So, I decided to stay in my jammies today. It was going to be a day of leisure. My intern is back after a 2 week break so I threw on a sports bra under my jammie tank and headed out to open the school. I got the office open, handed out vitamins, opened up the school, passed out the arts and crafts, the balls, the jump ropes, basketball, and the giant parachute and was going to head back up to my room for some coffee and a good book.
Of course the best laid plans.
So next thing you know, I'm visiting with our Poured-Out guests who are shortly going to be headed to the airport. We chat for a bit and I get a good laugh because Carlee, the beautiful, lithe, laid-back leader of the group, poured herself a coffee, embelished with a little cinnamon that turned out to be Cayenne pepper!
By the time I get back to my room, I'm covered in skeeter bites (I didn't spray because I wasn't planning on staying out there) and I'm a little sunburned (again, I didn't spray because I wasn't planning...well, you know that line already) and sweaty as all get out.
I sit down, crack open my hard boiled egg, and take a sip of my coffee.
Karma is a bitch.
And she had my name on her list.
This is why you never laugh at the misfortunes of others!
I apparently filled my cup with hot water, creamer, and sugar, and skipped the part where you stir in the spoonful of coffee crystals.
It was like drinking hot melted ice cream! Blek!
So, then I had to go relieve a crisis in the gazebo as the children put on their socks and gym shoes. 6 1/2 days a week they wear flip flops, but on Saturday mornings, they were gym shoes with socks. (Thanks again going out to New Baltimore, Michigan Parks and Rec and Rebecca Strobel for getting us all those awesome sneakers!) But of our 20 little miscreants only about 2 can tie their own shoes, so down I go to cries of "Miss Michele!" "please help me!" "I can't tie this stupid thing".
First we do the over/under. Then we make a tree. Then the rabbit runs around the tree..."Like this?" Yes, yes, yes, just like that.
So, we got 20 little pairs of feet into 20 little pairs of socks and sneakers and off to class to do their arts and crafts.
Then the rest of the teachers showed up for pay day. So then I have to go and make sure they all play nice while our director is out.
Okay, I'm heading back up to read and relax.
Wait, the power went out, I have to go start both generators.
Well, I can see I'm not going to relax today. I might as well start the inventory. We need to get next year's supplies order before the crew comes down the end of July.
So I plant myself in the third classroom and begin the arduous task of counting pencils, crayons, markers, construction paper, bottles of tacky glue, glue sticks, glitter, etc.
Somehow, I let the entire morning slip away. And still I haven't eaten any more than my egg. And whatever happened to my coffee?
So I make my way back to my room and grab the cup of iced coffee chilling in the fridge. Hmmm, seems I made decaf. What was I thinking?
Then a Skype with the boss. We have a situation to take care of. We have to make arrangements for one of our girls to go stay with family for a while. She has some behavioral issues and we aren't really equipped to deal with that. I mean, I'm pretty awesome and have a wealth of experiences, but there are just some things I am not trained to deal with.
We have a team pow-wow. The family exchange is going down around 4 pm.
Well, I'm surely not going to get any kind of down-time before then.
Back to the classroom. Back to the inventory.
By now some of the "red shirts", my 1st graders, are board. The movie has ended, (Beethoven) and the babies laid down for their naps, and they want to know if I will do yoga class with them. So I find a stopping point, we all grab mats, and off to the preschool classroom we go.
If you ever want to find out what you are made of, try teaching a yoga class to 10 6, 7, and 8 year olds, with 1 or 2 9 and 10 year olds in the mix. They fight over mats, they fight over mat space, they fight over who gets to put their mat by mine. Then they start stealing my mat, they climb on me, they climb under me. They think it's really funny to poke my "booty" when we do downward facing dog.
You want to find your zen? Try doing fish pose with a six year old sliding in under you, or hanging from your neck as you do Lord of the Dance!
I truly have transcended. I never lost my cool. I never fell over. I never gave up. I just kept reminding them that people who do yoga don't fight over mats, we share our space. We love one another. We encourage one another. And, le sigh, I applaud myself for how strong I am for being able to do awkward airplane with one child on my back, one on my leg, and one straddling my neck while one crawl under me to pepper my face with kisses.
So, after all that, we had to deal with our separating child. She handled the transition with more dignity and grace than I could have hoped for. After a year of her anti-social behaviors and aggressiveness and abhorrence of PDAs, she gave me a long hug, and a big kiss and told me she loved me. I will grieve over her absence, but some children just aren't cut out for this kind of situation.
After that I needed to let a little lose. The van is running and I have no intention of staying in if I don't have to. I invited the interns to head out for dinner and the pool at the good ole Visa Lodge (I'd prefer the hotel Montana, but there is no way in Haiti I'm trying to drive that van up the mountain ever again!). I invited one of our young men, Emmanuel Gedeon. He is one of our best students, and he earned all high marks on his exams.
It was a good evening. I ate waaaayyyy too much. Drank too little. And then we swam!
Manno was lucky enough to have met a woman in the pool that had just spent the day teaching her two Haitian escorts how to swim, and offered a few lessons to him. After about an hour in the pool, he was executing a novice breast stroke that was really impressive. Of course, he lost his rhythm and inhaled a bit of water, which scared him a bit. So then he sat guard on the stairs. The fun part about the Visa Lodge pool is that the stairs are evenly spaced at about 5 inches in rise, till the last step, which drops about 2 feet, leaving you in water about 5 1/2 feet deep, and that's the shallow end!
We swam for a while, til we were pretty knocked out, and headed home for showers.
That's about it for me. Church tomorrow and then we are thinking we might sneak back over to the pool.
Our Jacmel trip got sidelined. But we're headed to Calico Beach up the coast. I'm so excited! I can't wait to swim in the ocean. Been living on an island for an entire year and have only swam in the ocean 2 times so far!
TTFN!
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