The Streets of Port Au Prince

We got up extra early and headed out with Pastor and our translators for an early morning tour of Port Au Prince. We rolled out around 630 so the traffic would be calmer and the crowds lessened. Our fearless leader, Steve, was all about keeping us out of sticky situations. I pulled out my camera for a few pictures but he had just about scared me silly about taking pictures on the streets so some of these I stole from Katie (she didn't follow the "no pictures" rule!)

My first glance of the streets:

Pastor L. took us on a short walk to see his school. It was completely destroyed by 2010's earthquake. If I heard him correctly, he was there during the quake and several classmates were killed.

It's hard to believe that so much rubble is still there. Even harder to believe that students were once schooled right here.
I think what struck me so hard was how the city was still in shambles. Two years. It's been two years and there were piles of who-knows-what everywhere.
We headed to a catholic cathedral that was destroyed. I was a good rule follower and took my pictures through a crack in the tap tap's window. I wasn't about to cause a "dust up" as Steve would say :)
We all piled out of the tap taps and looked around a bit. So many "blancs" in one spot definitely turned some heads. Moms with babies came out of nowhere to ask for money, food....anything. It broke my heart to tell them I had nothing to give them. I really didn't. I had my camera bag and that was all. Once again I was reminded of the blessings I have....how abundant and so undeserved.
More of the street sides:
Homes. People live here. Can you believe this is just a short plane ride from the The Land of Plenty?
So many people were displaced from the earthquake and while some things have been rebuilt, housing is still obviously a huge problem.
The Presidential Palace was still not repaired. I'm pretty sure there was a liveable wing somewhere in this huge place.

Just across the street from the grandiose Palace was a tent city. Hundreds and hundreds of people living in side by side tents.

As we drove through the city there were tents everywhere. Acres and acres of them. I remember flying into Port Au Prince and being able to see this from the airplane.

Men and women alike were carrying large tubs on their heads full of miscellaneous things. I'm always amazed no matter how many times I see it. I think I may have poked Ashley no less than 20 times and said, "Can you believe they are balancing that on their heads??? I can't even stand it!"
I even saw a guy running across the street with a coffin. Well that's just not something you see every day....or any day in my life prior to this one!
Gaelleson, our translator, told us about a terrible wreck that happened at an intersection just one week prior to our arrival. He said that twenty-eight people died. What was unimaginable was that most of the wreckage was still there! Motorcycles, parts of cars all charred, crazy wire and junk just haphazardly strewn around.
Our walk through Port was short and sweet. While I would have loved to look around more, the streets quickly filled with people. Some with friendly faces, a lot with hard gazes. Safe was one thing I really didn't feel. I was thankful to Pastor, Gaelleson, and Sandro for sharing a little piece of their stories surrounding the earthquake. And seeing it firsthand, even 2 years later, will be something that sticks in my mind forever. On to WellBeing!

Heading to Well Being

I wish I could say that I woke at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning but the truth is that it was much, much earlier. Who knew that Haiti had so many roosters that don't know how to correctly do their job?? I woke to cock-a-doodle-doo-ing starting at about 3:30 in the morning. Stephanie, whom I did not know at all at the time, sat up in bed and said, "I really want to get up and punch that thing in the beak!" That was the first of many laughs that she got out of me!

We got to meet our translators Sandro and Gaelleson. They traveled with us everywhere we went and thankfully so. I was amazed at how bright both of these young men were!

We had heard about the Haitian tap taps via our conference calls but didn't really know what to expect. I googled "tap tap" and found a picture of quite a few fun and colorful ones. Here's one I stole:Our tap taps were not nearly as cheery. I would describe it as your uncle's 1981 run down s-10 topped with a shanty cab and completed with unreliable wooden benches surrounded by metal bars in direct contact with your spine. Add in some really awful roads that desperately need the attention of a Haiti Department of Transportation and you can imagine what we all looked like when we emerged.

We were beyond ready to get moving and love on some kids though!

We had been prepared beforehand of the condition of the orphanage we were heading to. I'm glad we were, but I still felt totally unprepared when we got there. We came pretty much empty handed and these kids had nothing. We spent most the entire time there on the first day just giving out love and hugs. Here's the chicken coop/bathroom (it was just a squatty and I saw more than one kid just pottying wherever.)
The back of the orphanage: baby crib, clothesline, and their non-working water well.
Samantha made a quick friend!
Pretty much upon arrival I used Steve's handy dandy trauma fanny pack to do a little wound cleaning. This boy, Jameson, had a nasty burn on his leg and it was filthy.

