One of our biggest challenges in our school is the demand for perfection. Whether it is part of the Haitian school system's way of teaching, or it is part of the Haitian culture, I'm not sure, but our students become apoplectic if they make the littlest of mistakes. And to make it worse, our teachers, even after 8 long months of trying to model positive reinforcements, still have a tendency to bemoan errors. If a preschool student writes a 5 instead of a 2 the teacher pounces and sternly tells the student they did it wrong. Then the students starts to cry and covers their head and throws themselves on the ground and that's the end of that lesson for this student!
Another challenge is teaching sportsmanship. Here's an example:
Saturday is our PE day. We were doing relay rages using these "wands" that hold plastic balls. A few students hold out hula hoops for the racers to climb thru, tag the PE teacher, and race back to their team. I go thru the whole thing and explain that their are no individual winners, that the whole team must finish, and that even if one person is slow, another person might be fast enough to make up for it. Ready, set, go! I have them lined up littlest to biggest. Our two littlest runners head out. They cheat, as our kids always do, and one of them heads across the team line. At that moment, our other littlest one realizes defeat and throws themselves to the ground. I can't even get her to cross the team line to tag her next team member. The game is over. I repeat the ready, set, go! so our second runners in line can take off and again, the one that didn't make it back first throws himself to the ground and acts to have a seizure, flopping around and screaming. I can't even console him in the slightest!
I am beside myself with ways to help them around these issues. In the short term, we have ceased all competitive games for the little ones and instead are doing activities were they all win! I feel like such a leftie!
God forbid we ever try to do a "student of the week" idea!
If you have any hints, tips, web links for ideas on how to work around this, please forward them to my email! Thanks!
My Year in Haiti
It's All About the Children
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Pillow Dresses~!
Our girls Love, Love, Love their dresses! This is such an awesome way for church groups to give in Haiti! Just wish we had an easy solution for dressing our boys.
Thanks to the ladies from Texas who toiled over all of these works of art! Out girls are so excited about their new dresses!
Same old, same old
Okay, so those of you that know me, know that I've always been a Martha. If there's work to be done, I am in the kitchen getting the meal ready, in the yard preparing for the party, in the office, getting the paperwork done. I CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT sit idly by while someone else toils without feeling compelled to share the burden. It's not that I'm some kind of martyr or anything. It's just that I really really really try to live by the ideal of the Golden Rule. If that was me preparing whatever for whomever, I'd love, honor, and appreciate a spare hand.
Maybe it's because I was the big sister when my dear mother was wasting away from the C-word and I felt compelled to pick up the slack and make sure my little sis was taken care of. Maybe it's because since her death, I was always at the mercy of family and friends for my means. Maybe it's because I was a very liberated and independent single mother and most people just assumed I had it together and rarely offered a hand. Whatever the reason, just know that I'd no sooner lounge around and be served than I'd want to amputate my leg for no reason.
But it's not just out of some sense of what I think is right. I genuinely enjoy service. I think it must be tattooed to my forehead because every where I go, I find myself invited into opportunities to serve. And the funny thing is, even if I joke about it, I would actually do it and feel nothing was out of sorts about it.
This leads me to my fortune this weekend. I have been attending services at PAP Fellowship for several weeks now. For some reason yet to be revealed, I could not sit still in my row in church. I knew service was about to start, but the chapel was still fairly empty and I thought perhaps I'd pop out and see if anyone was hanging out that I might have a minute or two to meet up with and chat. As I passed the pastor (haha, I totally didn't plan that, but it sounds pretty funny! Go ahead, read it again, passed the pastor,) he invited me to be a part of the distribution team to hand out the sacraments. Hehehe, little did he know, (or maybe He told him) how often that happened at my home church in The States! I must say, it gave me great pleasure to be able to get up and serve the congregation.
Afterwards, since we had gone to early service, I go the opportunity to go home early with our lovely hostess, Beth, and help her prepare the afternoon meal for her multitudes and masses. Funny how my idea of relaxing on my day off was to get up at the crack of dawn to get to church early, serve the communion, head over to a friends house and cook and prepare food for a large crowd, but I must say, it was a most excellent way to spend my day.
I was home by 4 in the evening, got to spend some quality time with my kids and still had time to do a little reading and some personal time to boot.
I must say, if this had been my experience the first 6 or 8 months, I might be more inclined to keep at this awhile longer. As it is, I think I am going to need a long break if I am going to be able to find my way back here. I know that God is not done with me yet. And I know that I am not done with these kids quite yet. So now I need to spend some serious time in quiet contemplation to discover what my next move is after this.
All for now...
