Day 2

If I could only be everywhere at once, I could give a better picture of our team's activities today. 

We began the day with cereal and warm milk.  Nate started the ritual of sharing what we are thankful for at every meal.  Christian, age 12, has been great at holding us all accountable.  Tonight at dinner, I loved his "thanks".  He said, "I am thankful to be one of the 2 out of 8 people in the world who is wealthy enough to have all the food I need.". I love that he is paying attention to all that is being said/seen around him!

I spent most of my day at the school.  My first assignment was to observe a Spanish class.  The room had benches for 53 students and two chalk boards leaning against the front wall.  The room was painted a deep orange and had two lights, small sconces, which were at the front of the room.  The exterior walls have rows of windows made out of slats which can be opened to let a breeze or light in.

The first thing that I noticed about this 8th grade class was the noise.  The second was the variety of interest levels.  The students in the front half of the room were engaged.  I loved being in a classroom where I could understand all of the dialog! The teacher was caring and knew his subject matter. Tomorrow I am scheduled to meet with both Spanish teachers to share classroom strategies.  

Two noteworthy items from this time were that (1) a girl at the back of the room began to cry during class and the teacher sent me out to find a principal.  I immediately went from a Spanish speaking world to a Creole one.  It all worked out and the principal came to the aid of the crying girl. (2) The students in the back of the room were heavily engaged in note passing.  After I was in the room a while the notes started being passed to me!  I wanted to take a picture of some of the notes for memory's sake but felt funny about it.

At lunch time, the crew came to get me. Hope and Jenna went to serve lunch to  700 students.  Three out of 5 days worth of lunches are paid for by our church members.  In addition, the school is the one our church sent down in a container after the earthquake.  It was intended to be our church daycare.  Nate spent 4 weeks in Haiti the year it was sent to help oversee the project.

In the afternoon, Jeff and I did two seminar/panel discussions for the educators.  Jeff is a principal of a public school in York.  Together we spoke to 15? Kindergarten teachers through our interpreter, Seraphim.  I was thrilled to see that Margaret, was one of them.  Margaret was one of the first people I ever met in Haiti, 10 years ago.  She is the reason I learned to speak basic creole... I couldn't accept that I would never be able to communicate with her.

Later Jeff spoke with the principals and I had the opportunity to be a part of it.  It was great to share our experiences with our haitian counterparts and to discover that our struggles are so similar.  I hope that we were also able to help some.

The rest of the team was incredibly busy while Jeff and I were at the school.  Part of the team was painting Benite's bathroom, others were organizing a storage room, while still others were installing a TV in the orphanage.  I think that if you asked any of the teens what their favorite part of the day was, they would say playing with the children.  Moments like these are peppered throughout the work day.  The teens played soccer, volleyball, took part in  recess and visited the orphans.

Good day.  Everyone is hot and tired.