It wasn't hard to find someone that needed some hugging.
This is the other side of the orphanage. When I looked back at my pictures I thought, "man, I didn't take many at Well Being!". The truth is, there was really nothing to take pictures of. This place was bare bones.
I happened upon the shower area by accident. As I was passing by, I noticed that there was one boy dumping a bucket of water over another. No soap. No rag. No towel. Just cold, and probably dirty, water.
Sam and Fabiola

I noticed some boys sitting away from everyone else so I went to ask them to play with us. I was quickly corrected by a man that helps at the orphanage. He said, "These boys don't belong here. They are bad. They teach the little ones bad things." Then he shooed them and chased them off. I felt really sad for them. I know they just wanted a part in the fun but I also had to respect the rules of the orphanage.

The dust in Haiti was indescribable. I had dirt boogers by noon every day and we got a good laugh one afternoon when I removed my sunglasses and looked like a raccoon. This little boy is a good example of how the dust and dirt were inescapable.
Kari, one of our team's leaders, was/is big loving BIG and her inviting smile (which we learned a LOT about later :) ) was a kid magnet for sure!
We were present for lunch which consisted of an enormous pile of rice and some mangos. I was shocked to see that some of those kids could eat all of that rice. Then again, it's generally their one big meal of the day. I guess I'd eat all I could while it was in front of me, too. Even more shocking than the kids eating ALL their food was how patient they all were. Not one kid even so much as touched their plate before everyone was served and the blessing was said. Unbelievable. Most of the time at my house the kids are 3/4 of the way finished with their meal before I even get to sit down. Looks like I'm going to use Haiti kids as an example for my own!
Some of our team spent several hours the first day at market buying food for the orphanage. We got them huge bags of rice and beans and about 20 chickens.
All the kids happily helped carry the food.

That was our first day....loving and playing with kids. Day 2 would bring a big feast at lunch, a little handy work, and some last minute crafting. One of my last sights that day was this little girl, all smiles, wearing one very large dress shoe and one kid's size flip flop. Shoes there were few and far between.
I'll admit this day was a long one. Hindsight would have had us doing more planning for our days here long before we left the United States. The bottom line is, though, that the kids didn't mind. Bored isn't something that comes easily when you've never had a single thing to entertain you anyway. Touch, love, and smiles were the best and only gifts we could hand out on this first day and I truly believe that that is exactly what God intended.

Haiti Here We Come!

It's hard to believe that the months of preparation leading up to this trip had passed and I was actually on my way to Haiti! It seemed like just a short time ago that I sat in my seat at church, watched a video from Operation Christmas Child (those things are killer!!), and sat forward, locked eyes with Ashley and said, "Let's go to Haiti!". By mid-day that Sunday we were both signed up and committed.

I rolled up out of the bed at 2:47 (because I wanted to get every last second of sleep) and showered, ready to head out and pick up my comrades. I was determined not to forget any of them as my dreams had indicated. I had 3 dreams in my few hours of sleep: one where I forgot Samantha, one where I got to the airport and didn't have Amanda, and the last that I was sleeping soundly when Ashley showed up at my door panicked because we only had 30 minutes to make our flight. Thank goodness none of those were indicators of our morning!

We entered Nashville International with over 300lbs of formula that we had collected for the Mother's Milk program we'd be partnering with in Haiti. We were quite nervous about our bags, hoping that all of them would be able to make it. As always, God showed up and sent Robert, the very helpful and cordial American Airlines worker who took me by the hand with all of our Nashville gals' passports, bypassed a looooong, long line of waiting passengers, personally entered all our info and got our boarding passes, tagged every one of our bags and sent them on the conveyor without even weighing them! And, because details are so important, we had to pay extra money for the extra bags: $120. Cash donations were given specifically for that. Do you know how much we had? Yep. $120. God is good. All the time.

We made it safely to Miami where we were able to meet up with the rest of our team. After our conference calls where our co-leader, Steve, was mysteriously absent yet he was continually praised and referred to as "Jack Bauer", we fully expected him to repel down from the airport ceiling or better yet, chase our airplane down the runway where he would miraculously find his way on the flight through the emergency door. Needless to say we were a bit disappointed to see him walk up as a mere human. It wouldn't take us long to realize that he didn't earn his nickname Jack Bauer for nothing. He turned out to be pretty amazing.