Maybe it's because I was the big sister when my dear mother was wasting away from the C-word and I felt compelled to pick up the slack and make sure my little sis was taken care of. Maybe it's because since her death, I was always at the mercy of family and friends for my means. Maybe it's because I was a very liberated and independent single mother and most people just assumed I had it together and rarely offered a hand. Whatever the reason, just know that I'd no sooner lounge around and be served than I'd want to amputate my leg for no reason.
But it's not just out of some sense of what I think is right. I genuinely enjoy service. I think it must be tattooed to my forehead because every where I go, I find myself invited into opportunities to serve. And the funny thing is, even if I joke about it, I would actually do it and feel nothing was out of sorts about it.
This leads me to my fortune this weekend. I have been attending services at PAP Fellowship for several weeks now. For some reason yet to be revealed, I could not sit still in my row in church. I knew service was about to start, but the chapel was still fairly empty and I thought perhaps I'd pop out and see if anyone was hanging out that I might have a minute or two to meet up with and chat. As I passed the pastor (haha, I totally didn't plan that, but it sounds pretty funny! Go ahead, read it again, passed the pastor,) he invited me to be a part of the distribution team to hand out the sacraments. Hehehe, little did he know, (or maybe He told him) how often that happened at my home church in The States! I must say, it gave me great pleasure to be able to get up and serve the congregation.
Afterwards, since we had gone to early service, I go the opportunity to go home early with our lovely hostess, Beth, and help her prepare the afternoon meal for her multitudes and masses. Funny how my idea of relaxing on my day off was to get up at the crack of dawn to get to church early, serve the communion, head over to a friends house and cook and prepare food for a large crowd, but I must say, it was a most excellent way to spend my day.
I was home by 4 in the evening, got to spend some quality time with my kids and still had time to do a little reading and some personal time to boot.
I must say, if this had been my experience the first 6 or 8 months, I might be more inclined to keep at this awhile longer. As it is, I think I am going to need a long break if I am going to be able to find my way back here. I know that God is not done with me yet. And I know that I am not done with these kids quite yet. So now I need to spend some serious time in quiet contemplation to discover what my next move is after this.
All for now...
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Such a busy 2 weeks!
Wow! The past few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of activity. Emotions have been exaggerated, stress tolerances and patience tested, limits pushed, curiosities piqued, and energy levels tapped out to say the least.
First my intern went home for a 5 day weekend 2 Thursdays ago. No biggie, but I have turned quite a few areas of responsibility over to her and she has made several changes that I haven't managed to keep up with. Questions came up and I wasn't able to answer them. We managed, but just barely. It's amazing how quickly you can come to rely on someone.
While she was gone we had guests, Jason, who is part of the Detroit Muscle Crew, and his wife Courtney, who decided to spend their wedding anniversary here. They came on Sunday. Courtney said that Haiti was the only part of Jason's world that she hadn't yet shared and she wanted to see where his heart kept getting called to come. While they were here we went for a loooong walk to escort one of our girls to her family's residence, in a tent city. It was eye opening to walk that much through Delmas 33. When they say "walk a mile in another man's shoes..." they really aren't kidding. It was a good experience for us all. We got to see the conditions of her home and how her family makes due with such humble accommodations.
On Monday we also received a visit from Dr. Nellie Williams, one of the original benefactors of the mission grounds. She was the angel responsible for raising the funds that paid for the building of the guest house, which includes my "apartment". She was escorted by her grandson, Neal Porter, who was an Army mortar man. He fit in nicely with our other intern, Josh, who was an Army paratrooper. We swapped war stories and regaled the rest of the crowd with tales of our bravado and silliness that is military comradeship!
Our intern returned on Tuesday. That night we went out to eat in Petionville. In honor of our guests we decided to try Magdoos, Lebanese fare. I was so delighted! I've been wanting to check that place out since I moved here last year! The ambiance of the place is worth almost twice what the menu prices were!
On Wednesday we said good bye to Jason and Courtney and got back to business in the school. Our other guests stayed until Friday. Saturday midday we greeted Mitch and his wife, Janine, along with Patty and Jeff Alley. The Alleys were here to check out the place while they consider where God is calling them. Hopefully we will see them moving down here to help out. It will be nice to have a father figure and male role model here, as well as having a nurturing mommy to cuddle with the little ones.
An hour after they arrived we escorted the second truckload, Anachemy, Cara and Cara's son, Jesse. Anachemy is Haitian born, US raised and educated. She just completed her degree in education and will be staying with us for a year to teach in the school. We are so excited to have her joining our team. She will be here full time in July, to run a summer school program to catch up the 6 new kids and make them ready for our school in September.
Cara, as most people know by now, is the other half of my brain. She is the rock star who writes all of our lesson plans and directs our curriculum and provides me with a sounding board for all of my ideas for the school. Jesse, her eldest son, is an aspiring movie producer. He was doing some filming to accompany Mitch's speaking engagements to help fund-raise for the upcoming year's budget and hopefully the expansion of the school.
