Introducing....

Since I'll be here for a year, writing about my life, it's only fitting you get to know the main people of my life right now. So meet Kimberly. On September 24th, she'll be 6. She has three brothers who also live at My Heart's Home: Junior, Kenly, and Elwood. When you ask these children when their birthday is, they can't answer you. They don't know it. So one of the things I get to change is to start celebrating birthdays! As I was looking at their birth certificates for their birthdays, I noticed that Kimberly and Kenly have the same birthday...they are twins. I had no idea. I couldn't even remember which three were her brothers until I looked at the birth certificates. One would think that coming into this home about a year ago, as four siblings, they would stick to each other, but there is no clear separation between these siblings and the rest of the children. The same goes for another brother/sister pair. I think it speaks volumes for how happy and comfortable the children are here at the home, that they are just as much family with the sibling who is not blood-related as with the one who is.

Kimberly is a sassypants, which is probably why I love her so much. But as much as she is, just like most of the other children, she's always willing to step in and help when needed. She also makes an excellent jope rumping partner. (I realize that I totally just messed up those words but I think it's funny so I'm going to leave it. Jump roping. Jump roping partner) I also just realized that at this point, I don't have too much to say. I know they aren't total orphans. They have living family, but who couldn't take care of them. I don't know many of their stories. But I know Kimberly has a world of promise within her, and she would probably either be living in a tent or fending for herself on the streets if she hadn't come here.

Stir Crazy in Haiti

This is where I live. There are walkways on each side of the house that go to a similar area in the back where the clothes are hung to dry. A high cement wall encloses the area.

In case you don't know me, I'm an extremely independent person. I've done a lot of things, and I've done a lot of things alone, and I've done a lot of things alone in a foreign country. No big deal. So honestly, I think the hardest thing about being in Haiti right now is that I can't do anything by myself. I've already discussed that. But it makes you a little stir crazy when you can't leave your front "yard." I can't explain how bizarre it feels to not be able to leave your home because it's not safe. To have barbed wire surrounding your house for security reasons. Did I mention that we have a security guard every night?

As I was taking these photos tonight, I heard people outside of our gate. And then I saw someone standing out there in the slit between the gate and the wall. They just stood there, staring at me. So I said Bonswa, and they said bonswa, and that was it. I'm dying to get out and get to know the neighbors. I feel kind of useless right now when I can't get out to meet people and do what I can to help. Although, that's not completely true. I'm not completely useless. The kids now ask for water instead of demanding it. At least I taught them that :-)

I prefer lizards to bats.

Now that I've written something meaningful, I can be random and honest.

I've been hesitating writing because I don't want anything I say come across as not liking it here. Because that's just not true.

Cold showers. You probably shiver at the thought. Who likes cold showers? I sure do, when it's way hot and sticky. There's no need for hot water. I take cold showers and I like it. Yesterday I took an excessively long 10 minute shower. I was pampering myself. By that, I mean that I used actual facewash in the shower and actual body wash instead of baby wipes during the day. I may pamper myself again tonight. And by that, I mean shave my legs. In Haiti, you have a choice. You can go shaven or unshaven. Although, I'm a white girl, so you can actually tell one way or the other. Maybe the choice is only for dark Haitians. Maybe I shouldn't be as natural of a woman as I had thought maybe I could be...

Lizards run across the walls. Not creepy, but cool. I admit that the first week I was here, while I was sleeping in bed, I tried hard not to touch the wall because I didn't want a lizard running into me while I slept. They are little things that scurry across the wall and hide behind the paintings. I quite like them. Makes me feel like I have pets, in a way. And they eat bugs. I would definitely prefer lizards to bats.

I washed my clothes in the sink by hand two days ago. This was actually a choice. There's a washer, but why waste all that water and be the lazy American they probably already think I am when I can become a domesticated woman and wash my own? I'm not gonna lie though... I was a little nervous when I got dressed this morning. Me hand-washing my own clothes probably means (most likely means) putting on half-clean clothes, which made me a little uneasy about changing my underwear. TMI, probably. Just being honest here. I may have to become the lazy American who uses a washer.

I'm the only white girl, and I like it. It's interesting being the one who looks different, and is always stared at. In case you haven't heard this from me, I secretly like attention, so being stared at doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers me about my skin color is that 1) the bug bites and bruises show up *ghastly* and 2) I'm terrified that I'm going to terrify the sleeping Youseline. She usually is sleeping while the others are eating dinner, so I go to check on her. I never stay too long because I'm afraid that she's going to wake up and think she's seen a ghost (my very white face). Thankfully, this hasn't happened yet.

I feel like a child. Not necessarily a bad thing, in general. However, it does start to make you question yourself when certain things happen. Like when at 28, my new black daddy here gave me a dating and sex talk. Funny, yes, but embarrassing too. Edy (my black daddy) also will not let me cross the street without holding my hand. Or leave the gate to our house without being there to see who it is. It's not just Edy either. This afternoon, I had just woken up from a nap and was outside playing with the kids. Renez bent down and removed a sleepy from my eye. I tried telling her, "Je ne suis pas un enfant!" "I am not a child!" but she didn't stop. I'm pretty sure I'm older than her too... Embarrassing, and disgusting.

