The moment we walked up to the airport our "white people" were walking out. It took us quite a while to get out of the airport. The loaded all the bags in the back of the box truck, and some people too. Most of the other people loaded into Pierre(our main driver)'s van. Then Becca and I went with "The Steve's" to find out about renting their car. It took a very long time and we had to walk all over the place only to find that we had to walk back to where we started. Thats how things go though. We all then met up and drove together to Leogane. It took foreverrrrr.
We chatted up the new white people a lot. It's surprising how much we love being able to speak to people who fully understand us and who we fully understand. I rode some of the way in the back of the box truck, and then decided the nice SUV with A/C was a much better option. So I got to ride with the "Steve's" and learn about who they are. Little Steve i.e. the Highschool Director decided that he and his wife, his friend and his wife, and my husband and I should go eat Thai food at Lanna Thai in Livermore when we get back! Yay!
When we got to Leogane we got everyone settled. We ate linner(lunch/dinner) at the boys orphanage. We then headed back to the girls side to explain the rules we had come up with for the kids. We were extremely tired so we didnt really have it together. When we talked to everyone they just stared at us blankly. It was pretty aweful. The teens then went into a time of worship that we joined in on. When Becca went over to ask the older girls to join in on singing they were not having it. They were clearly not feeling the new people. We got Roberline & Ketaine to come over with us. Once Becca, the two girls, and I started singing the other girls came and joined in. The dog also wanted to sing and was barking non stop. Welcome to Haiti.
Here comes the fun part. Becca and I had to sleep in the girls orphanage because there was not enough room anywhere else for us. We had planned to sleep on the floor on mattresses next to Yveline....but then we saw a spider. The kids tried to kill it but missed. They decided to tell us it was dead but we knew better. We panicked for a couple minutes trying to figure out where we could sleep. If the new americans hadnt passed out we would have tried to get the keys from the rental car to sleep in it. We convinced ourselves that spiders dont climb metal bed posts. So we moved beds away from the wall(cuz spiders crawl there) and went to sleep. Unfortunately the beds are pretty small so our feet hung off the edge. We also slept in the only room where the fan wasnt working. It was HOT. After an hour or so I couldnt handle it anymore so I went to sleep on a mattress on the floor right under a fan. We learned very quickly that someone is always awake in that place. Literally at every hour if you woke up someone would be talking or singing or going to the bathroom. Also, most of the girls woke up around 4am! Becca and I were soooooo sleepy. We just layed around till like 7am trying to go back to sleep with only a few minutes of success.
To summarize our day with the highschoolers- It was way intense and we werent even the people in charge!
-Pom de te/Amy
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