Oh, and then we had a third trip to the airport to pick up our good friend, Nedal Tamer, the plumber. He missed his earlier flight, but we won't fault him because that man worked from sun up til sun down and fixed and completed so many jobs and projects around the mission. What a blessing to have such talented and skilled tradesmen who volunteer to come work here and help us keep this place running in the best possible shape!
Our company all departed by Monday evening and we are slowly working our way back to normal. Well, as carry puts it, what passes for normal. This is, after all, Haiti!
Love and stuff,
Michele
First my intern went home for a 5 day weekend 2 Thursdays ago. No biggie, but I have turned quite a few areas of responsibility over to her and she has made several changes that I haven't managed to keep up with. Questions came up and I wasn't able to answer them. We managed, but just barely. It's amazing how quickly you can come to rely on someone.
While she was gone we had guests, Jason, who is part of the Detroit Muscle Crew, and his wife Courtney, who decided to spend their wedding anniversary here. They came on Sunday. Courtney said that Haiti was the only part of Jason's world that she hadn't yet shared and she wanted to see where his heart kept getting called to come. While they were here we went for a loooong walk to escort one of our girls to her family's residence, in a tent city. It was eye opening to walk that much through Delmas 33. When they say "walk a mile in another man's shoes..." they really aren't kidding. It was a good experience for us all. We got to see the conditions of her home and how her family makes due with such humble accommodations.
On Monday we also received a visit from Dr. Nellie Williams, one of the original benefactors of the mission grounds. She was the angel responsible for raising the funds that paid for the building of the guest house, which includes my "apartment". She was escorted by her grandson, Neal Porter, who was an Army mortar man. He fit in nicely with our other intern, Josh, who was an Army paratrooper. We swapped war stories and regaled the rest of the crowd with tales of our bravado and silliness that is military comradeship!
Our intern returned on Tuesday. That night we went out to eat in Petionville. In honor of our guests we decided to try Magdoos, Lebanese fare. I was so delighted! I've been wanting to check that place out since I moved here last year! The ambiance of the place is worth almost twice what the menu prices were!
On Wednesday we said good bye to Jason and Courtney and got back to business in the school. Our other guests stayed until Friday. Saturday midday we greeted Mitch and his wife, Janine, along with Patty and Jeff Alley. The Alleys were here to check out the place while they consider where God is calling them. Hopefully we will see them moving down here to help out. It will be nice to have a father figure and male role model here, as well as having a nurturing mommy to cuddle with the little ones.
An hour after they arrived we escorted the second truckload, Anachemy, Cara and Cara's son, Jesse. Anachemy is Haitian born, US raised and educated. She just completed her degree in education and will be staying with us for a year to teach in the school. We are so excited to have her joining our team. She will be here full time in July, to run a summer school program to catch up the 6 new kids and make them ready for our school in September.
Cara, as most people know by now, is the other half of my brain. She is the rock star who writes all of our lesson plans and directs our curriculum and provides me with a sounding board for all of my ideas for the school. Jesse, her eldest son, is an aspiring movie producer. He was doing some filming to accompany Mitch's speaking engagements to help fund-raise for the upcoming year's budget and hopefully the expansion of the school.
Oh, and then we had a third trip to the airport to pick up our good friend, Nedal Tamer, the plumber. He missed his earlier flight, but we won't fault him because that man worked from sun up til sun down and fixed and completed so many jobs and projects around the mission. What a blessing to have such talented and skilled tradesmen who volunteer to come work here and help us keep this place running in the best possible shape!
Our company all departed by Monday evening and we are slowly working our way back to normal. Well, as carry puts it, what passes for normal. This is, after all, Haiti!
Love and stuff,
Michele
Saturday, May 26, 2012
A day of sun, cool water, and good company
It seems to be rarer and rarer the occasions we get out of the gate to go and do anything other than mission business. Today, we had planned to tag along with some friends to a hotel pool and relax in the shade and watch some sporting event or another and just let go for the day. Our original plans got hijacked by some bad roads so we were rescued by Alain (thank you!) and then we paid a small fee for personal tap-tap to get home.
The only caveat is that we had to stay close to home so we went to Visa Lodge pool. Good food, but the poolside accommodations leave something to be desired. The pool was nonetheless exactly what the doctor ordered. We had a little too much sun, but that was a fair price to pay to get some delicious food and some time outside of the gates.
Thank you to Kyle and Josh for some good conversation and good company.
Now I'm just relishing the return of the internet for the few minutes we may have it and thanking God for our new friends. We will be going to the market and to church tomorrow so that will be another opportunity to socialize and mingle with like cultured folks.
