For all you mom's out there--we. are. alive. All nine of us. Kevin might be a little sick of all the girl talk, but let's be honest. He is WINNING by a landslide for MVP this week. We started our morning just like the last with a wonderful pancake breakfast by the Haitian women. We had a really good conversation last night which led a couple of us to struggle to get up--whoops! When in Haiti--right?! After our breakfast we went to a small market where we got to shop some of the homemade items from our Haitian friends to take home! It was such an awesome experience, but definitely reminds us of all the hard work these people do.
Secondly we loaded our tap tap and head to Cite (City) Soleil (Sol-lay). This is home of the largest slum in the Western Hemisphere and Hope Church (Healing Haiti's church). We got there and drove through this town, I wish I could put into words for you what this looked like, but I thought of adjectives all day and none really fit, but these are the ones I thought best represented what we saw. It is dirty, there is trash virtually everywhere and at least a foot high. There was some progression such as a backhoe cleaning a stream out and moving it. However, there is SO much trash that this really isn't making a dent. It is smelly, it smells like burnt trash and sewage, but you can really see the hope in this place and the way God is working. We then took a small tour of the Hope church grounds, we got to see some of the classrooms (but not many as we didn't want to disturb the school children), and we got to talk to Alicia at the clinic about all the work they have done in a short amount of time. They see anywhere from 70-100 patients a day.....Avera totally needs to step up their game or get out of the way. We finally saw the water truck and that meant it was time to snuggle some babies (some naked babies) and get wet. We all took our turns snuggling babies and carrying water for the women. We only got to do one stop with the water truck as we had to get back to shower to go to the home for the sick and dying babies.
However we did get to take a tour of the Fleri Farms outside of town. Here we got a tour from our interpreter, Val, we got to see many different types of tropical fruits. We all then got to taste and sample coconuts--we all learned we are not candidates for survivor we do NOT like the coconut water and the texture of the coconut. We then came back and all had to quick shower. I know what you are thinking, 8 girls-3 showers- 30 minutes. It was like a reality show, but we got it done and were in the Tap-Tap waiting. Really, you all should be impressed.
We then took an adventure to the home for sick and dying babies. This was the hardest emotionally, although we could not go into the super sick room because of the diseases and the poor immune systems, we did get to feed the small children. It is so hard for me to write on this blog what we did, but I'm sure if you talk to any of us we could explain this situation through our eyes much better. After feeding them we did have a little time to take them out to play or just cuddle and love them up. We came home, had supper, and then had our team time.
We are all super exhausted tonight and are all showered and heading to bed. We are alive, well, and ready for another day doing God's work in this beautiful place.
With Love from Haiti,
The Coo Girls (and Kevin)