I live in an orphanage. I think a lot of people warned me not to come because of their misconception of an orphanage. You see, My Heart's Home is probably the best orphanage in Haiti, if not the world. To give you a better idea of what it's like, there are 17 children who live here, and only one will be adopted because of her extreme medical needs (she has a heart condition and needs multiple surgeries...). You are probably thinking, "why wouldn't they do adoptions?" I thought that too. My response now would be, "why do they have to be adopted by an American (or by any other "richer" nation) to have a good life?" I'm really proud to stand behind the vision of this orphanage. I think about half of them are total orphans with no living parents, while the others have parents who could no longer take care of them so rights were signed over. They live in a beautiful house (no joke...this house is nicer than any house I ever lived in growing up), are fed well (very well - they eat more than me!) and are provided school (with an *excellent* English teacher). They are growing up as a family, and they really love and like each other like a family. It's amazing to see children between the ages of 1 and 9 who didn't know each other a year ago, and who all come from really broken circumstances, so full of love, laughter, and fun, playing with each other. They will grow up a family, and when they get older, we will help them either get into a trade school or go to college. They could have remained orphans, been ones who lived in a tent city, working for little money, bearing children who grow up in the same matter; they could have grown up children with no future, having to find a place to sleep for the night and begging by day. But they aren't. They are exceptional children who now have exceptional futures. I'm so proud to be a part of that.

Update from Jamie from Haiti...

*I wrote this post for the blog for Heart Cry International, the organization I'm working for here, and accidentally posted it on this blog. I suppose it's good enough for you to read here too :-) On the left is Pastor Carla Ives, founder of My Heart's Home and an exceptional woman.

Day 4 fully on my own. I'm alive. The babies are alive. The house is still here. And we are all doing exceedingly well.

I admit that when the babies were dropped off two hours before Pastor Carla left, I did panic a bit. I wasn't yet a mother. Now I'm mami to 17, and I wouldn't have it any other way. My transition here otherwise has been extremely smooth and feels natural. I'm as confident as ever that this is where I'm supposed to be, especially as I'm greeted by 15 sloppy kisses every morning and 15 sloppy kisses every night.

I attempted to wash my clothes by hand yesterday, which means I'll probably be wearing still-dirty clothes. I take cold showers. I eat the same lunch every day. I can't use the faucet to brush my teeth. I can't even leave my house by myself. But I love my life. Every little thing that is different to what I'm used to, that I "don't have" here, I find reason to be grateful for what is. I have clothes to wash, and more than one outfit. I have water to shower with, and I have privacy to do so. I have food to eat, and plenty of it. I have a toothbrush and paste to brush my teeth, and I have TEETH to brush too! I'm very grateful for that :-)

Our new twin girls are going to do very well here. They are Youselie and Youseline. Youseline is the one whom is quite malnourished. She was taken to the hospital a couple days ago and is now on medication, though I'm not sure what exactly. The mammas are doing physical therapy with her here to strengthen her arms, legs, and neck. This evening while outside playing with the kids I saw Renez, one of the mommas, holding one. I thought it was Youselie because the baby was holding her head up on her own. But it was Youseline! It was only for maybe 5-10 seconds, but it was more than I had seen since she's arrived. The mommas are taking excellent care of our little girls, and I think they fit perfectly here! It's been a blessing to spend time with Youselie and Youseline throughout the day, praying for them.

Presenting: Youselie

And Youseline.
Keep praying for our precious girls!!!

~Jamie

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

I’m not so sure how this blog is going to go. Usually people like reading my random funny stories, and while I’ll still have them here, there are hard things too. Like today.

Most of my training for this is hands on training. But I definitely wasn’t trained or prepared for today. This morning the team who was here from Maryland left, as well as a couple people from Michigan. There were tears everywhere. I thought I would have no problem holding it together because I’m not the one leaving, but seeing the children sobbing and clinging onto people in genuine sadness just broke my hard. I couldn’t help myself. I think I cried harder than them. As the people left, the three others from Michigan and I took them upstairs to watch a movie, let them grieve, and love on them. For a while I had Joclyn on my lap. He held on to me, sobbing. I was grateful to have the other three team members with me as well as the two house moms to help comfort the children. But I have no idea what I’m going to do when they leave, and it’s just me. So calling all skype dates on Monday after the rest of the Michigan team leaves, please!

This year is definitely going to be an adventure, but this isn’t just another adventure. This is the first time that I’ve done something that is totally not for me. Yes, I’ll completely have an amazing time and my life will never be the same, but I’m not doing this for me.