For now, I'm going to finish cooking my rice and then curl up in the bed with a good book and get a good nights sleep while I still have electricity!
Praise God for the little things too!
The only caveat is that we had to stay close to home so we went to Visa Lodge pool. Good food, but the poolside accommodations leave something to be desired. The pool was nonetheless exactly what the doctor ordered. We had a little too much sun, but that was a fair price to pay to get some delicious food and some time outside of the gates.
Thank you to Kyle and Josh for some good conversation and good company.
Now I'm just relishing the return of the internet for the few minutes we may have it and thanking God for our new friends. We will be going to the market and to church tomorrow so that will be another opportunity to socialize and mingle with like cultured folks.
For now, I'm going to finish cooking my rice and then curl up in the bed with a good book and get a good nights sleep while I still have electricity!
Praise God for the little things too!
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Have A Nice Day!
Today started off a little groggy. My A/C went out at some point in the night, but I was too groggy to realize and turn it back on. Also, I went to bed around 9:15, so by 11:45 I was back awake and tossed and turned all night in variations of chills, and night sweats. It's funny how in my sleep-deprived grogginess, I always assume I have Malaria! Too bad I didn't wake up enough to make sense of my situation and get up and drink a bottle of water. I was probably just dehydrated.
So, the alarm went ignored for some time while I abused the snooze button and then eventually turned on my iTunes and slowly greeted the day. This makes 3 weeks in a row of lousy sleep. The stupid part is, I know exactly what I need to do to return to sleep-filled nights, and am just working up the courage to do it.
Meanwhile, the morning continued down-hill. Some animal made it's way into our yard last night and apparently left "bombs" around the yard. One of these "bombs" was promptly stepped in and dragged through my office. Oh, yay! Like I don't already live in a crap-scented world down here? What a delight that was to clean up. And because it rained most of the night, it was nice and squishy and EVERY WHERE!
Meanwhile, we continue to have problems with the power. The difficult part is that they are intermittently sending power through the utility company, so by the time you go through the bother of getting the generators up and running, city light has been restored. It's a real pain in the butt!
Woo sah!
I need to take a moment to remember why I came here
Woo sah!
I need to take a moment to remember to let these things go.
Woo sah!
I need to take a moment to discover the lessons that are being revealed to me in these instances.
Woo sah!
I need a drink! lol (just kidding! or not! lol)
So, the alarm went ignored for some time while I abused the snooze button and then eventually turned on my iTunes and slowly greeted the day. This makes 3 weeks in a row of lousy sleep. The stupid part is, I know exactly what I need to do to return to sleep-filled nights, and am just working up the courage to do it.
Meanwhile, the morning continued down-hill. Some animal made it's way into our yard last night and apparently left "bombs" around the yard. One of these "bombs" was promptly stepped in and dragged through my office. Oh, yay! Like I don't already live in a crap-scented world down here? What a delight that was to clean up. And because it rained most of the night, it was nice and squishy and EVERY WHERE!
Meanwhile, we continue to have problems with the power. The difficult part is that they are intermittently sending power through the utility company, so by the time you go through the bother of getting the generators up and running, city light has been restored. It's a real pain in the butt!
Woo sah!
I need to take a moment to remember why I came here
Woo sah!
I need to take a moment to remember to let these things go.
Woo sah!
I need to take a moment to discover the lessons that are being revealed to me in these instances.
Woo sah!
I need a drink! lol (just kidding! or not! lol)
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Home Away From Home
I just returned from a 2 week "break" in Michigan. I would say it's nice to be home again, but the lines are becoming blurred. On the one hand, when I go "home" to Michigan, I stay on a futon in the guest room. Now, I bought a new mattress for it before I came down last summer, but let's just say, it bites! Things are not in the places that I expect them to be. The house is a disaster since my dear son took over care and upkeep. I feel like a guest in my own home, which, since he pays all the bills, I basically am!
So I get back here and I am, for a moment at least, looking forward to getting back to a space that is all my own. Except that the plumbing issue I left behind was not fixed so I had no water, and I had quickly forgotten how hard that bed is to sleep in!
So well. The homecoming was awesome. The kids were very happy to see me, (or at least to see what I had brought them!) It was like Christmas all over again showing them the many things I brought for them, which is just a drop in the bucket since I could only carry 2 of the 6 bags I have full of things for them!
And oy! I had forgotten how hot it is here, and how bad the mosquitoes are! That took a little adjusting. Hopefully my sleeping and eating patterns will adjust as quickly, I am still trying to catch up from how busy I was during my "break". I say "break" because I spent so much time visiting with all of my generous supporters and collecting donations for the Mission that I only had about 2 1/2 days of actual rest and recuperation!
I think I need a vacation from my vacation!
All for now. Pics later!
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