Smooth flight and decent into Haiti. Here's my first look:

The airport in Port Au Prince was a bit sketchy to say the least. People were everywhere trying to "help" us with our bags. We blindly followed a man with a crumpled up piece of paper that said, "Heartline" only to find out that the real person we were suppose to follow had a REAL sign. First lesson, if the sign is in pencil on a crumpled piece of paper it's probably not legit. Oh well. No harm done that time. We arrived just in time for a Haitian dinner at the guesthouse in Port Au Prince. Thus started my diet of "not much" for the next seven days. Thank goodness for rice, American peanut butter, and Luna Bars!

After a pretty exhausting travel day we turned in early. Amanda and I were separated from the group and had to room with 9 strangers and a huge cockroach. We were thankful for a bed though and were ready to get some shut eye.
I got under my net, got settled into my sleep sack and prayed for the day that was ahead.
In the morning we'd head to WellBeing Orphanage, home to about 30 precious children with nothing but smiles. Travel Day was a success but the true Haitian experience would start then. Bring on the tap tap!

Flashin' Back to Prom

Bobby and I had a spectacular party planned for December but much to my chagrin, life had other plans for us on party night. Instead of gazing into each other's eyes under the disco ball, we were tag teaming vomit clean-up as our four children simultaneously came down with a stomach virus. It was a total barforama and I spent the entire weekend covered in a haze of lysol spray.

So, reschedule to January. And here we are, Prom Party, Take Two! Everyone chose a decade and ran with it. Bobby and I were, errr, 50's??

Wes and Samantha
Who says airbrush isn't in style?
Mike and Kelly.....ummmm, super creepy stalker.
Rednecks Leslie and Marty
These two take the cake: Joe Dirt and his Stepford wife
Oh my goodness. Being quick with the camera pays off sometimes. In this case, Jason put the squeeze (and an awful face) on A'lyce and the image turned out to be priceless!! I'm still able to laugh out loud when I look at it!
And the more mature pose:
I give Amanda and Jesse the cute award. She was total prom queen and he was, well, a little on the dorky side. My favorite was his white socks :)
Brent and his fo' real 'stache. If he ever decided to keep that thing I'd seriously reconsider letting him hold Elaina.
Brad and Ashley: Ash could actually make it to a modern day prom in that dress. I didn't think it was too bad. Brad, on the other hand, would've fit right in at the Shadybrook Cinemas.
I love getting together with friends and I especially love all the laughter that comes when we're all dressed in our best.
After a soup, salad, and sandwich dinner we headed downstairs to cut a rug. And, yes, there was totally a disco ball. I mean, it canNOT be prom without a disco ball!!

In the next room there was Wii Dance Party and stiff competiton.

If Ash could photoshop that mustache this would be a super precious picture :)
Prom's also not complete without a little slow dancing. I totally went back to the day that Bobby swayed me on the Central High School gym floor and sang me John Michael Montgomery's "I Swear". I was a little more wooed then than I was now. Almost 18 years later I'd say we just need to let John Michael sing his own song..... but it was super sweet the first time at real prom :)
Brad and Ashley did a little slow dancing, too.
It wasn't just the girls that got their boogie on. The guys were in heated competition as well!
About 9:30 things got crazy 'round these parts.
I'm one hundred percent convinced that my dress was on Dancing With the Stars. It had the little finger hookies on it and man, did it twirl! Look at it go!
Not to mention it had total Madonna cones in it.
Quick pic of some gals after Samantha did her own Project Runway re-do design of her sequined gown. An American Flag tank always works with a fitted sequined mermaid skirt.
Another snapshot:
I thought I'd have a little photo of a couple gals and myself. It was unbeknownst to me that someone was disgustingly stealing my photo thunder. There's ALWAYS one of those pictures that you find only AFTER the pics are downloaded. Praise the Lord I didn't turn around and see what was beside my face. Some things are better left to find out later.
So much baby blue.
Have you ever seen a man in a mullet and a white tux with tails Tebowing? Now you have.
Prom wouldn't be Prom without a King and a Queen. After a very high tech voting system of red solo cups and ripped paper, the final count tallied Joe Dirt as King and Little Bo Peep as the Queen.
Both were more than deserving.
A'lyce thought she'd be all cute and wear Jason's little bow tie around her neck towards the end of the night. It was all well and good until she found out it was Bobby's. Can you say awwwwkwarrrd :)
A little pic:
Here's the final shot of all the gals.
It wouldn't be right not to have one more look at Kelly's totally ginormous dress.
And, a final of all the guys:
Prom 2012 will go down as quite memorable. I always have a great time spending time with my crew. I can't wait until the next one!