burdened to have beautiful feet...: home alone!

Let me rephrase... I have not spent the week completely home alone, but it has been a week without English conversations. Marvin and Carmen left a week ago for a workshop in Costa Rica on how to develop better prosthetic limbs. On Sunday morning, June headed to Port au Prince with a group of staff that works in our house. The group is spending the week in Leogane to receive training on wheelchair maintenance and repair, and June flew to New Orleans early Tuesday morning to attend and speak at a conference.

I have been “home alone” in a sense of being at the house only with Marie Joe. Our morning cook and her family moved into the first floor of the house for the week to help watch over things. They make sure the generator is charged everyday, help if the power goes out (which it has), assist when water comes flooding from the 3^rd floor (which it has), and keep us well fed, even when the gas runs out on the stove (which it has). All of that basically to say that it has been an adventurous week!

Monday was much less dramatic than expected. It was supposed to be the final day of the current president's rule, but because of the mess with the election, he will stay on until the beginning of May. We anticipated uprisings and protests, but our area remained fairly calm. Please continue to pray for the political situation in Haiti as they have some very important decisions to make over the next few months.

On Tuesday I had the privilege to visit another school, this time in Bouffard (I will never forget the name, because the whole way there I kept thinking, “Boo! It's too far!”). We left Centre Lumiere at 11:00, but didn't arrive in Bouffard until 1:30! The entire ride was spent in the back of an uncovered “tap tap” on winding mountain roads. Unfortunately, I have to be very careful about taking photographs out in public because it is very offensive to the Haitians. (Do you like when strangers take pictures of you?) Therefore, no photos are available to show just how dusty I was. We all looked like a vacuum cleaner bag exploded on us. The inside of my glasses were actually dustier than the outside because the wind blew it off! Esther suggested when I return to the states, I visit a doctor to “get [my] body cleaned out.”

The dusty “tap tap” ride was followed by a mountainous moto-taxi ride. Esther had to jump off the back at one point because we were going at such a sharp incline that the bike was stalling out from the weight. The pastor came halfway down the mountain to meet us, so I rode the rest of the way up with him.

When we arrived, the students at the school were working on crochet under the instruction of Wadeline. They are all first year students, and obviously very excited about the opportunity to study. They shared what they were working on and what they had been learning through their studies. I was very excited to hear the girl beside of me share that she was learning from her mistakes. In a culture that has such a traditional school system, it was refreshing to hear someone admit that their challenges were helping them to grow as a student.

I was able to see Wadeline again Wednesday morning, as this is production week at the center. This was the first production week since returning from Christmas, so the staff was expecting a big turn out. Women throughout the community come to Centre Lumiere for the self-help program, where they are taught a skill and given the materials to complete it at home and bring it back for salary. They bring their items early in the morning, and they are evaluated, corrected, and paid for the work they did. Wednesday is the day for the teachers from distant schools to bring their students work, so Wadeline brought the items made by her students. Thursday is the production day for locals. Our foyer area was full of women all day crocheting, sewing, embroidering, and having their work critiqued. Thursday is the day that the students in the school work on cooking skills, so they brought “bon bon yo” (cookies) to the ladies to snack on. Enjoy the photos below of the week's adventures!