One of the things I’ve been doing the last few days is helping (note: *helping, as in: trying the best I can) to translate as a dentist who volunteered to come worked on staff and children at the home as well as those coming in from the tent community. The thing is, we don’t learn dental terms in French class, and I was afraid to go to the dentist in France, so I really didn’t come with any knowledge of that. But between cavity, extraction, and numb, I’m learning quickly! A 9-year-old girl came in who needed 4 baby teeth extracted, and we found that she also had a fever. The poor girl… she was terrified with the shots and the pulling and even the cleaning. She was so brave though…she kept bracing for the next pain to come. She had probably never been to the dentist and had no idea what was going on or what was going next. She did much better than I would have done. It’s one of the many lives we made a little better today.

One of the great things I keep telling people is that after all these years of studying so hard to learn French, it is so good to finally feel like I’m using my ability for something good. My language capabilities are not perfect, but it absolutely helps, and I’m picking up Creole quicker than I had expected. I love that I helped one of the teenage girls from Maryland here, Morgan, learn how to wash clothes with Michele, our laundress. I love being able to teach other teach members how to communicate with the children. And I love trying my hardest to try to make friends with the staff and encourage them. They are incredibly hard workers… I could not do what they are doing.

Today we took in another little boy. David. He's 2. His mother dropped him off and is signing papers to hand him over to us completely. He started out the day clingy and crying, as any child would be when a mother just gives him away. But he was also looking around at everything. He hadn't lived in a house. His mother had begged. This is a whole new life for David. A whole new opportunity. If we hadn't have been here, David would have been dropped off on another doorstep, which could mean a lot of different things, most of them really horrible. So *this* is why I'm here...

Don't judge Haiti by my legs...

I'm posting this a couple days after I wrote this, and am *extremely* excited to have electricity and internet to do so!

My fourth day in Haiti. I’m starting to feel bad that I haven’t let anyone know that I made it safely because we haven’t had internet. In fact, today is the first day we’ve consistently had electricity.

You might be confused. “Wait! Wasn’t I just reading about Arizona?” From Tucson to the Tropics, I like to do things differently. I almost feel bad that I haven’t written anymore about the walk. However, my thoughts on the walk aren’t finished. In fact, I found myself thinking about my experience in Arizona a lot yesterday, and think that the walk has totally prepared me for my experience in Haiti.

For one: the heat. Haiti is hot. And when there is no electricity, being hot is a problem. 18 of us spent last night absolutely miserable in the heat with no fans, a loud street party blaring along with the cacophony of dogs and roosters. And as I finished that sentence, the power goes out again. It was so hot last night that one of the girls here with me got really sick, all because of the heat. She felt much better after I wet and wrapped ice in a handkerchief and put it on her neck. Thank you desert heat for teaching me that.

Two: You have to learn to live simply. Half of my cleaning routine involves a baby wipe shower (which isn’t a shower at all, of course), which I so expertly learned how to do in the desert (thank you Christi Brookes: your teaching never ends….). The other half involves possibly a cold shower (which is, for the first time, absolutely welcomed). Possibly because if there is no electricity, there is no running water. This means living simply, by taking bucket baths. All my clothes will be hand washed (by me). Which won’t be a lot actually, because of the luggage fiasco that happened at the airport. Learning how to live simply also means learning how to live with little.

Three: I learned in the desert how to cope with an ugly body. By ugly, I mostly mean dirty. One cannot feel pretty when covered in sweat 24 hours of the day. But I also mean ugly as in just ugly. My legs look like those of a 10-year-old boy, though since I’m reading a book about the Holocaust right now, my first thought was that they looked like they had come out of a concentration camp. The mosquitoes here are quite stealthy (much like me…which may be part of the reason I already feel at home). The first two days I ignored bug spray because I didn’t really see and I didn’t feel them at all. The result was a myriad of big pink spots all over my legs and arms. Coupled with some of the most horrendous bruises I’ve ever had, my legs are not looking pretty. Definitely not ones that would attract the Irish man I had planned on meeting while here. That plan will have to be put on the backburner. At least until I can figure out how to make my legs look normal again.

In the desert, though, I met some of the most wonderful and giving people I’ve ever met in my life. And even though it’s hot, and there’s no electricity, and I sometimes feel jailed in as not only are the doors to the house padlocked with a key I do not have, but the house is surrounded by high walls topped with barbed wire, with a gate that is also locked, and a security man who doesn’t want me outside, I’m beginning to see that this is a place I can call home. Not only will I call it home, but I will like calling it home. If you saw the faces I get to see, you would feel the same way. I saw photos of them before I came and immediately fell in love. Now that I am getting to know them, I’m absolutely in trouble. I think it may make my mom happy that I’ve gone from 0 kids to 15 (who call me mami, which sounds like 15 kids calling me mommy). Right now, there are 17 other Americans with me. In a week and a half, they will all be gone, and it will be me alone in a strange land. And there will be hard days. Really hard days. But these kids will make it all worth it, and make it okay. It’s hard to be lonely and sad when you have some of the most beautiful faces smiling at you and laughing with you.

Tonight there was a huge storm. Well. Not huge for Haiti. Rain and lightning and thunder. And I loved it. I showered outside with the rain falling from a pipe. I wore my dirtiest clothes and scrubbed them with soap to wash them. I knew then that this would fit me well.