Wednesday

Did you EVER think I was going to finish this story??

Good grief. These days are not slowing down.  They are full and fulfilling, but this story needs to be finished so someday we can let them read this and have them fill us in on their perspectives and stories during this time.  Ours is just part of the story...

Wednesday started much like Monday and Tuesday. Slow and relaxed.  Today though we knew Josie would be coming back mid-morning to take us to Amessanitha and Dania's school to give a "presentation."  Josie had asked us to talk about United States culture to the 7th and 8th grade classes.  The US being as it is, doing a single cultural presentation, isn't possible.  We, the land of multitudes. So we decided to do Kansas culture, which had us looking for things to share about this state we have called home.  We decided to talk about agriculture, industries, school systems and extra curricular activities.  Without a real game plan, we figured we'd just talk and then let them ask questions!
We woke up that morning having slept probably the best we had so far.  I don't know if it was a quieter evening or we had just acclimated to the sounds.  Both of our bodies just hurt though.  Mostly joint pain and we didn't really know why except we had hardly moved for a week and our diet was pretty carb heavy each day.  Speaking of the food...Josie and Sylvania were giving us EVERY GOOD THING!  It was just awesome.  I think we ate every authentic, traditional Haitian food that was.

Josie came back around 1030 and we were off to Margaret's school up the road.  I had no idea that Margaret Bernard(Thomas's) wife had started this school 18 years ago! When Josie said she worked at Margaret's school, I just assumed that was the school associated with the church. Josie works at the 7/8th grade supervisor and we went to speak with the 8th grade class first.  We shared a few things and then let them ask questions.  It was great!  Lots of good questions.  We then went to the 7th grade class, which is Amessanitha's class!  We gave our little talk and then the questions started and it was so fun!  We told them we were married almost 20 years much to their surprise.  One of the girls asked in creole if we had ever thought about divorce in all those years. HA!  We all laughed!  The look on everyone else's faces were so  great.  Once we were done, their next class was English and the teacher wasn't there yet so they asked if we could teach them.  We were not prepared to do that, but just had them introduce themselves in English, did some vocab of colors and seasons and then did nouns around the room. So fun!  We then took a tour of all the classrooms and went back to the office and chatted with Margaret for awhile.  Amazing what she has done over 18 years!  She started with 1 student the first year, 2 the 2nd year and then added from there!  It's a "middle class" school so all the parents pay for tuition and uniforms, etc.
We headed back to the house, had a late lunch of fried okra, manba, crackers and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. We laid down until Amessanitha came home and then proceeded to just observe them through what we now know is their routine. It is such a gift to us now that we are home to know what they do each night.  I can see them in their space, doing their homework, eating dinner.  Their schoolwork is intense.  They basically memorize entire portions of textbooks. They work so hard and Haitian school is more challenging then any US school we have seen.  It made us talk about where it will be best for them when they come.  We shall see!
For dinner we had vegetables and beef with national rice and beans and Prestige.
What was going to be a lesson or two turned into hours of work for both Amessanitha and Nickson. We have some theories about why they work so hard. They can see very vividly what not having an education looks like.  They see it every day outside their walls.
By 8:00, Amessanitha was in tears because she had so much to do and Nickson had finished and was playing with us. We felt badly, but no one else seemed to.  Josie wasn't phased and I got up a few times and walked over to the talk to hug her while she kept working.   Nickson, Chad and I played jenga and then started using them to do domino runs which he loved. He is creative!  He built different structures, made numbers and letters with the blocks, made a stick person.  It was so fun to see him do that!  If I had had it my way, Amessanitha would have been with us playing, but we really didn't feel like we could rock the boat schedule and schooling wise.  We didn't want her to get in trouble for not having her work done, but that was super tough to not just right a note to her teacher saying, "Hey, her mom and dad in town for a week and we just didn't do the homework because we were busy bonding."
We had devotions at 9:00 with songs, psalms and one of the kids sharing thoughts on a verse or two.
It's crazy to me that we were spending an ENTIRE day to maybe get a few hours of actual interaction with them and we LIVED for it.  We soaked up every bit we could.
Thursday brought some real adventure!!!