and washes my hair for me. Then she makes me some delicious mashed potatoes and I go to sleep, so tired from the day. I’m very thankful to have to her take time out of the busyness to be my nurse.

(Sorry Mom & Grandma etc. if that traumatized you. You’ll be happy to know that I’m doing MUCH better now and am totally on the mend. I had a really great post-op vacation… stay tuned.) Oh and I really need to get a present for the doc because he still hasn't charged me a dime for anything. Let me know if you have suggestions!!

Moving Day

After meeting with Thorsten last week and the bier for breakfast thing (ha), we agree to move into our new place the following Monday. Come Monday, we are very excited to get this show on the road. Everyone that is home and capable (which is actually only two people) is running around packing up the massive amount of stuff that has accumulated in our house. I, on the other hand, sit on the floor next to Godzilla (my gargantuan suitcase) and put my belongings into him and a few other proximal items that I can hobble over to. All the while I am loathing this abscess, the chronic pain its causing me, and the very unhelpful sack of potatoes it has turned me into.

Finally, in the afternoon, the taptap arrives to take our first load of stuff. We know from the get go that this is going to take multiple loads and multiple days but, we’re moving, YAY! We pile our things and ourselves in and take off for our awesome new white house.

When we pull up, we happily greet Thorsten who opens the front gate for us. Megan at some point says to him, “Your life is never going to be the same.” Boy, ain’t that true. Two loud girls, a toddler that throws monumental tantrums, and a 7 year old girl that speaks no English moving in downstairs does tend to change the dynamic of a living environment a bit.

Once everything is unloaded, I look around and ask everyone what they want for dinner. I suggested earlier that we have gumbo (Zattarain’s of course) and that’s when I realize, we don’t have the hot plate. And then I look through the food that we managed to grab as we were running out of the door. What I find is Pringles, some nut mix cleverly named NUTrition, a bag of prunes, Cheezeits, Ritz cheese sandwiches, and a bunch of box dinners I grabbed that can only be cooked on a stovetop. I am highly annoyed at this discovery. I settle for some NUTrition and Pringles for dinner. A bit later I get up to go to the bathroom and discover that we have forgotten to bring toilet paper. Awkward. I remember that I have some paper towels left in Godzilla from when my shampoo spilled back in Florida and those suffice. But then when I’m done, I see that we haven’t brought any trashcans with us and there is nowhere for me to throw my used paper towel wipes… hm. Little piles of dirt and crumbs start accumulating on the floor and soon I’m just dying to sweep a bit. That’s when I discover that, oh, we left the broom at the other house as well.

I go back to the front porch to snack on a Cheezit or two and someone suggests that we grab a couple of Prestiges to celebrate moving today. I think that is a great idea and I make a mental agreement with myself that I will be totally fine and not annoyed or cranky by the fact that we neglected to bring some very key items along with us this first trip. Just give me a Prestige and I will be quiet and happy.

Now normally, I would just go to the corner store/shack myself and buy the beer. I even wanted to go to the old house earlier and grab the cook top and just make a good ol’ dinner for everyone. However, my legs don’t work so I sit out on the porch and wait. A million things are going on, as usual, and it seems the beer has been forgotten. So I keep sitting there. I know that if I ask again for the beer run to commence, I will be annoying and no one wanted to go back to the old house for the cook top before the sun set. I know there are more important things going on. Usually its totally ok because I can just do it myself, or get up and go amuse myself some other way. But now I can’t. So I keep sitting there. And I get to thinking; thinking about how ANNOYED I am that we didn’t even bring TOILET PAPER and I have to eat PRINGLES for dinner and my leg hurts and I’m sick of being a stinking CRIPPLE!! And so after about 45 minutes I stand up and announce that I don’t care, I’m going to the store myself! But DJ stops me and Megan notices me now that I’m standing and they sit the old crank back into her plastic deck chair and go to the store. A few minutes later they come back and I can see that what they are carrying looks much more like plastic Tampico bottles than Prestige bottles... The store is out.

My head threatens to spin off my body because I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with myself now!! I think at the back of my mind, over anything and everything else, I feel the most upset that I don’t even have my health anymore. The infection in my body has taken such a physical, mental, and even a steep emotional toll. I just want to help, that’s what I came here to do. But now I know that I'm more of a burden than anything else. But then, in the middle of my spiral, its almost like someone taps me on the shoulder and says, “Look around you.”

I look around and see this BEAUTIFUL house that we are SO lucky to have found because God told us to talk to some random guy that we ran past one day. We have electricity and internet. I have a shower to look forward to that I don’t have go outside and draw out of the well first. The toilets flush and water comes out of the sinks. I have a bed to sleep in and decent clothes to wear. Maybe I didn’t have awesome choices for dinner, but I ate; and by golly, we did remember to bring the drinking water! And then I was reminded that this is for ONE night only. The other things will come with the other loads.

I feel very humbled. And a little ashamed.
And then at peace knowing that I am loved and provided for by a God who gives us our daily bread. He knows what I need even before I ask him. He knows what I need better than I do myself. And he graciously gives, and gives, and gives.

The Haitian people don’t have very much; next to nothing really. It was hard for me to grasp how much they don’t have coming from my world of excess. But they are so incredibly happy, they are so incredibly rich in spirit. Especially the children we work with who are always playing and laughing. They melt my heart when they wrap their arms around my legs, smile up at me and shower me with hugs and laughter. And I’m always taken aback by how thankful everyone is. They’re so quick to thank us for teaching them, playing with them, or even taking time to sit and talk with them. The people I've met aren’t driven by their desire to get, get, get.

It magnifies for me just how unhappy I am with our materialistic culture in the US. It's sad to watch all of the things that are sacrificed in favor of money and a bunch of stuff that isn't going to last and can't go with you when you die. So many expend their time and energy to make more money in order to buy more things that they believe are going to make life better. You really have to ask, better in what sense? In many ways, life in the US is so much better than in Haiti. But then, in so many ways, it really isn't.

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world, but lose your own soul? (Mark 8:36)