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...